What do all those people in the central office do?

I often get questions about what all those people in the central do and why do we need so many of them. You might be surprised to learn that we have among the lowest administrative overhead of any unit in the university. Our overhead is 3.9% of our budget. Not many organizations can make that claim. So what do we do?

Communications - We have a communications and marketing team headed by Susan Robertson. Susan was promoted into Queena Jones' position. Susan's old position will remain vacant until we complete a needs assessment. Judy Wilhite also works on Susan's team. Together they manage our print and electronic "publications" including the editing, lay-out and design. As you can imagine, we have several hundred of these each year. In addition, this team manages media relations including news releases and inquiries, special event preparation such as booths at the Governor's Economic Development Conference, and a variety of other marketing and communications efforts on behalf of all agencies and the Institute. Susan also represents IPS when the UT Statewide Information Officers meet to discuss UT issues.

Finance and Administration - Ron Loewen heads this team along with Thad Grace, Pat Frost and part of Sherri Brown's time. This team is responsible for all budgets, contracts, real property, audits, accounting, inventories and much more. They coordinate all these activities on behalf of the agencies working as the interface with system offices. In addition, this team manages the daily operations of the central office and the Naifeh Center. Ron serves as our Chief Business Officer and meets with UT's Chief Financial Officer when his team meets.

Human Resources - Judie Martin and part of Jane Davis make up this team. They handle all recruitments, HR transactions, training, and all the others things that relate to employee issues. Judie is also our safety officer. As Human Resources Officer, Judie represents IPS when the system team of HRO's meet. Judie also coordinates general administrative work of the central office with Sherri Brown and Marie Vesser and helps coordinate activities in the Jackson office.

Development - Paul Bowman and part of Jill Marling support our development operations. This involves our family campaign, annual giving, gifts in kind and all other private fund raising efforts of the agencies.

IT - Scott Gordy and part of Andi Damewood support our IT efforts under Chuck Shoopman's guidance. Scott and Andi provide IT support to the central office and LEIC. In addition, Scott helps coordinate IT activities that affect all agencies such as our recent conversion to Active Directory. Chuck serves as our Chief Information Officer when the statewide IT meets with the CIO.

What about those other administrators? More to come on them.