FROM THE DESK OF LINDA FARIS
The academic organization that I now lead is comprised of twenty-three human resources managers across the campus in academic units who are in the business of providing HR strategic direction and generalist service and support for their local units in the areas of: employee relations, organizational development and effectiveness, change management, compensation and classification, staffing (recruiting/retention), training and development, policy administration and interpretation and contract administration. Our human resources managers advocate for programs and services that enable Stanford to attract, develop and retain outstanding employee talent in the academic units. Besides providing service and support to regular and contingent staff, our diverse population also includes faculty, principal investigators, research associates, lecturers, and in some instances, undergraduate and graduate students as well as post docs. Emery Teranishi (Sr. Employee Relations Rep.), Patti Bowling (HR Assistant) and I are responsible for supporting these human resources managers on issues that will provide a consistent, professional and timely level of service to University administrators, managers and supervisors. We are also a resource to University employees on work-related matters. The final member of our group is Pamela Nagashima who serves as the Administrative Guide Editor and is responsible for managing University-wide policy updates on a quarterly basis. As you may have heard, Pamela recently relocated to Portland, OR and has agreed to perform her role on a telecommute basis. She is indeed working from anywhere! The academic units represented in our organization include the following areas:
I’d like to conclude by saying that I really appreciate the warm reception I have received in taking on this new role. The friendly support extended to me by my colleagues in the Employee & Management Services group and in Central HR has been one of the many highlights I’ve experienced over the last several months. I look forward to working with all of you and in joining with David Jones, co-director, in developing an exciting new vision for Employee & Management Services.
TIPS & TRICKSChecklist for Event Planning
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Barbara Grahn |
Barbara Grahn has a couple of recurring themes in her life. One is working at Stanford, the other is being a ski instructor. Since the two are pretty mutually exclusive, right now, Barbara is concentrating on Stanford.
Barbara’s history is incredibly confusing, either by chance or design, but here it goes...Barbara was born and raised in the Bay Area, and at the tender age of 19 followed her muse to the slopes of Tahoe, as have so many before and since. She found she really enjoyed teaching skiing and being a ski bum. Barbara also met her future husband on the slopes, although they didn’t get married for seven years. (I told you this was confusing). After she tired of trying to live on snow alone, Barbara went to Oregon at the age of 22 and pursued a degree in occupational therapy. Unable to find a job in her chosen profession, she soon took to the slopes again, teaching skiing to special needs clients.
Somehow, Barbara met up with her future husband again and this time married the guy. Barbara started working at Stanford in 1985 as a Community Associate in Escondido Village while her husband was getting his Ph.D in biological sciences. From that job she moved on to the Central HR group formerly known as Training and Organizational Development. She worked there from 1989 to 1999, when she left to pursue other interests.
Barbara has a very strong creative side – while she was away from Stanford she wrote two career planning books, A Fork in the Road and Just Around the Corner, for young adults and baby boomers, respectively. She is also an artist and exhibits her hand painted photographs at local galleries. Oh, I forgot, somewhere along the line, Barbara got degrees in Ornamental Horticulture (in Oregon) and Human Resources Services and a Master’s in Public Administration (College of Notre Dame). (I think she might have done that at night while skiing with her left side and writing a book with her right side).
Barbara and her husband have a 22-year-old son who gravitated to Oregon (is it a gene thing?) to attend college. He has a degree in videography and multi-media, leading to speculation that Barbara’s creativity has been passed to the next generation.
While she was away from Stanford, Barbara worked as an HR Manager for a small medical device company, Avacore Technologies, Inc, where she played a variety of roles. The company is connected to Stanford through the Office of Technology Licensing, since Stanford is a customer. Barbara left that company when it relocated to Michigan.
Barbara didn’t lose her contact with Stanford, even while she was “gone.” She did contract work for Stanford as a campus readiness specialist for the initial PeopleSoft implementation and also did a stint in the office of the Vice Provost for Student Affairs while Teofila was on maternity leave.
More traveling, getting her children’s’ book published and living in Italy for six months are all on Barbara’s agenda in the long term. For right now, though she is happy to be at Stanford, a place she loves and continues to return to again and again.
Sharys Wheeler
HRM, School of Education
Please join us for the September Birthday Celebration. All HR staff is invited to join in the celebration for cake and a chance to network with colleagues.
655 Serra, Magnolia Conference Room
September 20
3:30 – 4:30
Welcome to …
Is your name missing? Let us know when you joined the HR staff, your title and department.
To find current Human Resources positions available throughout the organization, click here.
BENEFITS BEAT 
