GMA SHRM HR Link

By Laura Jaggi and Stephanie Kimball, GMA SHRM Co-Presidents

Happy December fellow chapter members!

As many of you may have read in our November HR Link newsletter, Tracey Meek, our chapter president since June of this year, has relocated with her family back to her native state of New York. Tracey will truly be missed by the board and the membership for her leadership and dedication given to our chapter during her tenure.

As your newly appointed co-presidents for the GMA SHRM chapter, we would like to take a moment to introduce ourselves.

Laura Jaggi - I have been a national SHRM and GMA SHRM member since 1992 and have been a volunteer leader on our board for four and a half years. Outside of GMA SHRM (my real job that is), I am the Vice President of HR for The North Central Group based in Middleton where I recently celebrated my 10th anniversary. In my free time, I enjoy spending time with my family, reading, traveling, and as the weather permits, gardening. I am very excited and pleased to be able to serve our membership and lead our chapter into 2005!

Stephanie Kimball - You may recognize my name as I am a current member of the board serving in the Secretary/Treasurer role. I have been on the board since January 2003 and will continue during my co-presidency time to serve as your Secretary/Treasurer. A little bit out me...I currently work for Covance Laboratories as an HR Generalist and support two business units made up of about 450 employees and a small sales office in Tokyo, Japan. I have been with Covance for about four and a half years and love the variety of work I am able to do. In my spare time, I enjoy traveling and will be going to Las Vegas in December and on a cruise to the Caribbean in February. I have learned a lot from the previous GMA SHRM leaders in the last year and a half and can only hope to live up to the great standard they have set!

With the change in the chapter presidency, the board of directors took this opportunity to make some changes that would better align roles and responsibilities and provide a solid foundation for leadership for our chapter's future. Please take a moment to review the updated board of directors' structure included in this HR Link newsletter.

With the new board structure, we are pleased to announce the creation of a new board position - the Director of Workforce Readiness. This board position will be the liaison for our community partnership initiative and our diversity connection within and outside of our chapter.

As Laura moves into the co-president role, we also have the Director of Communications & Marketing board position open. This position will assist with our internal and external communication efforts and with our marketing programs within our membership.

GMA SHRM is 850 members strong! And it is through the efforts of our volunteer board, committee chairs, and committee volunteers that we are able to continuously achieve our chapter's Vision - that of serving the needs of the human resources professional and to advance the human resources profession in the greater Madison area. We would like for you to consider serving as a volunteer leader in one of our two open board positions. And we would invite you to contact Belinda Weber (our president-elect), Stephanie or Laura to further discuss these opportunities.

Speaking of volunteer leaders, we would like to give special recognition to two individuals who have truly made a commitment and a difference in our chapter's success. First off, we'd like to recognize Jeff Hackle, Vice President of HR at Veridian Homes. Jeff served as our chapter president form January 2002 to June 2003, and past president from July 2003 to June 2004.

We'd also like to recognize Tim Seifriz, Senior Manager, Strategy Execution at CUNA Mutual Group. Tim served as our chapter president from July 2003 to July 2004, and currently serves on the board as our past president.

At the November chapter meeting, both Jeff and Tim were presented with commemorative plaques given in gratitude for their leadership as presidents of the GMA SHRM chapter.

On a final note, Stephanie and Laura would like to personally invite all of our members to attend our upcoming chapter meeting on December 12th. We are very excited to bring a national speaker, James T. Harris, to Madison. James inspires, motivates and compels each individual to live to their highest and best use. As well as being a seasoned traveler, he is an educator, futurist, advisor, and speaker. James will be delivering a morning breakfast keynote titled "Your Mission, If You Choose to Accept it…" followed by a workshop titled "Matters of the Heart".

Wishing each and every one of you the best during this holiday season!

Warmest Regards,

Laura Jaggi and Stephanie Kimball