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UC Blog
Contracts & Grants Director Nolan to retire
Dear Colleagues:
It is with mixed emotions that I inform you of the upcoming retirement of Kathleen (Kathy) Nolan, director of ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OGC), effective June 27, 2024. There's no doubt that Kathy's retirement is well deserved, after 24 years of service to the University of California, the last 11 years serving UC Agriculture and Natural Resources.
I have had the privilege of working with Kathy throughout her years with ANR, and found her to be a pillar of strength, competence, dedication, and of service for the division. Kathy is recognized for her commitment to providing exceptional leadership to her OGC team. Under Kathy's leadership, the OCG team has reached a high-level of professionalism and expertise in Research Administration in ANR and has played a critical role in promoting and enabling the growth of ANR's research enterprise.
When Kathy joined ANR, the volume of contract and grants was less than $30M annually. That portfolio has today grown to over $100M. Kathy led the team that helped ANR achieve this level, while providing our academics with outstanding and exemplary customer service, as consistently evidenced in our customer service surveys.
Please join me in congratulating Kathy on her upcoming retirement. She will be greatly missed as a friend and a colleague. I will update you with our progress of filling this important vacancy in the near future. Kimberly Lamar, associate director, has agreed to serve as interim director until the position is filled.
Best regards,
Tu M. Tran
Associate Vice President, Business Operations
Chris Jakober named Risk and Safety Director
Chris Jakober has joined UC ANR as Director of Risk & Safety Services. In this role, Chris will lead ANR's programs and teams for Environmental Health & Safety and Risk Management, reporting to Director of Facilities Planning and Management Brian Oatman.
Chris completed his bachelor's degree in chemistry at Oklahoma State University, where he studied land application of wastewater treatment residuals for nitrogen and phosphorus runoff mitigation and an in-vitro procedure to determine bioavailability of heavy metals from ingestion of contaminated soils. In 2001, further educational pursuits brought him to California, where he completed his doctoral work at UC Davis in agricultural and environmental chemistry, measuring carbonyls in motor vehicle exhaust.
His professional experiences include air-quality consulting on novel dust mitigation at Owens Lake for Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, air quality research for the California Air Resources Board (e.g. regulating ozone emissions from indoor air cleaners, area source greenhouse-gas emissions verification, and health exposure risk assessment for environmental justice communities), and environmental health and safety in support of research at UC Davis.
Chris is based at the UC ANR building in Davis and can be reached at cjakober@ucanr.edu and (530) 756-1046.
Please join me in welcoming him.
Brian Oatman
Director, Facilities Planning & Management
Required time and attendance reporting reminder
Dear Colleagues:
Thank you for your hard work this year. Each University of California (UC) employee is critical to our success and helps us achieve our shared goals of education, research, patient care, and student support. We know that your everyday duties can be demanding, making it easy to forget certain routine, but required, tasks like submitting your timesheet or absences. While these small tasks are sometimes the most difficult to remember, they are critical to our shared success and duty as a public employer.
With that in mind, this is a reminder to all university employees who submit timesheets in local time and attendance systems to submit your time worked, absences, and/or acknowledge you have no absences to report by the deadline established at your campus/location. Accurate and complete time and leave reporting ensures that you are paid accurately, that the university meets its obligations to pay for work performed and helps ensure the responsible use of public funds. For employees who are paid a salary, it is important to remember that you have a responsibility to report whether you have any absences or do not have any absences. Failure to accurately record time and leave may result in an overpayment of public funds requiring repayment and other corrective action.
If you have questions about time and leave reporting, please reach out to your local academic personnel or human resources office. We encourage all UC employees to fully explore their benefits, available at Employee benefits | UCnet (universityofcalifornia.edu). We want all employees to understand their benefits so that they can fully utilize them to support themselves and their families.
We appreciate your valuable contributions to the University, taking time out of your busy day to diligently review this letter, and your observance of the university's policies regarding accurate and timely timesheet submissions.
Sincerely,
UC Systemwide Human Resources
UC ANR ServiceNow implementation training information
As we continue to prepare for the upcoming launch of our new ServiceNow platform at UC ANR for HR and IT go-live evening of June 21, we want to provide UC ANR employees with all the resources and support needed to ensure a smooth transition.
No extra training is required, but for those who want more information, the training materials will help. We'll be adding an overview video as well once we get that recorded.
The key difference is the creation of the Employee Center, which now is a way to create and view open HR and IT tickets in one place.
Here's how you can access our training materials and prepare:
- Training Documents: Training materials have been created to support our move to ServiceNow that address how UC ANR employees can create tickets and view current status. To access these documents, visit the “Training Resources” section under the ServiceNow page (https://ucanr.edu/sites/servicenow/).
- Office Hours: For additional support, HR and IT are hosting virtual office hours where you can drop in, ask questions and get ready. Below is the schedule for the upcoming weeks:
When: June 13, 2-2:30pm and June 18, 2:30-3 p.m.
How to join: Use the following Zoom information:
- https://ucanr.zoom.us/j/91385989113?pwd=M2VwZHN1VzVDbVhQTEdjM3FOOTNwUT09
- Meeting ID: 913 8598 9113
- Passcode: 570931
If you have any questions or need further assistance outside of office hours, please email HR and IT for help. Remember as part of this transition to ServiceNow from Zendesk, emailing HR at humanresources@ucanr.edu and IT at help@ucanr.edu remains available.
We are committed to supporting you throughout this transition and ensuring you have an improved experience with ServiceNow. Your participation and engagement are key to the success of this implementation.
Thank you for your cooperation and support.
Tu Tran, Associate Vice President for Business Operations
Bethanie Brown, Interim Executive Director of Human Resources
Ryan Tompkins’ Celebration of Life on July 14
Dear Colleagues,
You are invited to celebrate the life of our dear friend and colleague Ryan Tompkins, UC Cooperative Extension forestry and natural resources advisor for Plumas, Sierra and Lassen counties, who passed away on May 6.
There will be a Celebration of Life for Ryan on Sunday, July 14, at the Plumas-Sierra County Fairgrounds in Quincy. The celebration program will begin at 3 p.m. with speakers and music. Cocktails will be served after the program, followed by dinner at 6 pm.
We will be joined by Ryan's friends, family members, colleagues, classmates and community members. All are welcome to attend.
If you are interested in attending, RSVP by filling out this form by Monday, July 1. Your RSVP will help organizers get an accurate head count for planning purposes, but nobody will be turned away.
If you are not able to attend in person, you can register for the livestream of the celebration here.
This event is being coordinated by the Plumas TREX Incident Management Team at the request of Ryan's wife Michelle Coppoletta.
With sincere gratitude,
David Lile
UC Cooperative Extension director in Lassen County