Home / 2013 / February / Appointment of Jo Packham as Assistant Vice Chancellor, Staff Human Resources

Appointment of Jo Packham as Assistant Vice Chancellor, Staff Human Resources

To: UCSC Staff and Faculty Employees

From: Sarah Latham, Vice Chancellor, Business and Administrative Services

February 12, 2013

I am pleased to announce that as a result of a national recruitment and search, Jo Packham has been appointed Assistant Vice Chancellor (AVC) for Staff Human Resources (SHR). I am confident that Jo will be an excellent addition to the Business and Administrative Services (BAS) team and the campus. She comes to UC Santa Cruz from Montana State University in Bozeman, Mont. where she served as Interim Assistant Vice President for Human Resources and also as Director of Strategic Planning and Coordination, leading significant business process review, system implementation, and change management. She also brings a portfolio of significant business-related expertise from her many years working in a leadership position within the Australian Taxation Office in Adelaide, Australia. Please join me in welcoming Jo; her first day will be March 4, 2013, and once she arrives on campus she can be reached at 459-5806.

I would like to thank the members of the search committee for their dedicated service. Members include: Lisetha Aranda, Jan Cloud, Laurie Eppler, John Guertin, Nicolle Laird, Marie Logan, Jim Moore, Madlyn Norman-Terrance, Toni Porath, (staff), and Jean Marie Scott, (chair). I would also like to thank Pamela Peterson, who has capably served as the Interim AVC of Staff HR during the search process. In addition, I am most grateful to all the campus constituents who took time out of their busy schedules to attend meetings with the finalists and provide valuable input to the process. Engaging stakeholders from across campus was an important part of the search process for this position that has an impact in one way or another on all of us at UCSC.

The AVC SHR is the senior staff human resources executive at UCSC, and while we find ourselves in a time of significant organizational change, I am confident that Jo will successfully lead the Staff Human Resources organization through the campus implementation of the new UCPath program. Working with senior leadership, the AVC SHR will lead, develop, and manage progressive human resource services, programs, and systems aligned with the university mission and goals of the campus. It is also imperative that we continue to advance the campus vision for being the “employer of choice” for our region. People are one of our most valuable resources, and enhancing the engagement of our employees will be a critical element in finding effective ways to steward the public resources entrusted to us during these challenging budgetary times. The BAS Division will be undertaking strategic planning in the spring, and I look forward to involving our campus colleagues in that process.

Please contact me or Jean Marie Scott, search committee chair, at jmscott@ucsc.edu or 459-3031 should you have questions.