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July 17, 2007

To: Facilities Management

From: Mike Berthelsen

Re: Welcome the New Facilities Management Leadership Team

After months of hard work by many people, I am very excited to announce the new FM leadership team.

Beth Louden – District Director
David Moore – District Director
Marshall Skule – District Director
Sam Talbert – District Director
Jim Dudley – Director of Central Services
Brad Hoff – Chief Administrative Officer

In addition to these folks with new positions, the leadership team will include:

Jerome Malmquist – Director of Utilities and Engineering
Bill Paulus – Director of Information and Process Improvement

As you read their attached bios, you’ll see that this is a group of proven leaders who know how to bring focus to customer service. They have the experience and skills to strategically plan long-term district goals, identify areas to improve and then implement those changes. Most importantly, they embody our three C’s:

• Customer-focused
• Culture of accountability
• Cost effective service

To find the right people to lead FM to our new culture and organizational structure, we conducted a rigorous national search. We knew it was important to balance University experience and institutional knowledge with an outside perspective of Facilities Management. We also understood the importance of picking leaders who represent the diversity of thought, practice and culture that make up FM. During the thorough process, we brought in two recruiting firms to aggressively seek out an experienced and diverse candidate pool and we hosted employee forums to gather your input on the qualities you expect from FM leadership. We also:

• Posted the positions on industry websites like International Facility Management Association (IFMA), APPA, and BOMA
• Advertised in the Star-Tribune and other publications
• Posted the positions on job search sites like Monster.com

We received 377 applicants for the six positions that have been filled. The search committees interviewed 68 candidates and forwarded 23 on to me. I then interviewed these candidates with other University and external leaders as well as had each finalist go through a full day of leadership assessment which provided me further information to help make the final decisions. The members of the search committees did an outstanding job and I am especially grateful for their thoughtful efforts and the huge amount of time they spent on this process. Thank you to everyone who served.

Next Steps
It will be several weeks before each member begins work here in FM. In the mean time, we will work with the Directors as they complete the process of filling the Associate District Director positions who have already been interviewed by me and completed leadership assessments. Once those choices have been made we will continue the cascading hiring process by filling the Team Lead positions and so on through the district positions. While this process takes longer then simply assigning people, we feel it will result in better team work if those responsible for running the teams help to create them. Once this is completed we will begin the process of dividing FM employees into teams, district-wide pools or FM service.

Vice President O’Brien and I will introduce the new leadership team to you in August. In the meantime please join me in welcoming these folks aboard.

Mike