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Vol. 24:2 ISSN 0160-8460 August 1996
From the Executive Director, Jerry George
Commission's Staff Plans For Transition
The time has come for a thorough review of how the Commission does its business.
The time is right because the Commission will consider in November recommendations from its Ad Hoc Planning Committee for revising our strategic plan. Also we will consider implications for the NHPRC of the recently released strategic plan for the entire National Archives and Records Administration, within which the NHPRC is administered.
But review is particularly necessitated by our loss of two outstanding staff members: Kathryn Jacob, who has served so well as Assistant Program Director for Publications, and Nancy Sahli, Program Director and a twenty-year veteran of the Commission's staff, whose skills and experience will not be replaceable. We will not hire additional staff, however, because the number of members available to carry on our regular business remains the same. That is because Mary Giunta and Dane Hartgrove are about to finish our in-house documentary publishing project and become available for reassignment. Clearly we of the staff must reorganize.
I am grateful that we do have a staff member, Richard Cameron, our Assistant Program Director for State Programs, who has successful experience in program review and the redesign of business processes. He has agreed to lead our review of grant program processes, from which we will develop recommendations for the Commission's consideration in November. I am grateful that another highly competent staff member, Joyce Ray, Assistant Program Director for Technological Evaluation, has agreed to act as Program Director through November so that we can keep up with normal grant Commission's Staff Plans For Transition
(Photo by Philip B. George) business while Dick Cameron helps us complete our review. We will make staff reorganization decisions after that. In the interim, Joyce herself will work with state historical records coordinators and advisory boards until Dick finishes his special assignment. And most of the work Kathy Jacob had been doing with documentary editions will transfer to Timothy Connelly, Assistant Program Director for Publications, who for many years worked with our editing projects in his previous role as Research Archivist.
These are the arrangements we have made to cope with the changes that confront us. All staff members have helped us develop plans for the transition, for which I am grateful; and all of us will do our best to maintain a high level of service to the communities with which we work.
-Gerald George Executive Director
Comments, including contrary opinions, are invited. Please send them to Annotation, NHPRC, National Archives Building (Archives 1), Room 607, Washington, DC 20408; or e-mail to jerry.george@archI.nara.gov.
