Feb 12, 2012 | 02:47
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Jul 09, 2009
Staff Assembly leader goes for the goal
Staff Assembly President Maureen Wadleigh. Photo by Reed Hutchinson.
There she was, officiating a town hall on the painful proposals for pay cuts and/or furloughs, flanked onstage at Pauley Pavilion by three of UCLA’s major players — Chancellor Gene Block, Vice Chancellor of Finance, Budget and Capital Programs Steve Olsen and Associate Vice Chancellor of Campus Human Resources Lubbe Levin — before an audience of 2,500 anxious employees.
Wadleigh deftly directed an hour-long exchange of questions and answers about how California’s budget crisis will impact not just the university as a whole, but individual lives.
“We’re in really tough times,” Wadleigh said during an interview days before the town hall. Staff Assembly, she added, will strive to play an increasingly important role in keeping the lines of communication open and fostering staff engagement in support of UCLA’s mission — ambitious goals.
For Wadleigh, pursuing goals is a way of life, starting with her lifetime devotion to soccer, starting at age 10 when she joined a team in her hometown of Wayzata, Minn.
“Moving toward a goal has been a big metaphor for my life,” said Wadleigh. She majored in international studies and economics at Macalester College in St. Paul. She then moved to San Francisco for a job with a company that leased marine vessels, jets and other transportation equipment, working her way up from junior accountant to manager of the financial analyst area. But she was just getting started.
“I’ve always been interested in developing my career,” she said.
She moved to L.A. to attend the Anderson School’s M.B.A. program, aiming to channel her love of sports into a career in sports management. While there, she volunteered as graduate student representative to UCLA Recreation’s Wooden Center Board of Governors and later took a summer job and a work-study position there. Meanwhile, exploring potential careers, she did research with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks ice hockey club in their inaugural season and interned with the 1994 World Cup Soccer Organizing Committee — neither of which, she discovered, were quite the career fit she was hoping for.
What got her attention instead was a job opening in UCLA Recreation’s marketing department. “I just fell in love with it,” she said. “I believe in it [UCLA Recreation]. It does really good things for people — students, faculty and staff.”
Wadleigh with Chancellor Gene Block at the recent town hall.
Starting with a staff of one — herself — along with a couple of work-study students, Wadleigh "grew" the marketing area and its staff to handle a wide range of ambitious projects, membership promotion, and sponsorship and donor relations.
This past year, Wadleigh’s career took another big leap. Last September, she was named the department’s chief administrative officer, responsible for personnel/payroll, budget/fund management, marketing and more, covering sites that stretch from the Wooden Center to the Aquatic Center at Marina del Rey.
“The person I am,” she said “is a lot about recreation, sports, fitness — the kind of lifestyle that means being healthy and balanced.”
Three-plus nights a week she plays soccer on teams near her home in Santa Clarita. One team includes her husband, Dave Wadleigh, whom she met while he was working on his Ph.D. in molecular biology at UCLA and who now works as an operations manager at Qiagen, a molecular diagnostics company. The Wadleighs are also avid hikers, backpackers and golfers.
This June, Wadleigh was elected president of Staff Assembly. It’s a challenge to take on this additional role, but — to return to her soccer metaphor — it’s all a matter of teamwork.
“I love teamwork,” she said. “I am always energized by the ability to gather the energy of a group of people and put something productive together. I think the Staff Assembly board is a great group of very talented people.”
Their talents will be tested as they reach for the organization’s goals for the coming year, starting with encouraging more employees to become advocates for UCLA by engaging with their neighbors, legislators and others beyond campus to find the support — financial and otherwise — that the campus requires.
Also high on the agenda is fostering greater staff involvement with the organization. “A lot of folks want to be involved, but can’t make the commitment to a board position,” Wadleigh said. So she plans to create committees so that volunteers can work on specific aspects of the organization's goals.
Perhaps most important during these trying times, she said, is making sure employees are recognized for all that they contribute to UCLA.
“Staff need to know that they are appreciated and valued,” she said, a tough task in an atmosphere of pay cuts and furloughs. “People understand [the university’s financial constraints], but morale is an issue,” she said, even at a great workplace like UCLA.
“UCLA staff members are dedicated people who love what they do. They love being here,” she said. “They want to reach out, get involved.”
Wadleigh invites you to do just that. Start at the Staff Assembly website.
