Communications
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| WSDA’s Emergency Management office led efforts to provide staff and resources, like this Marsh Master, to assist with recovery efforts after the SR 530 mudslide disaster in Snohomish County in 2014. |
The administrative infrastructure of any organization is like a heartbeat – not visible from the outside, but essential for functioning. At WSDA, various operational units provide services to the entire agency. While that has not changed, how they are organized now has.
Last August, Deputy Director Patrick Capper and Director Derek Sandison announced that several of these agency functions would be combined into a new Administrative Services Division, headed by Assistant Director Jason Ferrante.
Employees who’ve been with WSDA for a while may remember that several administrative functions were part of a division many years ago. The configuration has morphed over time.
Now, the Administrative Services Division consists of:
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| Jason Ferrante is the assistant director of the Administrative Services Division |
- Administrative Regulations
- Performance and Planning Management
- Safety and Risk Management
- Contracts and Purchasing
- Facilities and Fleet Management
- Specialty Crop Block Grant
- Emergency Management and Rapid Response
- Information Technology (added to the division in November)
Before the current reorg, most of the programs listed above reported directly to Patrick, while others were part of Financial Services or Human Resources. The goal of consolidation is to streamline reporting and take advantage of commonalities and efficiencies.
“These programs were and are doing a good job,” Jason said. “The structure was an issue of bandwidth for Patrick. That was a lot of individuals reporting to the deputy and a lot of issues to track and manage.”
Connecting threads
Most WSDA staff doing their day-to-day jobs may not think about how these administrative functions affect them. Consider the following examples.
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| Jason Gambill, Western Washington safety officer, consults with Alec Jorgensen in the Weights and Measures Program about worker safety. |
Administrative Regulations manages the rulemaking process, which may result in inspection fee increases or changes to pest or fruit and vegetable standards. They assure standard, high-quality customer forms, and maintain current agency policies that guide how we all work.
Contracts and Purchasing navigates complex and sometimes convoluted state requirements to make sure workers have the goods and services necessary to do their jobs effectively.
The Performance Office guides planning and process improvements to keep WSDA moving in the same direction, and free up time and effort through efficiency.
Safety and Risk Management protects workers from injury and illness, and protects WSDA from legal and financial hazards.
Facilities and Fleet Management is a one-stop shop assuring that our workplaces and vehicles are safe and appropriate for accomplishing our work.
Across just these examples, can you see the connecting threads and overlapping purposes?
Ron Hussung, Safety/Risk manager, calls it “unity of effort. The new structure offers more organizational alignment,” Ron said. “We’re better connected and synchronized. For instance, Safety works closely with purchasing and IT on employee ergonomics, which is a significant strategy for preventing injuries.”
Tracie Lindeblom, Facilities/Fleet coordinator, also pointed to the advantage of working more closely with functions such as safety and contracts.
“It helps to coordinate and have that built-in communication bridge that did not exist before,” she said.
Better together
Other managers in the new division also noted the value of joining a family of related services.
“Being part of the Administrative Service Division has helped further support our program as a whole,” said Randy Treadwell, Emergency Management and Rapid Response, “Weekly communication with division leadership and collaboration on projects that impact the entire agency has helped us move forward on projects that, in some cases, had been in a holding pattern.”
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| Teresa Norman, commodity commissions and fairs coordinator, joins WSDA Director Derek Sandison to welcome visitors on the opening day of the Central Washington Fair. State fairs oversight is part of the new Administrative Services Division. |
“Being folded into the division has helped elevate our issues to Leadership Team,” said Henri Gonzalez, Administrative Regulations manager.
“As a small program, having an AD keeps us in the loop,” said Leisa Schumaker who leads the Specialty Crop Block Grants Program. “Even something like not having a division coordinator was a broken link. We didn’t have the support other divisions had.”
Several of the division’s managers I spoke with echoed that their mission is to serve all the agency’s employees to make their jobs easier.
“We’re facilitators,” said Kevin Greene, acting IT lead who previously headed the Contracts/Purchasing team. “The divisions and programs that serve external customers identify the needs. Administrative staff identify solutions that meet those needs, while keeping WSDA within the law.”
Jason summed up his vision by saying: “My goal for this division is to create an enterprise culture, where agency staff is our customer and we maximize that partnership. Our role is to make employees successful – our success is your success.”
In summary: Several WSDA functions that serve the entire agency were merged into a new Administrative Services Division, headed by Assistant Director Jason Ferrante. What’s included and how does it affect employees across the agency? Learn more in this post on the Insider blog.
