Boy, this whole “About Me” page is always so difficult for me to write. I have certainly worked hard for the credentials I have earned and I am proud of them but I traditionally like to just be known as simply Michele (just try to get a class of college students to address you by your first name- not easy!!). But I guess when I read  a blog related to a profession or discipline, I like to know if the person writing has a background that to me gives them some credibility.

So while it feels awkward and a bit like bragging, here it goes… I have a passion for HR that infiltrates so many facets of my life- as a teacher, a learner, an employee and an HR practitioner.

Professionally, I am an HR Manager for a company in Ohio that recently went through an acquisition by a publically held, multi-national company. Honestly (See there is that word again), it was not what I signed up for when I took the position but fate has its own way so here I am. It has its pros and cons, like everything, and at first I really bucked the idea. I love and have lived so long in the small to mid-sized business arena that this is so foreign. I do subscribe to the philosophy that everything happens for a reason so I am trying to embrace this turn of events and learn as much as I can from the experience.

I did earn a graduate certificate in Entrepreneurship as a way to allow me to help in small business development but if I try I can spin entrepreneurship into simply “organizing and managing an enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable risk” as the dictionary defines it. Using what I have learned about organizing and managing business I hope I can help mitigate the associated risks in HR when it comes to my new company’s strategies. I also hope to share this experience with anyone who finds their way to this blog.

My master’s degrees are pretty self explanatory I suppose. I earned the MHRM because I just have an insatiable need to learn about HR but once that was done, I realized I wasn’t. So I continued on to earn my MBA. Seems a little like overkill from the outside looking in but I really thought it was important to be able to see how HR needs to align itself with the overall business strategy. The MBA taught me so much about the other side of the coin in that respect.

The SPHR- boy, what can we add to this? Other than it being one of the most difficult tests I have ever taken, I hope that it once again shows my dedication to the HR profession.

My past employment history in a nutshell started back in 1994 as an entrepreneur in retail and an HR consultant for other small businesses, worked its way into several positions with strong HR functions (though sometimes the title was not there), followed with a HR manager position and a really cool 3 1/2 year stint as an HR consultant with a large company who has a considerable share of a market segment of small to mid-sized businesses (I provided services to the clients of this company not to the employees of the company), to where I am now. Sounds like a whirlwind, and sometimes it was, but the experience and appreciation for diversity I gained to me is every bit as valuable as the letters I can put behind my name.

I realized I rambled A LOT and that there is still a ton about me that you don’t know yet – and maybe don’t want or need to- but that is cool. I am hoping this is a revealing journey for me and my readers (as soon as I get some- because as I write this I know I have not even allowed even one person access my blog, LOL!)