Vice President's Message
December 2024
At the start of fiscal year 2024, Oregon State University’s Board of Trustees endorsed the Prosperity Widely Shared strategic plan. And at the end of the fiscal year, the Division of Finance and Administration experienced a leadership transition as Mike Green retired and Vice President Carla Ho‘ā took the helm. In the intervening months, DFA employees accomplished a great deal to advance the university’s shared goals, as reported below.
Some of the division’s significant achievements between summer 2023 and summer 2024 include:
- Preparing for the launch of the university’s Administrative Modernization Program (AMP). In addition to working ahead to streamline a wide range of business processes, DFA teams were deeply involved in negotiating and finalizing contracts with vendor partners and in developing system design plans with University IT.
- The proposal for renegotiation of OSU’s federal “facilities and administrative” (F&A) rate, a major undertaking by the Controller’s Unit in partnership with the Division of Research and Innovation. This complex, multi-year process requires extensive collaboration across the university in support of research and student success goals.
- The Sustainability Office helped make OSU a Top Performer in the 2023 sustainable campus index. OSU has been continually recognized for over a decade for excellence in the sustainability field.
- The DFA Food Insecurity Committee organized employees to donate approximately 300 pounds of food to the university’s Basic Needs Center.
Sometimes the DFA’s work goes beyond the routine and things get interesting or even unusual. Check out this story from last fall when Surplus Property’s recovery of lost paintings sparked a campus art exhibition. The Facilities Services team regularly finds ways to make campus infrastructure a living laboratory for students.
While the division is made up of multiple individual operations, our collective work requires a great deal of collaboration and partnership, both inside and outside of the Finance and Administration organization. The Enterprise Project Portfolio Management Office (EPPMO) expands OSU’s capacity to achieve our goals by offering strategic support and resources to the university. The DFA Framework for Success Champions team, launched in fall 2023, shared a FY2024 report about the ongoing development of our performance metrics program to support informed decision-making. The DFA Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) Advancement Committee made recommendations to division senior leaders last fall and continue to work in partnership with the Office of Institutional Diversity and with University Human Resources to advance the DFA’s action plan.
The division’s employees deserve our collective gratitude for their commitment and care for the university’s people and its mission. As you can read throughout the division’s quarterly news updates, DFA employees are regularly going above and beyond people’s expectations to help make ideas become reality.
Read on for more FY2024 highlights from the division’s senior leaders and enjoy exploring the DFA’s successes in the quarterly updates. You can also download a one-page PDF summary of the year’s achievements.
Senior Leaders' Highlights
Tami Aders
Executive Director, Enterprise Project Management Portfolio Office
I am proud of the significant strides the Enterprise Portfolio Project Management Office (EPPMO) team made over the last year to mature OSU’s project management services, with more alignment to the strategic plan and greater attention to value and return on investment. We have laid the groundwork for continued growth and success while managing 40 active projects in fiscal year 2024 and delivering 19.
- EPPMO’s robust portfolio the past year has included projects foundational to the Administrative Modernization Program, such as developing a data hub and a smart access program.
- EPPMO advanced university processes with its work with OSU leadership and a third-party vendor to develop a strategic planning and financing model for the Prosperity Widely Shared plan. It also supported academic faculty with a project to implement the new General Education Curriculum.
Brent Gustafson
Associate Vice President for Budget & Resource Planning
In my first year in the OSU Budget Office, the work I am most proud of is the relaunch of the modified Shared Responsibility Budget Model at the conclusion of a multi-year effort to update the way OSU distributes its funding to be in closer alignment with the PWS strategic plan. It was a big accomplishment to plan the fiscal year 2025 budget using the updated SRBM model.
- The Budget and Resource Planning team spent the past year preparing for the launch of the first AMP implementation—the Adaptive Planning budgeting tool that will be used to develop OSU’s fiscal year 2026 budget.
- BRP collaborated with DFA IT to create a web-based Tuition Calculator to make it easier for students and families to estimate their annual costs to attend college.
Paul Odenthal
One of the things I’m most proud of is establishing the DFA Emerging Leaders Program, which graduated its second cohort in 2024. Investing in the division’s people to develop the organization’s future leaders is good for OSU and helps advance our shared goals. And it’s fun! I always learn something new.
- Capital planning, construction and delivery teams completed the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Arts (PRAx), broke ground on the Huang Collaborative Innovation Center, transformed Cordley Hall into a science building for the 21st century, and renovated the ship operations dock at Newport.
- Transportation Services experienced record ridership in FY24 on the Beaver Bus. Its expanded route contributes to the Sustainable Transportation Strategy’s actions around transit improvements.
- OSU reaffirmed its commitment to workplace safety by appointing a Workplace Safety Culture Task Force, whose recommendations included an OSU community safety survey and creating a one-stop safety resource hub for the university. Environmental Health and Safety’s Hazardous Waste team won the CSHEMA’s Innovation Award for Process Improvement. Public Safety’s wellness dog, Cedar, supported OSU’s educational mission and served as an ambassador to the OSU community, just one example of the great work accomplished by the Public Safety team.
Heidi Sann
Associate Vice President for Finance & Controller
I’m so proud of how Student Account Services collaborated across the university--Registrar, Financial Aid, College of Business and others--to participate in the cration of the Student Financial Readiness program. Together, we made real changes to the way we operate and advanced OSU’s goal to be a university where every student graduates.
- The Travel & Expense team’s close work with the International Travel Committee to revise policies and practices made it easier for OSU’s international travelers to prepare for trips and resulted in more support for those visiting higher risk destinations.
- Payroll and Financial Accounting and Analysis took on new responsibilities in FY24 as work was brought in-house from a third-party service provider, allowing for more streamlined and efficient processes.
2024 Award Winners
The Division of Finance & Administration recognizes employees for their outstanding service to the university community with a set of annual awards. Winners are identified through a nomination and selection process, and awards are presented at the division's annual spring meeting hosted by the vice president for finance and administration. The Spring 2024 news update highlighted DFA Award winners and their excellent stories.
Significant Years of Service Milestones
35 Years of Service
- Daniel Harlan, Environmental Health and Safety
30 Years of Service
- William Burton, Procurement, Contracts & Materials Management
25 Years of Service
- Stephanie Howard, Department of Public Safety
20 Years of Service
- Jon Warkentin, Facilities Services
- Dwight Brimley, Business Services
15 Years of Service
- Thomas Radel, Procurement, Contracts & Materials Management
10 Years of Service
- Steve Dalke, Financial Strategic Services
- Terrance Folden, Facilities Services
- Kelsey Herman, Financial Strategic Services
- Doug Botkin, Treasury Office
- Christina McKnight, Insurance and Risk Management Services
- Trina McGaughy, Financial Accounting and Reporting
5 Years of Service
- Nathan Forbes, Financial Strategic Services
- Michael Krantz, Facilities Services
- Julie Drolet, Capital Planning and Development
- Paul Odenthal, Senior Associate Vice President for Administration
- Heidi Sann, Associate Vice President for Finance, Controller
- Andrew Cadotte, DFA Information Technology
- Michael Wilkins, Facilities Services
- Tomas Bertenyi, Financial Strategic Services
- Betty Buck, University Human Resources
- Keenan Beil, Department of Public Safety
send a note of thanks
If you would like to acknowledge a job well done or share appreciation for a DFA employee exceeding your expectations, let us know! Use our simple DFA Hurray! online form to express your thanks and your note will be sent to the recipient; it's also elevated to their supervisor and division leaders.
If you have more critical feedback, please send us an email at VPFA@oregonstate.edu.
Questions or suggestions?
Contact the VPFA Office for information, assistance, requests for signature on documents, and to make an appointment with Carla Ho’ā.