x

x

Staff Notes

GEDP was established by the Texas Legislature in 1985 to increase the efficiency and productivity of state government by improving the skills of those in charge of state agencies and offices. The program came to the LBJ School the same year.

With Piersol at its helm, the program has trained more than 600 executives in Texas state government through intensive training seminars that take place every year. The three-day seminars are taught by private sector leaders, academic experts, and public officials. Topics include management skills, human resource management, and strategic planning.

Barry Bales, assistant dean for professional development, replaced Piersol as GEDP director. As assistant dean Bales also has administrative responsibility for the LBJ School Office of Conferences and Training and the Governor's Center for Management Development (GCMD). Both GEDP and GCMD are collaborative efforts with the Office of the Texas Governor.

King Named CSHR Director
Chris King, who has been conducting research at the LBJ School's Center for the Study of Human Resources (CSHR) since 1980, was named center director this year. He had been associate director since 1991. Currently a lecturer at the LBJ School, King codirected in 1996-97 a policy research project that examined Texas' new workforce development system.

His research at CSHR currently focuses on welfare reform issues, the measurement of training program success, and the design of evaluation frameworks for state workforce development systems.

King, who has a Ph.D. in economics from Michigan State University, has taught microeconomics, labor economics, human resources management, and policy analysis at the University of Utah, Southwest Texas State University, and UT Austin.

King has been a major contributor to the design, research, and implementation of program performance standards for the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), Food Stamps, and other programs since the 1970s. He served on JTPA performance standards advisory committees and work groups in the early-to-mid-1980s and has since been a technical consultant to many performance measurement projects.

Lucy Neighbors Honored
Lucy Neighbors was chosen by the LBJ School community to receive the 1996-97 LBJ Appreciation Award. The award, established in 1991 as part of the LBJ School's 20th anniversary, recognizes staff members whose initiative, reliability, and attitude make life easier for others in the School.

Neighbors, who is faculty assistant to Professors Lynn Anderson, Chrys Dougherty, Pat Wong, and Jorge Chapa, came to the LBJ School in October of 1994. Before that, she worked for seven years at General Electric in the Dallas area. From 1977 to 1981 she lived in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and France and was involved in a range of community service activities in those countries.

Faculty, staff, and students who nominated Neighbors for the award praised her initiative and resourcefulness, particularly in the area of technology and Internet communications.

"Lucy has voluntarily taken on the task of breaking us in to the cyber world," wrote one of her nominators. "She has shown tremendous leadership, innovation, and patience in learning the technology, setting up the system, and tutoring the rest of us."