In touch - Saint Joseph's College of Maine

Rowena Holden, recruitment manager at
Woodard & Curran in Portland, Maine,
explains her work and current needs to
human resource management students.
sonal account, but we ultimately decided to make
it more company-focused.”
Having new energy and ideas like Wallace’s is
insightful for managers like Clements, a 30-year HR
veteran at UNUM. “Using sites like Monster and
Career Builder for recruitment is how you reach out
now,” Clements says. “Ten years ago we would have
used the newspaper. It’s a very different world in terms
of where you’re placing your message so that it’s seen
by those you want.”
Students say they are excited to be immersed in
corporate culture, a fast-paced world of professional
multitaskers. The preparation for debuting professionally
starts in the classroom, where Richardson coaches
students to avoid using slang such as the often-overused
“like” or “my bad” during presentations.
But Richardson notes the maturity displayed when
students first meet their perspective host companies at
the beginning of the semester.
“I’m pleasantly surprised with how seriously
the students take these projects,” Richardson
says. “It’s not just another research paper for
them. The fact that they are doing real work is
not lost on them. They take it seriously; they
rise to the occasion.”
Andrew Paladino ’09 had to rise to the
task one day during his student work with the
environmental engineering firm of Woodard &
Curran in nearby Portland. He found himself
giving two presentations in one day. One report
deciphered the payback benefits of a wellness program
for the company, while the other was how best to deliver
HR services to its 50-odd satellite offices. The company
kept him on after he graduated.
“Once they realized what I could do, they’ve been
putting more and more on me,” Paladino says.
All signs point to HR as a corporate priority in
the future – as health care issues change rapidly, recruitment
becomes evermore technological, legal matters
grow more complex in the post-Enron era and the
baby boomer exodus accelerates. “With baby boomers
hitting retirement age, the possibility of losing a lot
of talent very quickly is real for many companies,”
says Richardson.
“It’s special to have students who are interested in
human resources,” says Rowena Holden, recruitment
manager at Woodard & Curran. “St. Joe’s appealed
to us largely because Beth (Richardson) is such an
incredible mentor to her students. She brings the
world of HR alive. She isn’t afraid to push
her students. The quality of those students is
fantastic; they do a great job.”
Richardson says introducing students to a
workplace is the most powerful lesson she can
teach. “It readies them for a career, jumpstarts
their maturity and forms a connection between
the classroom and the rest of their professional
lives,” she says. “For the college, it showcases
the quality of our students and the practicality
of the education they receive here.”
Andrew Palladino ’09, shown here with professor
Beth Richardson, was in the first graduating
class of human resource management majors.
He works at Woodard & Curran, where he initially
worked on the payback benefits of a wellness
program and how to deliver HR services to satellite
offices of the engineering and environmental
services firm. More males are now joining the
ranks of human resource professionals.
14 S A I N T J O S E P H ’ S C O L L E G E M A G A Z I N E