SCM Staff Honored for Their Work

Three Supply Chain Management staff members have received University of California (UC) Procurement Services Starlight Awards. Rich Taylor and Laurina Ashby were honored as part of the Most Valuable Procurement Professional Team and Roesia Gerstein received the award for Collaboration. Taylor also recently received a UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Outstanding Staff Award (COSA) for his work as part of the Contracting at Berkeley Working Group. 

Rich Taylor

Laurina Ashby

Taylor and Ashby’s Starlight Award recognized their work as members of the Procurement Policy and Legal Documents team. UC Chief Procurement Office William Cooper praised the team’s work in a letter to the honorees.

“You have been instrumental in fundamentally changing the process for standardizing and introducing legal documents and policy changes systemwide,” said Cooper. “This team’s advocacy, review process and training programs have resulted in increased quality of templates, shortened cycle times for policy changes and reduced potential risk. Your contributions and approach have garnered undeniable respect and appreciation among the members of the nominating committee.”

Roesia Gerstein

Cooper’s letter to Gerstein’s praised her for exemplary collaborative leadership on behalf of UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco and the UC system.

“Aligned with and furthering the UC system’s strategic procurement objectives, you have made significant contributions in data standardization, public service, and partnership with other diversity officers,” said Cooper. “You have initiated collaboration between UC campuses to standardize diversity coding which has not only reduced time in processing queries and filing federal reports, but expanded bid opportunities for more diverse businesses. We believe these contributions embody the characteristics of a successful professional who has achieved exemplary campus or systemwide collaboration.”

Taylor, who is retiring this month, received the COSA award in May. The award honors staff that take initiative and go above and beyond in their contributions to the UC Berkeley campus community. The cross-functional team came together in 2013 to provide clarity and guidance on campus contracting, including the process of creating, managing, and terminating legally binding contracts. Over two years, they identified problems, created subcommittees to address them, and designed tools to provide concrete, practical assistance to clients, culminating in the development of the University of California, Berkeley Guide to Contracting, an online triage process and contracting website.