If you are an employee in ITS, Administration and Facilities Manager Latasha Owens has helped you get here. From posting your position, to working with recruiting, to helping you onboard, to making sure your swipe card works, Latasha and her team provide countless invaluable services to keep things running. We had the pleasure of speaking with Latasha about she got her career start in banking, earned her degree in Information Technology, and joined WCM back when there was a place called "The PIt." She shared how she and her team are looking out for each other and pushing through to make sure the department gets the best support possible during the ongoing pandemic.
Hi Latasha! Thanks for joining me today.
Thanks for asking me.
How many years have you been with ITS?
You know, when I thought about it, I thought I was here for 13 years. And then, when I went back to check the date I started I realized wow, it'll be 15 years this year. 2020 kind of threw me off.
What keeps you here?
Every year that I've been here, it's never been the same. Either we're doing a reorg, so someone major from leadership is leaving. Or there's a change in how we do things. Or there's a big project or initiative that's that we're leading. Moving from uptown, downtown, moving groups, departments, changes to the website, doing something new learning something new, being in contact with a group that I've never dealt with before and learning what they do. In my 15 years here no year has never been the same. And then 2020, which totally changes the whole dynamic of working.
How is remote work going for you?
It's different! When it started it was, “Okay, how do we still be functional from home? How do we still support Curt? How do we support the Directors? How do we pick up their line?” Teams became a big part of what we do, now we're picking up the phones with Teams as opposed to Avaya.
It's just like, how do we work? How does this work? Can you see this line? Working with John Young and the Networking team, trying to make sure that the ADs and Directors have the best coverage we can possibly give while being remote, and giving them the best support we can. Making sure that everything we do as admin on site, we're also doing off site, which has changed, because now we're not doing things like catering. In the beginning we were doing it from home, we were ordering food from restaurants while they were still open and sending it to 1300 for people who were working on site, and at 575, and downtown – we had a couple of techs downtown when we were going through that period of getting everyone’s phones and computers tagged. We were making sure they were eating – they were out being exposed and the best thing we could do was make sure they had food.
I even went downtown at one point to drop off Lysol wipes – we were ordering supplies and then we started to gather and disperse.
All this stuff that people thinks comes out of nowhere…
Ha, no. We’re on the phone like, “This is Cornell, we need this stuff,” and we’re working with the vendors seeing what we can get. It was a cat and mouse game just trying to get supplies.
So the whole transition was, you know you had your dark days, days when you learned that 700 people died. And you don’t know what each individual is going through. So at that point it was like, let’s close ranks, make sure that everyone is okay. You know, we still have to work but at the same time, let’s make sure that everyone on the team is okay. Sometimes that’s not easy, but you put on your best face and you move forward, and that’s what admin is all about. Pushing through no matter what you’re confronted with, getting the job done. It’s about rising to the occasion, my fifteen years here has always been about rising to the occasion.
What was ITS like when you first started?
When I started I worked the front desk at 1300, where the glass doors are, and that was like today's SMARTDesk. Doctors and doctor’s assistants would come in with their computers asking for assistance from a tech… you would have to go find a tech, they were in the Pit.
The Pit?
The Pit was down the hall, now it’s D017. That’s were all the techs were.
When I started off I was covering Josh, Vinay, Ramon, John Ruffing, Vipin. I was the admin for them and I was covering their lines, I would do the calendar, cater their meals, order the supplies. I learned a lot, but I knew how do to a lot of it too, because I came from banking.
Perfect transition, I was going to ask what you did before you came here. You worked in banking?
Yes, I was at the US Trust company, which is private banking. The grandson of FAO Schwartz was the CEO – Marshall Schwartz, he was the CEO of private banking. I was in the mutual funds custody department, and I started as the receptionist, then I rose to be the admin for mutual funds custody, and I supported a Senior VP and two VPs, who were women – and they were running it. It was a good experience to see women in that position, running a banking floor. And I was in the process of learning those trades, they were taking me under their wing. And then the banking bubble happened, and the bank started to crumble.
When was that?
I want to say mid-90s. The bank started to take over other banks, so at that time the mutual funds department became JP Morgan Chase so we moved over to Chase. And there I supported three groups – I was there at 7 in the morning and would leave at 8 at night, it was a lot of work. From there I went to a lobbyist firm which represented the banks of New York.
Interesting, represented them politically?
Yes, in Albany and Washington. And that was different, you start to see what happens behind the scenes, like how certain banking laws come into effect. I helped organize the annual convention, which were held all over the country – Palm Springs, the Broadmoor in Colorado, DC. We would go to these luxurious hotels – but we would work day and night, making sure all the bankers got into their breakout sessions, making sure the golf tournament went okay, making sure all the prizes were given out. It’s almost like planning a wedding.
You must have some solid event planning experience at this point.
Exactly. Our Holiday party? We go to the venue and talk to the chef, figure out music.
I love the ITS Holiday Party, it’s one of my favorite days of the year.
Yea! You know a lot goes into that too.... So, eventually community bankers were taken over by New York bankers, which was a bigger lobbying firm than us. At that point we were taken over and I got laid off. So I said, you know what? I’m going to finish my degree. I had one semester left. That was in January and I finished in April – and then I had my degree in Information Technology. And I decided to switch from admin to computer science. I wanted to fix computers, run programs, do project management. I ended up going to Columbia for a little bit, when they were doing the expansion all the way up the West Side. I got my hands in that, and then my assignment ended. And I was like hey, since I’m already in academia, why don’t I try Cornell? So I had the interview there with Vinay. Actually – ooo…. I had to have a root canal, and the day I was supposed to interview was the day I had the root canal scheduled. I went to the dentist, did the root canal, and then I was at 1300 ready for my interview. I interviewed and my mouth was numb. It was Josh and Vipin, and Vipin said, anyone that can have a root canal and then come in and do the interview is good in my book.
I pushed through. That’s what we do as women. We push. Sometimes we cry! But it’s the enduring and then it’s the release.
What is your role, in your own words?
My role is really about making sure the admins are covering the directors in the way that they need to be covered. My job is also a lot of HR. If you’ve been employed here at some point over the last 15 years, I have helped you with your timecard, helped with your onboarding paperwork, I posted your position, worked with recruiting regarding your position…
So if someone is an employee in ITS, you’ve helped them get here?
If you swiped your ID and it works, my team or I has participated to make sure that you have access to the correct location. If you have a phone at your desk, if your name shows up on your phone, Admin made a request to get that connected for you.
What is your favorite part about your job?
I’ve been able to work with the highest person to the newest hire – I interact with everyone. I can walk into Dr Cole’s office and say “Hi how are you?” – I feel blessed that I can have that relationship. And I’m still learning things! I’m working on an initiative with ACG to generate a report that will tell us how many people came in last year, how many got promoted, how many left. It’s in its final stages, and it’s being tweaked. I do this now manually but I want it to be automated, so it just updates when the system updates. And hopefully that will be something the college can use. I’m also working with the SDS team on the new offboarding program, they’ve been receptive to my suggestions.
What are your suggestions?
Can we pull everything from the CWID? So when a person comes in, you have a desk assigned, a laptop, a cell phone – and once we know that these are all the things you have, then god forbid if you offboard for whatever reason, we can use your CWID to terminate everything at one time, as opposed to doing it manually.
And finally, in the spirit of Women’s History Month: who are some women you admire and why?
There are a lot of women I admire, but I’ll just do a broad stoke and say: mothers. Mothers do a lot. You’re judge and jury, you’re a cook, you’re a cleaner, you’re a doctor, you’re a referee. There’s a lot of things that we do as mothers and it takes strength. And if you’re doing it alone, it’s really hard. You’re the breadwinner. Single mothers, I give you kudos, it’s not easy. You pull it together for everyone else, you have to be strong when you don’t want to be strong. All the women that are CEOs, authors, famous cooks – they got started because there was a support system, and 9 times out of 10 that was your mother.
I look to my mom, she’s the baby of 13, and she’s always been there, she’s always been my support. She tells me what I need and what I don’t need, what I want to hear and what I don’t want to hear. Mom is always the driving force to push you where you need to go. So, kudos to moms and all the single moms out there.