By MARTY LEVINE
The biggest difference Vice Chancellor for Human Resources James Gallaher discovered when he moved from industry to higher education was “the time to get things done,” he told the latest Staff Council Coffee & Conversation event on Sept. 28.
“Because of shared governance, it takes a whole lot more time” to move Pitt or any higher education institution toward changes, but that time is used “to the benefit of everyone,” he noted, since both administration and employees get to weigh in on many of the moves.
He hadn’t been a serious student until his stint in the military, Gallaher said — first as an airplane mechanic, right after high school, and then with the National Guard. “I learned to try hard in the military,” he said, going to Southern Illinois University on weekends to earn a degree in workforce education and development, then on to graduate school at its main campus, and finally a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois.
Gallaher’s first job at General Motors was a natural outgrowth of his youth in Detroit and love of cars, he said. At GM, he gained a mentor high up in the organization, who taught him “not to sit back and just let things happen, but to be vocal about what you want” in your career. He was involved in many facets of human resources at GM, from labor relations to workforce development, but after a while, he said, he decided “to do something where the mission was a little different than just to make money.”
That impulse drew him to higher education. At his first job in academia at Eastern Michigan University, he quickly moved up to head of HR, which interested him because, “I want to help people to grow and learn (through) talent management (and) training and professional development ... really help people to be the best in organizations.
“Me coming to Pitt was not a ‘me decision,’ it was a family decision,” Gallaher explained. Pitt is the third campus on which he has worked with his wife, Eboni Zamani-Gallaher, now a professor and interim dean at the School of Education.
It was not an easy decision, he allowed, although they were both familiar with Pitt. For one, the couple had dated in Pittsburgh, meeting here when he was working at their mutual alma mater — Illinois — and she was teaching at West Virginia University. “There were a whole lot of things going on there that were cool," he said of the city.
For another, Zamani-Gallaher had considered an earlier job here after being recruited by the previous education dean, he said.
But then they visited the campus and the couple’s twin daughters, applying to colleges at that time, decided they would like to go to Pitt. That was a clincher. “I think of the day last year when I dropped my girls off here … the excitement, the joy ... that’s the big part of being in a place like Pitt,” he said.
Some of the other important factors for his coming to Pitt were the opportunities to work with Clyde Wilson Pickett, vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion, and with David DeJong, senior vice chancellor for business and operations, whom Gallaher met during the interview process. “Dave really pushed it over the edge,” he said of the decision, adding: “I’m still learning a lot … it’s not quite two years I’ve been here.”
As for other mentors: “It took a little bit of a village” to help him get to his current post, he said. “I lean on my wife a lot.” His father was an important influence early on, he said, especially as a Black man who had served in the military in World War II — an era where the U.S. armed forces were still segregated.
Asked about the impact of compensation modernization on current staff, he said the biggest impacts were in raising the Pitt minimum wage to $16.50 — which he called “a significant leap” and “a good baseline” — and raising the wages of those whose current salary was below the new range for their Pitt position.
Next comes the implementation of career ladders, Gallaher said. “That is something we’re just starting to think about. I think that’s going to have a huge impact for new employees, for existing employees. It’s going to take us a little bit of time to get us through that new phase.”
DeJong will be the guest at next month’s Staff Council Coffee & Conversation, at a date still to be announced. Most are held at 10:30 a.m. in the seventh-floor auditorium of Alumni Hall.
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
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