Lab’s New HR Chief: ‘Change is Constant in Organizational Life’

When she was Northwestern University’s Director of Human Resources Consulting and Staffing, Dr. Vera Potapenko also taught a required course in the Masters of Public Policy curriculum. It was called “The Sociology of Organizations,” and among the questions she posed to her students was: “What are the change strategies at leadership, organizational, team and individual levels that can create a continuously effective organization?”

Welcome to her living laboratory.

Berkeley Lab will be a change for Potapenko, having grown up in Detroit and having worked in the Chicago area most of her professional life. And it will be a change for the Lab’s HR staff, who have lacked a permanent director since Randy Scott moved to the Office of the President more than a year ago. But Chief Operations Officer David McGraw will tell you that Potapenko, the Lab’s just-arrived Chief Human Resources Officer and Department Head for Human Resources, was worth the wait.

“Vera’s extensive professional background encompasses management positions in both public and private sector organizations,” he said. “She brings a broad base of experience and accomplishments in human resource management and strategic planning, organizational design and effectiveness, and leadership development.”

And she not only walks the walk; she talks the talk. With a PhD in Organizational and Interpersonal Communication from the University of Southern California, she can tell you all about the strategic role of HR in organizations.

“It starts with the underlying understanding that change is constant in organizational life,” Potapenko said. “And great leaders are those who are able to take the organization’s talent through these changes towards building a greater organization.”

She notes two key responsibilities for HR: ensure that the Lab has great talent at all levels, and support the organization’s effectiveness in creating a great place to work for all staff in different roles and from diverse backgrounds.

Her own diverse resume includes human resources roles with Kraft Foods, W.W. Grainger, Inc. (international industrial products distributor), and G. D. Searle and Co. Research & Development (pharmaceuticals); and, in the non-profit side, Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Northwestern University in both Evanston and Chicago, IL.

A first-generation Ukrainian-American, Potapenko (pronounced po-TUH-pen-ko) said she welcomed the return to California where she received her advanced degree and taught part-time in Los Angeles-area universities. “It is an opportunity to lead an HR function, in an institution with a new senior leader (Steve Chu), to another level of excellence,” she said. “It allows me to stay in academia and a research environment for a top-caliber organization.”