Randi Schmechel: Alaska roots planted firmly in Oregon

Woman with short hair, glasses, a white shirt and blue jean jacket stands smiling at left; at right seated next to her is a man with a moustache

Randi Schmechel

HRIS Data Analyst
Human Resources - Operations

What area do you work in within the VPFA portfolio?
I work in the Human Resources Department

What is your current position, and what are your job responsibilities?
I am a member of the HR Operations team as an HRIS (Human Resources Information System) data analyst. 

What has been your career path; how did you end up in your current position?
I began working at UO in 1991 at the School of Law when it was located in what is now McKenzie Hall.  I started as a faculty secretary then moved into the law school’s Admissions Office.  In the mid-1990s I decided to work part-time to fit my family’s needs and found a position in the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity (now the Office of Investigations and Civil Rights Compliance), which was then located in Oregon Hall.  It was there that I became acquainted with some of the hiring processes and collecting employee data for the university’s affirmative action plan.  After I gained more experience in gathering and working with data over the next decade and was able to expand my work hours, my position was relocated into the central HR office on the HR Operations team.

Share a little about yourself personally:

  • Family: I grew up in Anchorage, AK where I met my UO alum husband, Drew, 38 years ago (seated in picture above).  We moved to Eugene 30 years ago and, so far, have no desire to live anywhere else.  We have two adult children.  We all love living in Oregon, spread out from Corvallis to Ashland.  After growing up in a place that has only four interstate highways, I love being able to go from the high desert and mountains to the Pacific Ocean beaches in a relatively short amount of time with lots of roadway choices! 
  • Favorite books: My reading tastes are eclectic: Gone With the Wind (Mitchell); A Man Called Ove (Backman); Dune (Herbert); and Stories I Only Tell My Friends (Lowe) are a few books that I have enjoyed.
  • Favorite movies: The original Star Wars (I have a hard time calling it Star Wars IV or A New Hope); The Thomas Crown Affair starring Steve McQueen; and Casablanca, which my husband introduced into my life.

(March 2019)

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