Employee of the Month - April 2022
Glen Seymour - Facilities and Equipment Coordinator, College of Engineering Administration
Awarded Wednesday, April 20th, 2022 via Zoom Virtual celebration. Glen was joined by President Jane Close Conoley, College of Engineering (COE) Dean Jinny Rhee, COE Associate Dean of Research & Grad Programs Hamid Rahai, and numerous COE and campus colleagues.
Glen Seymour serves as the College of Engineering’s (COE) Facilities and Equipment Coordinator. He shared, “I graduated from the CSU system (SDSU), and it prepared me well for work as a design engineer for brands such as Thermador and GE Monogram. A little over five years ago I was hired into the COE as the Facilities Coordinator and have enjoyed working with faculty to modernize our teaching labs and meet the needs of industry.”
Glen has gone above and beyond to support COE during the pandemic. COE Associate Dean of Research & Graduate Programs, Hamid Rahai, recognized Glen’s outstanding contributions, saying: “During the COVID-19 campus closure and subsequent partial repopulation, while the rest of our faculty and staff transitioned to working from home, Glen was on campus every day taking care of college buildings, laboratories, and classrooms.
“When the COE safety officer resigned in November 2019, …Glen stepped in to fill the gap. This was a critical time for the college since several outstanding items from the Chancellor's Office 2019 Safety Audit were pending for COE…During this time, Glen successfully led the COE response to revise the COE chemical hygiene plan and develop a new laser safety plan for the college. In addition, he took it upon himself to undergo extensive training as a Laser Safety Officer—a role typically filled by the college safety officer—so that COE faculty could continue their ongoing research.
“Glen has excellent problem-solving capabilities. He is quick to point out multiple solutions for any given problem—along with associated risks and benefits—thus making the decision-making process easier for everyone. With his work ethic and knowledge, Glen has made significant contributions to space management, safety matters, laboratory instrumentation, classroom allocation, instructional facility design, and many other areas. He has the ability to keep a close watch on all of the diverse projects happening in our college at any given time. He has been instrumental in the reactivation of our research labs with faculty and student participation, allowing us to meet our research and training commitments of 4-8 million dollars annually..
“It is a pleasure to work with Glen. With his friendly demeanor, he gets along with everyone both within COE and with the larger campus community. Glen's communication skills—both written and verbal—are very good. This makes collaboration easy. He works effectively in all situations dealing with faculty, students, staff members, and the college leadership. Glen is a valuable asset to the College of Engineering and his exceptional commitment to the mission of CSULB and the college is remarkable
Glen’s work has also been celebrated by Margo McCall, COE’s Communications Specialist: “[Glen] works diligently, exhibiting a high degree of professionalism in addition to an always pleasant demeanor. His job is challenging, involving many complex moving parts, and became even more challenging as a result of the pandemic…He assisted faculty in adapting to Zoom classes and worked with ATS to set up nearly a dozen Hyflex classrooms in COE buildings to support video conferencing, lecture recording, and a variety of screen-sharing options.
“Glen is a trained engineer who came to CSULB after decades working in private industry. He has broad knowledge in an astounding number of technical areas: mechanical, thermal, fluids, electrical and even lasers. The university is lucky to have someone of his caliber working here…Glen is one of those colleagues who is always willing to help, can be counted on to get the job done, and is a real joy to work with.”
Glen enjoys spending time with his family and watching his daughter compete in track and cross-country for Wilson High School.