Judy Reed’s work makes it possible for 330,000 university paychecks to be issued each year
Judy Reed may just be one of Virginia Tech’s most valuable employees.
As a human resources transactions coordinator, she works quietly and quickly to process countless pay transactions and payroll processes each day from her workspace in the Department of Human Resources suite at the North End Center.
Reed has been committed to her work at the university for more than 35 years. She began her career at Virginia Tech in the Division of Student Affairs in 1979 and then joined human resources in 1987.
Reed is one of nine Virginia Tech employees nominated in 2015 to represent the university in the statewide Governor’s Award program. She was nominated in the customer service category. The winners were announced last month.
She is responsible for initiating the programs necessary to process the salary, wage, stipend, and summer payrolls for the university. Her duties include creating timecards and ensuring that information is accurate for payroll to be run by established deadlines for employees to be paid on time. Since taking on this responsibility in 1999 the number of Virginia Tech employees has increased approximately 47 percent. There are roughly 330,000 university paychecks issued each year.
“Despite having a very demanding and deadline-driven position within the university, Judy always has time to check in with her co-workers and offer a lending hand or a hug depending on the circumstances,” said Cathy Petry, director of support services in the Department of Human Resources.
One example of her unwavering commitment and willingness to do whatever is necessary to get her job done occurred in 2014 when university leadership decided to begin offering a winter academic session for students. The implementation posed a number of great challenges regarding how payment was to be issued to instructors administrating these courses. Reed accepted the challenges and initiated collaboration with the Provost’s Office.
The collaboration concluded with Reed taking the responsibility of manually entering each payment associated with the employees administrating courses in the Winter Session.
“Judy is always ready and willing to help with whatever comes her way — whether it be distributing candy to her weary co-worker, just as a pick me up, or barreling through the wage and salary payroll like it’s nothing,” said Kelly Griffith, Reed’s colleague for the past 11 years. “She lives Virginia Tech’s motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve) every day,” said Griffith.
Dedicated to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech takes a hands-on, engaging approach to education, preparing scholars to be leaders in their fields and communities. As the commonwealth’s most comprehensive university and its leading research institution, Virginia Tech offers 240 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to more than 31,000 students and manages a research portfolio of $513 million. The university fulfills its land-grant mission of transforming knowledge to practice through technological leadership and by fueling economic growth and job creation locally, regionally, and across Virginia.
