Hal Irvin named associate vice president for human resources

Hal Irvin, executive director of organizational development at Georgia Tech, has been named associate vice president for human resources at Virginia Tech.

In this position, Irvin will provide leadership for Virginia Tech’s human resource strategies and services. Virginia Tech Human Resources serves the campus by providing support for recruitment and hiring, employee benefits, organizational development, leadership and employee development, quality of work life initiatives, and other employment-related practices and policies for 1,300 full time instructional faculty, 550 research faculty, 750 administrative and professional faulty, and 3,700 staff members.

Irvin replaces Linda Woodard, who was named assistant vice president for administrative services and chief of staff to Vice President for Administrative Services Sherwood Wilson earlier this year.

According to Wilson, “Hal has the right combination of skills, vision, leadership ability, and human resource experience from a large public university that will be a tremendous asset to Virginia Tech. This will be of particular benefit as we continue the HR restructuring process.”

Before coming to Virginia Tech, Hal worked for 14 years at Georgia Tech. In his last assignment, he served as executive director of organizational development – reporting to the executive vice president for administration and finance and responsible for employee learning, change management, and internal consulting services. He played a central role in Georgia Tech’s successful efforts to improve administrative services and transform its service culture.

His consulting expertise in talent development, strategic planning, service improvement, and change management has been called on by executive leaders at a number of higher education institutions including Princeton, Emory, and the University of Michigan. He has written articles about improving customer service in higher education, providing internal consulting services within a university, and what an academic institution should consider as it decides whether to establish campuses internationally.

Irvin also was an adjunct faculty member in Georgia Tech’s College of Management and was an affiliate with the Georgia Tech Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship. He also held administrative positions at the University of Michigan, East Tennessee State University, and Tusculum College.

Irvin received his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from Vanderbilt University and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.