Mona Melanson, SPHR

Current

Co-Director of Programs at ASTD-San Diego (Amer. Society for Training & Development)
Vice President, HR Consultants SIG at SDRR (San Diego Recruiters' Roundtable)
Senior Human Resources Consultant at Aviso HR Associates, LLC

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Past

Events & Activities Chair, 2009 at Institute of Management Consultants, San Diego Chapter
HR Director at Foundation for Educational Achievement
HR Manager at Eaton Corp (Powerware)

HR Manager at Eaton Corporation
HR Manager at Invensys
HR Manager at Powerware
Vice President of Placements at San Diego SHRM
Corporate HR Director at Dade Behring Inc.
HR Manager, Information Systems at IMC Global, Inc.
Director, Returned Volunteer Career Services at Peace Corps
HR Consultant/Personnel Manager at Bank of America
U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer, English Teacher at Peace Corps

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9 more...

Education

National Conflict Resolution Center
University of California, San Diego - The Rady School of Management
DISC Provider Training

Kean University
The George Washington University

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2 more...

Recommended

9 people have recommended Mona

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Human Resources

Mona Melanson, SPHR’s Summary

Senior Human Resources professional with extensive experience in diverse industries. Expertise in start-up operations, rapid expansion, redeployment, and turnarounds in the U.S. and internationally. Experience working in progressive HR functions. Results oriented with a strong track record of success delivering the desired business results. M & A and divestiture experience. Green Belt trained. Conversational Spanish and Thai skills.

Mona Melanson, SPHR’s Specialties:

* High-volume Talent Acquisition * Employee Relations * Union Avoidance
* Organizational Development * Compensation & Benefits
* Talent Management and Succession Planning
* Global HR
* Due Diligence * Corporate Compliance

Mona Melanson, SPHR’s Experience

Co-Director of Programs

ASTD-San Diego (Amer. Society for Training & Development)

(Human Resources industry)

January 2008 — Present (1 year 7 months)

By the end of 2008, I was able to persuade the Board to add a Co-Director of Programs to help lighten and redistribute the workload. Last year Annie Russo was a huge help as Programs Coordinator and so were Cathy Dellas and Dana Bristol-Smith as North County Coordinators). This year, together with Mary Van Hee (Co-Director of Programs), Wendy Evers (Registration Chair for second year), Rebecca Melillo (North County Coordinator), Amy Berger (E-and Blended Learning Coordinator), and wonderful volunteers such as Camille Courier, Ercia Franchessi, Madeline Falco, and John Curran we have a great team! Together, we have raised the bar even higher, once again improving the quality of program offerings and raising overall attendance rates. Thanks to Amy Berger, we now offer free podcast interviews of speakers prior to each meeting. Please go to www.astdsandiego.org to hear the interviews, find out more about our meetings, and to register for them. I hope to see you soon at a meeting, so be sure to introduce yourself to me and I will help you network with others while you are there!
Vice President, HR Consultants SIG

SDRR (San Diego Recruiters' Roundtable)

(Human Resources industry)

September 2007 — Present (1 year 11 months)

Co-founded the HR Consultants SIG (Special Interest Group) and merged it with the SDRR in 2008. Throughout 2008, we conducted monthly meetings. I coordinated a speaker series on topics of interest to HR consultants with Carole Trilling, who is now VP of Programs for the SDRR. Currently we are trying to determine the most effective ways the SDRR can help HR consultants as a group in these challenging times. For more information about the SDRR, please go to: www.sdrecruiters.com
Senior Human Resources Consultant

Aviso HR Associates, LLC

(Human Resources industry)

January 2007 — Present (2 years 7 months)

Completed a compensation related position classification project at the City of Carlsbad to re-evaluate all their IT and related technical postions. Additonally, made a series of recommendations to the City's senior management that were implemented regarding career paths and a new organizational design for IT and related technical operations.

Other projects included providing a variety of consulting services to smaller companies such as Global Health Trax Inc. in Carlsbad, CA and Allied Western Construction in Las Vegas, NV.

Completed a 6 month project at SKF Condtion Monitoring Inc. to revamp the technical recruiting function and develop and conduct interview training. Returned several months later to write the San Diego division's Affirmative Action Plan.

December 2006-February 2007, selected as one of four Team Leaders statewide for writing the Study Guides for the first ever California State Human Resources certification exam for SHRM, the Society for Human Resources Management. Edited and wrote most of the "Health, Safety, and Security" guide. Recognized by SHRM's HRCI (Human Resources Certification Insititute) as a Subject Matter Expert.
Events & Activities Chair, 2009

Institute of Management Consultants, San Diego Chapter

(Management Consulting industry)

2007 — 2009 (2 years)

Identify potential speakers and coordinate San Diego chapter meetings for this professional association that is part of the IMC national association. The IMC is dedicated to promoting excellence and advancing ethical standards in management consulting. It provides certification, education and professional resources to management consultants.
HR Director

Foundation for Educational Achievement

(Non-Profit; 201-500 employees; Individual & Family Services industry)

August 2005 — June 2006 (11 months)

A 450 employee non-profit with 5 separate divisions, headqurtered in San Diego, CA. Each divsion has their own unique HR policies, benefits eligibility rules and rates. Two of the divsions are small engineering colleges, one is being closed. Served as head of Human Resources and restored HR function after all HR staff had resigned months before my arrival. Met the number one urgently felt HR need of all the Division Presidents by providing better benefits options at competitive rates for employees through orchestrating selection of new benefits insurance broker and new health benefits plans. Saved the Foundation thousands of dollars by designing and conducting the state required sexual harassment prevention training for all supervisors and met the mandatory deadline in under 5 months.
Freed up managers’ time and avoided hundreds of thousands in potential legal fees by successfully resolving harassment complaints, employee relations issues, and workers’ compensation problems.
HR Manager

Eaton Corp (Powerware)

(Human Resources industry)

2000 — 2005 (5 years)
HR Manager

Eaton Corporation

(Public Company; 51-200 employees; ETN; Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing industry)

February 2000 — June 2005 (5 years 5 months)

An ISO 9001:2001 certified engineering design, software development, sales and service center for the Powerware UPS divsion in San Diego. Brought stability and promoted improvements through 9 restructurings while being divested by the British Invensys PLC and acquired by Eaton. Teamed with directors and managers in reducing turnover by 25% through improving employee relations by establishing and facilitating weekly “Management Council” meetings and engaging employees more.
Accelerated both the hiring of scarce skilled engineers, firmware and software personnel, and the transfer of technical managers from various Asian and European countries and Mexico. Collaborated with Managers in increasing staff size from 150 to a high of 278 and coordinated 11 waves of staff reductions bringing size down to 72 by my last week.Ended increased government scrutiny and threatened interference by successfully passing four OFCCP desk audits over a two-year period.
HR Manager

Invensys

(Public Company; Computer Software industry)

2000 — 2004 (4 years)

Powerware was owned by Invensys PLC until it was sold to Eaton Corporation in 2004
HR Manager

Powerware

(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing industry)

February 2000 — 2004 (4 years)

The name of the facility in San Diego changed several times while I worked there. for a while it was called Invensys Powerware, then just Powerware, and ultimately Eaton Corp. acquired it.
Vice President of Placements

San Diego SHRM

(Human Resources industry)

2001 — 2002 (1 year)

Made the business case, created a RFP and introduced the chapter's first online job posting system.
Corporate HR Director

Dade Behring Inc.

(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Medical Devices industry)

September 1998 — June 1999 (10 months)

Dade Behring is a spin-off of Baxter that is a privately held, clinical systems diagnostics company. Partnered with executives to deliver all corporate employee relations, talent acquisition, compensation and benefits administration in the headquarters office in Deerfield, IL. Improved time to fill jobs and lowered hiring costs by 65% creating strategic staffing and marketing plans for all departments and reducing use of agency and retained search firms. Co-designed company’s first standardized job descriptions, career paths, and core competencies for global IT staff.
HR Manager, Information Systems

IMC Global, Inc.

(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; IGL; Chemicals industry)

June 1997 — August 1998 (1 year 3 months)

A Fortune 500 mining and chemical company that produces crop nutirents and animal feed supplements. Established the first dedicated HR function in Information Systems to staff a global Oracle ERP implentation project at their Bannockburn, IL site. Achieved a time-to-fill rate of less than 90 days for scarce-skilled systems staff needed for major global conversion to client/server Oracle ERP environment by creating unique marketing/hiring campaign. Expedited the transfer of over 60 business systems analysts from the Canadian mining division by establishing and administering the first expatriate relocation program. Obtained H1-B and L visas.
Director, Returned Volunteer Career Services

Peace Corps

(Government Agency; 5001-10,000 employees; International Affairs industry)

1992 — 1995 (3 years)

Referred and counseled former volunteers and staff after completing offshore assignments for systems, engineering, business, environmental, public health, community development, teaching, and government jobs. Designed and conducted weekly career management and re-entry training programs in the U.S. and in Grenada and Latvia. Authored several career guides and oversaw publication of bi-monthly career newsletter.
HR Consultant/Personnel Manager

Bank of America

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; BAC; Human Resources industry)

1983 — 1990 (7 years)

Began as Manager of Succession Planning for the World Banking Group. Then was Personnel Manager for a start-up systems applications development and data center in Hong Kong. Staffed 82 systems jobs in 6 months without using employment agencies at start of “brain drain”. Prevented expat law suits and hostile union actions in Manila. Designed and implemented changes to local staff compensation and benefits programs for 200 predominately union employees in the Jakarta Branch. Recovered over $200,000 in under 6 months.Returned to become an internal Staffing Consultant. Reduced costs of $17M domestic relocation program. Earned national award from the Employee Relocation Council as technical author of two new relocation guides. Performed HR due diligence reviews. Authored a monthly series of career mangement articles for two years for Bank's employee newsletter. Wrote four career- related articles for the Wall Street Journal’s National Business Employment Weekly.
U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer, English Teacher

Peace Corps

(Government Agency; International Affairs industry)

1969 — 1971 (2 years)

Taught English as a Second Language in a Thai High School in Nontaburi Province north of Bangkok. On weekends conducted teacher training programs for elementary school English teachers in the province. Helped run an English language summer camp for fifth graders on the island of Phuket as a summer project.

Mona Melanson, SPHR’s Education

National Conflict Resolution Center

Certificate , The Exchange, Strategies for Managing Conflict in the Workplace , 2009 — 2009
University of California, San Diego - The Rady School of Management

Certificate , Business Strategy for Senior Human Resources Leaders , 2007 — 2007

Course taught at UCSD in partnership with Insead.
DISC Provider Training

Certificate , DISC , 2007 — 2007

DISC certified as instructor for communication styles and team building.
Kean University

MA , Student Personnel Services
The George Washington University

BA , Social Studies/Secondary Education

Additional Information

Mona Melanson, SPHR’s Interests:

Instructor, part-time in evenings of Health and Safety Mangement in San Diego State University's HR Certificate Program, 2003-2005; taught an overview of HR and Compensation Management at George Washington University Extension from 1995-1996; and previously taught Recruitment, Interviewing and Selection at UC Berkeley Extension from 1989-1990.

Mona Melanson, SPHR’s Groups:

TopLinked.com, Programs Director, ASTD San Diego 2008 -Present; Community Outreach Chairperson, Board Member, San Diego Industrial Liaison Group, 2003-2004
Board Member, San Diego Society for Human Resources Management, 2001-2002
Member of San Diego CBA, NHRA, SDRR & SHaRE

Campbell Networks
Linked:HR (#1 Human Resources Group)
LION™ Worn with Pride! [Choose wisely ... ] < BEWARE OF COUNTERFEITS >
Worldwide Management Consultants (22,000+ members)
ERE.net
Project Management Link
Global Worker
HRCA
Project Manager Networking Group
Lean Six Sigma
SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) UV SHRM Networking Tool
SHRM Networking Group
San Diego Business
Consultants Network
Expat Network
Human Resource Executive Association
TopLinked.com (Open Networkers)
Workplace Learning and Performance Forum
Speakers and Panelists
HR Net Group
Road Warriors
Leading International Open Networkers (LION)
Executive Consultants
GroupLinked.com
RPCV - Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
The George Washington Alumni Association
$Thailand Connection ราชอาณาจักรไทย \ Professionals and Friends$ Thailand Connection ราชอาณาจักรไทย \ Professionals and Friends
Hong Kong Connection
Advanced Project Management Topics
ProHR
Human Resources US
Human Resources Asia
RPCVs in International Business
San Diego Recruiters Roundtable
Kean University Alumni of New Jersey
Human Resources Professional Network
San Diego HR & Recruiting Professionals
SPHR Network
Eaton Alumni
LION500.com (Open Networkers)
linked HR emea | 2100+ - 60+ countries - 15 local chapters - 4 partner communities
San Diego Professionals
Human Resources Professionals: THE "Unofficial" forum for SHRM Members
Human Resources Training Network
PMI San Diego
Center for Conflict Dynamics
Global Asia Network
ExecuNet - San Diego and Irvine
Remote Project Outsourcing Direct Management for Web Development, Software & Business Projects