NSU Horizons Fall 2011

32 horizons When the George W. Bush adminis- tration looked for someone to help organize the human resources function at the fledgling Department of Home- land Security, it was NSU alumnus Tom Cairns , D.B.A., class of 1996, who got the call. At that time, the five-year-old agency had run through six human capital officers who had been tasked with integrating the staff of six separate federal agencies and hiring for the newly created Transportation Security Admin- istration (TSA). Many might have shrunk from the challenge, but a life- time of educational and professional experience had prepared Cairns for the undertaking. For more than 30 years, Cairns has been a troubleshooter, a professional specialist who can enter an organization, determine what is going wrong and why, and develop ways to fix the problem. Following a tour in the United States Air Force, Cairns began his career in human resources when he joined the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). At the time, RCA was a manufacturing corporation; a defense contractor; and an early innovator in privatized support services to federal, state, and local governments. In his role at RCA, Cairns provided employee and labor relations support to job corps centers, a variety of Department of Defense contracts, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Alaska. He also ran the employee relations functions of RCA, providing support to the U.S. Army at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and the City of New York. When RCA was purchased by General Electric (GE) in 1986, Cairns was transferred to the television arm of the corporation, National Broadcasting Company (NBC), in Miami, at the local television station WTVJ. During this period, Cairns was working on his master’s degree in human resources at NSU’s H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship. He also hired a faculty member from the Huizenga School, Bob Preziosi, Ph.D., to assist in creating a supervisory training program for employees at the Miami station. Preziosi encouraged Cairns to continue his education and enter the Doctor of Business Administration program at NSU. Cairns was then tapped to lead the newly created human resources function for the recently acquired NBC television station in Philadelphia. There, he developed a program to groom current employees for promotions and assisted in integrating the television station into the NBC culture. In addition to his NBC duties, Cairns was selected to participate in a team led by GE human resources gurus, under CEO Jack Welch, to create smaller, highly efficient work- forces throughout the corporation, its subsidiaries, and vendors. This experience was the basis of Cairns’ NSU doctoral dissertation. Later, Cairns moved to Los Angeles, where he served as senior vice president of human resources for NBC and NBC Universal, until his retirement after 30 years with GE. alumni profile Secure in a Lifetime of Challenges By Joanne Ferchland-Parella Vice President of Institutional Advancement Tom Cairns returned to the private sector in 2009.