A Canadian credited with bringing a global outlook to Santa Ana-based Ingram Micro Inc. was honored last week as 2009 Human Resources Executive of the Year by the Orange County affiliate of the National Human Resources Association.
Lynn Jolliffe, executive vice president of human resources at Ingram Micro, was one of four executives honored at a gala in Irvine.
A native of Toronto, Jolliffe was lauded for her work developing training programs for executives and managers, reworking compensation and incentives and tactfully handling layoffs during the downturn.
Ingram is the largest distributor of technology products and OC’s largest company by yearly sales, at $30 billion.
Jolliffe, who started with Ingram in Europe, has brought a global perspective to the company, said Bill Humes, the company’s senior executive vice president and chief financial officer.
Two-thirds of Ingram’s yearly sales and two-thirds of its 14,000 employees are from other countries, Humes said.
Jolliffe, who also was awarded the Excellence in Global HR Leadership award, helps keep sight of the company’s international makeup, which can get lost on top executives in Santa Ana, Humes said.
Before joining Ingram, Jolliffe worked was chief financial officer for Toronto’s Holt Renfrew Ltd., an upscale department store operator that once was furrier to Queen Victoria.
As a former financial chief, Jolliffe “is mindful of costs, which I appreciate,” Hume said.
She joined Ingram Micro in 1999 as vice president of human resources for Europe, working from Brussels, Belgium. Jolliffe came to the company’s headquarters in 2006 as human resources vice president for North America. She was promoted to her current position in 2007.
The eldest of four daughters, Jolliffe thanked her 84-year-old dad for encouraging her and her sisters to do anything. She jokingly thanked her colleagues at Ingram Micro for putting up with her Canadian pronunciations.
Three other human resources executives al-so were honored.
Mary Ellen Copek, who has the title of talent director at Santa Ana-based Sukut Construction Inc., won the Excellence in HR Transformation award.
Copek was honored for largely developing hiring, compensation, retention and other policies at the company, which does grading for housing developments and public works projects.
When Copek came to Sukut, “I think she was horrified” at the company’s lack of policies and procedures, Chief Executive Michael Crawford said.
Copek put in place policies “that didn’t kill Sukut’s family culture,” he said.
Pat Hasbrook, senior vice president of human resources at the North American headquarters of Britain’s Experian Group Ltd. in Costa Mesa, won the Excellence in Talent Development award.
She was honored for her work on recruitment, retention, compensation management and integration of ac-quisitions at Experian, which provides credit reports and other data.
Hasbrook built up and staffed operations in Costa Rica and Chile and helped integrate the 2007 acquisition of Bra-zil’s Serasa SA, according to Victor Nichols, Experian North Amer-ica chief executive.
Vicki Hewlett of Newport Beach-based Alliance Healthcare Services Inc. received the Excellence in Business Partnership award.
Alliance provides diagnostic medical imaging and cancer treatment services in 45 states. The company employs about 2,400 people.
Hewlett was honored for her work managing Alliance’s employees, integrating acquisitions and for her added duties dealing with the regulation of a healthcare company, said Michael Frisch, president of Alliance.
The company has to comply with regulations from government healthcare programs Medicare and Medicaid as well as from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in its chemotherapy business, Frisch said.
When Hewlett came on in 2007, she put in place polices for integrating acquisitions, recruitment, retention, orientation, workers’ compensation and healthcare coverage.
Frisch said she was able to negotiate 2010 healthcare benefits coverage for workers with no increase in cost. Local employers on average saw a 6.5% rise in healthcare premiums for 2010, according to Chicago-based Hewitt Associates Inc.
The local arm of the National Human Resources Association honors executives each year for their work in human resources.
Last year’s HR Executive of the Year, Lake Forest-based Apria Healthcare Group Inc.’s Howard Derman, told this year’s winners to expect “phone calls, cards, plants and Harry & David gift baskets.”
He encouraged the honorees to make time to tell about what they’ve done in jobs to others in human resources.
About 460 people were on hand for last week’s event at the Hilton Irvine/Orange County Airport hotel.
