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August employees of the month

Jolene Fairchild University support staff

Jolene Fairchild

Started at KU: 1976.

Current title: Budget officer, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

What that means: Fairchild oversees an annual budget of $80 million in state funds and $40 million in external research funds.

Notable: The University Office of Internal Audit gave CLAS a positive report after a recent audit. The success was due in large part to Fairchild's leadership in budget operations.

Douglas Byers Unclassified employee

Douglas Byers

Started at KU: 1998.

Current title: Budget administrator, KUCR.

What that means: Byers oversees a multimillion-dollar budget that includes NSF and Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation contributions.

Notable: Byers maintains detailed accounting of grant funding received, monitoring the budgets of literally dozens of projects. He also routinely fields requests from awardees for rebudgeting and time extensions.

NOTABLE ALUMS

KU and Harvard are still the only universities that presently can claim two elected women governors as alums – Kansas' Kathleen Sebelius, who earned a MPA degree, and former Arizona Gov. Jane Dee Hull, an education graduate. However, if Kerry Healy is elected Massachusetts governor in November KU will fall behind Harvard.