Spotlight on Volunteers by Skip Kay, C.P.M. Communications Chair
November's Interview Chrys Varnes, C.P.M. NAPM-OC President Elect

Chyrs Varnes grew up in Garden Grove and began her “full time” career as a finance officer for the City of Stanton, from there she moved to the City of Monterey Park where Purchasing was one of the new areas of responsibility. While working for the City of Stanton, she became a seasoned negotiator, thanks to the state mandate requiring cities to “meet and confer” with their employees, a big help in her purchasing career.

She learned a lot about mini computers when Monterey Park went through the process of replacing mainframes for budget, billing, payroll/human resources and purchasing. She designed new systems with contractors and was involved in marketing them to other agencies. After a stint as a police officer and the consulting jobs Chrys decided that purchasing was more challenging. The next move was to county government.

She began in San Luis Obispo where overall responsibilities increased considerably and included disposing of surplus from confiscated items from Sheriff’s Department. She learned a lot about “live” auction techniques. She handled all contracts for capital projects and developed and implemented all new procedures. Life was not exciting enough in San Luis Obispo, first there were not’t significant challenges on the job, other departments were both cooperative and supportive. One exciting challenge was related to the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant, which was going through the licensing process. There was significant emergency training with mandated drills and results. Public demonstrations gave rise to the need to “incarcerate” hundreds of people—feeding and housing beyond the scope of existing facilities. Talk about a quick education!

Next came San Joaquin County and Stockton. She really enjoyed the waterways in the area. Learning a lot about agriculture through land leases aided in rounding Chrys’ knowledge of such crops as sunflower seeds, watermelons, and grapes. The next position was as the head of Orange County’s purchasing function. A new area here was involvement with the training of staff workers. She was privileged to work with Dr. Art Lange who was just launching his now highly successful career. In addition, Chrys was responsible for assuring that the election equipment/technology contract was processed smoothly. Those particular elections changed the County’s reputation for being one of the last to complete election processing.

After five years with Orange County, she was offered a top purchasing job at Los Angeles County which involved the merger of Internal Services with data processing, real estate, facilities management and purchasing. Chrys played a big role in supporting those operations during the Northridge earthquake and the Rodney King riots. Among her challenges were: changing purchasing’s reputation from enforcer to enabler, closing countywide warehousing functions, initiating a direct delivery of food to county jails and probation camps. She headed up a group of police officers who enforced the law at welfare offices, courts (during the Simpson trial!) and was instrumental in their obtaining certification from the California Peace Officers Standards and Training. She also handled fleet management (everything with wheels and even Baywatch boats!) parking services (including Hollywood Bowl and the Music Center—even on Oscar night!) along with reducing the county’s real estate needs, returning much of it to the property tax rolls, while saving over $5 million a year in operational costs.

From there Chrys ventured into the fledgling B2B technology industry, as Director of Product Marketing and Channel Programs at Commerce One working with an impressive list of clients including General Motors and their subcontractors to the third level, Peoplesoft, GXS (GE Information Systems), Sterling Commerce, the Marmon Group. It wasn’t too long afterward that the six day week, twenty hour day convinced her to give up the “real world” and accept some consulting jobs that were offered to her. In this roll she worked with a huge non-profit marketing project, she also helped organizations become more efficient through spend management, turning Chief Purchasing officers into heroes! But again, the client demands made it difficult for Chrys to balance personal growth, home life and meeting client needs troublesome.

What is next? She still doesn’t know what she wants to do when she grows up. Currently, Chrys is studying for the PMI (Project Management Institute) certification exam for PMP (Professional Project Manager). Throughout her career, she has been responsible for managing many projects. She regrets that she did not take the time to learn about all of the tools and techniques to make it easier to achieve project success. Plus, she is working on some collaborative software applications to facilitate the project management process.

To sum it all up, Chrys says, “I am also enjoying renewing my old relationships and building new ones with other purchasing professionals.”