Human Resources Management

Karna Kurtz

Coach Categories:

Shipping / Distribution

Accounting / Finance

Consultant / Contractual

Health/Medicine

Internships/Trainees

Manufacturing / Warehouse

Part-time/Freelance

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Biography

Karna is an experienced professional with experience in a wide range of industries and organizational size as a result of her work in human resources and business consulting. Karna is an active listener, sought out by leaders for advice and coaching on complex situations. Her communication skills are tactful, yet direct and to the point. Her examples and ability to role play situations help the leader become confident in their ability to articulate their message and desired actions clearly and positively.

As an HR professional Karna has interviewed an array of candidates for positions on the production floor, to specialized nursing care, to the board room. She has worked in manufacturing, medical device manufacturing, health care, professional services (consulting, CPA & law firm), retail and marketing services. She has worked in start up companies as well as large complex organizations.

Karna is an active volunteer. She has served on the Board of Directors for Minnesota Literacy Council, NE Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, Northeast Minneapolis Community Development Corporation. During her years at the University of Minnesota she volunteered as a mock interviewer, assisting new graduates with their interview skills. Currently Karna volunteers time through the Salvation Army, Project Breakthrough assisting single parents, with unique challenges, in becoming employed.

Karna s career began in manufacturing at Wagner Spray Tech Corporation. Wagner manufactures home improvement equipment and is an international company. When she started at Wagner it had approximately 250 employees and grew to well over 2000 employees while she was employed there. The rapid growth of the business gave her opportunities for growth as well. Beginning as a HR assistant and receiving promotions to HR Technician, HR Generalist and Benefits Administrator. She was often assigned special projects and was an early adopter of HRIS systems. Karna learned most of her basic professional skills at this organization. Basics in understanding the business, how the HR supports the business goals and how to listen to leaders issues and concerns in order to help remove barriers to the organizations success.

Karna continued to work in a manufacturing environment at Twin City Fan and Blower(TCF&B). The company designs and manufactures air movement systems and is a family owned, privately held company. With manufacturing facilities in South Dakota and Engineering and Corporate Headquarters in the Twin Cities, Karna managed a weekly payroll and acted as an HR Generalist for the organization. While she worked at TCF&B she continued to work on her bachelor of arts degree from the University of Minnesota.

Upon completing her degree, she decided to return to employee benefit management and worked at a law firm, Fredrikson & Byron P.A. During her time there she reduced employee benefit costs by 25% and implemented the HRIS system and linked it with payroll.

Leaving Fredrikson & Byron, Karna began her first consulting company. She had three clients and soon realized she had much to learn about running her own business. One of her clients offered her a full time position and she accepted. Returning to a manufacturing environment at Schott Corporation.

Schott Corporation was a family owned, privately held electronic and maganetic component manufacturer. Schott Corporation was in difficult financial times and needed a business turn-around. Acting as a part of a cross-functional team, Karna created and led an HR department with staff in three remote locations. She also became responsible for oversight of quality and preparation for ISO certification. During her years at Schott Corporation she participated in the roll out of a sister organization, Schott Power Systems and the purchase of a third company, Schott High Voltage located in Utah. Desiring to try her hand at running her own business, and believing she had acquired many of the necessary skills, Karna left Schott Corporation as an employee and began her own consulting company.

B.P. Services & Consulting was created originally to provide an outsourced HR service to small companies who were growing yet, not yet ready to hire a full time HR professional. As her reputation grew Karna worked on a wide variety of projects and provided leadership coaching, full spectrum training and development services, project management, merger/acquisition integration services, strategic planning and coaching of entrepreneurs whose businesses or leaders were ready for a change but needed assistance with that change process. Karna worked with small and large companies. Much of her work was in the specialty health care services field, where she acted as HR director during transitions, hired staff for kidney dialysis. After eight years, Karna began to look for a business partner, not successful in finding one she accepted a position at the University of Minnesota.

While at the University of Minnesota Karna held three positions. First as an HR Consultant in the Office of Human Resources, in the Compensation and Employee/Labor Relations department. She coached leaders from nine twin city units and the Duluth campus on a wide array of policy/procedure, labor contract issues and facilitated grievance and problem solving meetings. Next, she moved to the Carlson School of Management as the HR Director and re-created an HR function for the school. Ready to return to private sector, Karna was offered an opportunity to do special projects for the University. She acted as a special consultant through the merger of five colleges into three, she provided writing services to the compensation area in updating job descriptions for the overall compensation system and she acted as a special consultant during a leadership transition in the college of liberal arts.

While performing her work at the University, Karna completed her MBA through the Executive MBA program at the Carlson School of Management.

Specific Coach/Interview Skills

Active Listening

Role Playing

Constructive Critism

Behavior Based Interviewing

Stress Interviewing

Companies Recruited for and Years Experience

Wagner Spray Tech Corporation 3 yrs

Twin City Fan & Blower 2 yrs

B.P. Services & Consulting Clients 8 yrs

University of Minnesota 7 yrs

Education

School Name: University of Minnesota

Major, Degree, Certification, Diploma: BA - Communication Studies, MBA

School City: Minneapolis School State: Minnesota

List Professional HR Memberships / Certifications

Minnesota Career Development Association

Society of Human Resource Management

English as a Second Language Instructor

Special Skills or Services

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