Linda Garcia in Cannon Beach, Oregon.

A warm welcome to Linda Garcia, the new administrative assistant senior, whose friendly face greets visitors from the front desk into the administrative suite in 2220 Biological Sciences Building.

Garcia provides general departmental support for faculty, students and staff – everything from ordering the coffee that keeps the building personnel running to organizing administrative files and financials to managing special events. She coordinates the faculty recruitment process, weekly seminars, and annual symposia. It’s nearly impossible to capture the myriad questions and requests that land on her desk throughout the course of a day. She responds to telephone, email and walk-in inquiries for over 600 building occupants.

She’s worked for the University of Michigan since June 2011, starting as a temporary employee and hired 18 months later by the Museum of Paleontology. Soon after, her job became shared 70-30 between UMMP and the U-M Museum of Zoology.

Garcia was previously an administrative assistant for the Museum of Paleontology and an assistant editor for the Museum of Zoology. She and Michael Ehnis, Herbarium administrative specialist, tag teamed the front desk responsibilities for much of the past year while the position was being filled, which meant she hit the ground running. For UMMZ, Garcia worked on publications: editing, printing, publishing and selling, as well as managed the website and was involved in social media. She created the Research Museums Center website. For paleo, in addition to a bit of administrative work and social media, she managed the website and helped create the U-M Online Repository of Fossils (UMORF) from the ground up.

Garcia is looking forward to supporting multiple departments in a broader sense than in her previous roles and helping ensure things run smoothly. As the front desk support person in BSB, Garcia officially works with the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. She provides support for other units housed in the administrative suite: the Biological Station, the Museums of Natural History and Paleontology and a business office and human resources for the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

Her energy and enthusiasm are the perfect match for the role that makes her a central point of contact for multiple units.

For recreation, some Garcia faves are photography, quilting and travel. A recent vacation that stands out was a 2018 journey with her husband to Iceland. “The whole trip was extra special,” she recalled. “Standing on a glacier, the Nordic feel of things, the stark landscape, the architecture, the blue-green color of the ice that took on the form of sculptures.” In addition, calved ice, waterfalls and witnessing the spectacular Northern Lights were standouts from the trip.

If you haven’t met her yet, stop by the administrative suite on the second floor of the east tower to say hello. 

Read more in The University Record Staff Spotlight: Garcia takes on fossil records, filing and photography