Frances Laskey

I am currently a lecturer in Professional Communications at the UW-Madison School of Business, after more than 25 years of working in the private sector. I worked for 20 years at Berkeley Policy Associates (Oakland, CA), first as office manager, eventually as director of human resources and IT manager; also served on BPA's Board of Directors and as a trustee of BPA's ESOP. Prior to that, I worked for a husband-and-wife power electronics consulting firm (E/J Bloom Assoc.) and a Japanese international trading company (Mitsui). I served as president of the California Employer Advisory Council (and president of the East Bay Employer Advisory Council, a local chapter of the CEAC), an organization that provides training and networking to HR professionals, as well as linking employers to the California Employment Development Department. I also served as secretary of Small Business California, a small business advocacy group. I have given presentations on HR management and, for the ESOP Association, presentations of HR management in the context of employee ownership. I have also worked as a freelance editor since 2007.

I received my BA in French from UC Berkeley (1983), MAs in English from Mills College (2010) and UW-Madison (2012), and completed PhD coursework in Literary Studies at UW-Madison in 2014. My first academic teaching experience was as a teaching assistant at Mills; I have since taught courses in literary studies and composition at both Mills and UW-Madison. My current position, teaching professional communications, brings together my management, writing, presentation, and teaching skills and experience.