Vice President, HR Services Lynn Johnson to Depart in the Coming Months
January 27, 2023
Dear Colleagues,
After almost 35 years of dedicated service, Lynn Johnson, Vice President, HR Services, has advised me that she will be leaving Stony Brook University in the coming months. She has been a strong, caring, and compassionate colleague and leader who has made significant contributions to SBU. Please join me in congratulating her and wishing her all the best.
Lynn has been a wise source of counsel and a critical problem solver for me, as well as for vice presidents and deans across the university on all matters HR, including those of the greatest urgency. She began her current role as VP in 2012, when then-President Stanley invited her to join his leadership team as the first vice president of Human Resource Services (HRS). In this position, she leads a division of 70 staff members who, together, provide a full spectrum of HR services to more than 9,000 faculty and staff employed on the west campus, in the Renaissance School of Medicine, the Schools of the Health Sciences, and at Stony Brook Southampton. The division also provides payroll services to the entire campus of more than 20,000 faculty, staff, and students.
Lynn has represented SBU in organizations such as the American Research Universities Human Resources (ARU-HR) Institute, as well as the Metro New York Southern Connecticut Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC). She has also served on various state-wide and local committees. And, in one of the most widely acclaimed and critical science and technology partnerships in our region, she helped transition more than 3,000 Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) employees to new management, policies, procedures, and culture when SBU first became a managing partner for BNL in 1998. She continues her work to support this partnership through the joint appointment program.
On campus, Lynn has led and collaborated on countless team projects and most recently is working with a team on the HR Now initiative to provide the university with an architecture for HR services that will benefit us well into the future.
During the height of COVID and throughout the pandemic, I could rest assured that Lynn, like other great leaders and individuals all across our university, was stepping up to do what needed to be done, often with 24/7 service and dedication. It required the ability to think out of the box and act with grace under pressure, both of which are attributes of Lynn’s.
Under her leadership and in collaboration with other groups, Lynn’s HR team developed a COVID health information line that continues to provide a hotline for COVID concerns. They also helped craft and disseminate continuous messaging around everything from changing COVID testing requirements, to vaccine availability, and ultimately to a five-phase return to the workplace plan.
As significant as her accomplishments on paper, Lynn is also a role model for providing a steady, level-headed approach to problem solving as well as being a relationship builder who always strives to bring people to consensus. Throughout her career, she has said an important focus has been to serve as a “trusted advisor.” And she has expressed continuous gratitude for working with a great and dedicated HRS team.
I know I speak for so many others across the university when I say that while we hate to see Lynn leave, her work and accomplishments have positioned us well for the future, and we are grateful for all she has done for this institution and its employees.
Maurie McInnis
President