It is my pleasure to offer this letter in support of Gretchen Cannon’s application for employment with your organization. I worked closely with her for thirteen years in my capacity as Vice President for Student Affairs at Georgia State University. Student Affairs was one of six major administrative divisions of the University, composed of twenty departments and programs, serving the co-curricular needs of 52,000 students with an annual operating budget of approximately $60M and over 1,000 employees.

I know that you are familiar with her responsibilities at Georgia State, so I will not summarize them here, but I do wish to emphasize the fact that the scope of her responsibilities increased dramatically during the time we worked together. Within three years of her employment, the University made a major commitment to the expansion and professionalization of its public relations presence. With no additional resources, Ms Cannon, a member of our division staff, not an employee of central PR, assumed responsibility for insuring our division’s compliance in all aspects of our print, social media and web presence.

During the same period, the University experienced dramatic programmatic and enrollment growth. The number of programs and events to be promoted by her office increased by conservatively 500% and our marketing efforts evolved to embrace social media as well. With the acquisition of Perimeter College, Ms. Cannon assumed responsibility for providing oversight, production and marketing leadership for our programs across five more campuses, again without additional resources.

A review of her portfolio provides abundant evidence of her artistic and technical skills, but I would like to speak to those qualities which may not be so apparent in that context. I so valued her insight and creativity that I included her on my Senior Staff, which was comprised of my Associate and Assistant Vice Presidents and my Chief Financial Officer. This distinction was extended to none of the other department heads serving at the Director’s level. Her confidence was critical to participating as an equal player in that environment and her fresh perspective and candor proved invaluable.

Her work was characterized by her attention to detail, her commitment to quality, her creativity and her strong work ethic. Ms. Cannon truly appreciates the value of seeing “the big picture.” She thinks systemically and has a fine sense for discerning interrelationships and the potential for cooperative ventures across administrative boundaries.

Most of the production work in her design studio was done by student employees. It is no exaggeration to say that placement in her studio was highly coveted by our graphic arts majors due to her commitment to the training and development of her students. I was annually impressed by the fact that her graduating seniors routinely received employment offers from prestigious companies in their field.

In summary, I regard Gretchen Cannon as one of the finest professionals with whom it has been my good fortune to work. More than an experienced and talented colleague, she brings a degree of loyalty and dedication to her work which is most uncommon. That, coupled with her good sense of humor and sincerity, make working with her a true pleasure.

If I may be of further service in your evaluation of her candidacy, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,
Dr. Douglass F. Covey, Sr. Clinical Assistant Professor
Department of Educational Policy Studies
College of Education and Human Development
Georgia State University
dcovey@gsu.edu | 770-500-2253

It is a privilege to write this letter of recommendation for Gretchen S. Cannon, who is a candidate for a position at your company. As the Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs, I had the pleasure to work with Gretchen and supervise her for many of her fifteen years at Georgia State University. I was fortunate to interview her for her initial position and ultimately hire her for her first position at Georgia State. She was the first person to hold the position for which she was hired in the Division of Student Affairs, and was responsible for the actual development of the tasks related to execute the job responsibilities, record keeping, equipment needs and everything else necessary to create the websites for the division.

Throughout her fifteen years, she earned well deserved promotions because of her abilities and her ideas for making the Division of Student Affairs well known at Georgia State and throughout professional realms. There are so many qualities and abilities I could list in regards to Gretchen, however, I want to focus on the ones that make her one of the most outstanding people I have ever worked with or supervised.

These qualities come to mind when I think of Gretchen: her enthusiasm; her work ethic; her ability to teach others and share her knowledge; and her genuine desire to educate the staff on the importance of portraying the university in the most positive, engaging manner possible. Adding to these qualities are her technical abilities and knowledge of software, web development, design theory and artistic instinct that all help further the mission of recruiting, educating and graduating Georgia State University students.

First, Gretchen's enthusiasm is unmatched. She approaches every project with great thought. She is tenacious in the fact that no problem presented to her is insurmountable. She tackles all projects with a goal in mind, always developing a well thought out plan that outlines clear steps for accomplishment. She has the ability to look at an idea and bring it to life always looking to how it will help Georgia State and particularly students.

Second, Gretchen has an unmatched work ethic. I have never known Gretchen to miss a single deadline, most often completing projects well in advance. She is tireless, working from beginning to end. She works at a pace that most people cannot meet. I have never heard her tell someone that she could not do what they are asking her to do. If presented with an unfamiliar idea, she studies and learns whatever necessary to accomplish the task.

Third, Gretchen has a genuine desire to teach others. She developed the idea of employing students majoring in creative design to create the marketing materials used to advertise programs. Her office has become a working/learning environment with a hands-on experience for these students. She conducts training sessions for them, individually and in a group setting. She reviews their work for accuracy, always using the opportunity to teach them techniques not taught in their classroom setting. She has been instrumental in assisting several of them in the development of their portfolios which helped them obtain positions far above what most new graduates could secure. She is consulted by others outside the division to share ideas and skills and to problem solve and is a well-known source of information and experience at Georgia State.

Fourth, Gretchen has the most sought-after skills and abilities in the most current software and equipment on the market. The use of the web has changed greatly over the past few years, and Gretchen has educated herself on the ways the web can benefit companies, utilizing different publishing software and using analytics to make decisions on best practices for use of websites and other materials. Her artistic eye and instinct for what attracts others to artistic pieces is keen, and over her years at GSU, she has been recognized for her ideas in design and themes for marketing.

Finally, I want to say that Gretchen is an upstanding and valued employee. She is loyal, trustworthy, understanding and the best in her field. Any company would be fortunate to have her as a member of their staff. It is without hesitation that I recommend her to you and welcome the opportunity to discuss anything related to her employment at Georgia State University and my supervision of her.

Sincerely,

Carol M. Clark
Former Assistant Vice President
Division of Student Affairs
Georgia State University
cclark@gsu.edu | 404-925-9349

I write to offer my wholehearted recommendation in support of Gretchen Cannon for employment with your organization. I was a member of the search committee who recommended her for hire at Georgia State University 15 years ago and the years since have proven that we could not have made a better choice. In 2012 I was hired as an Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs and it was my pleasure to be her supervisor until my retirement three years later.

During Gretchen’s career at Georgia State University, she directed all of the web, print and public relations efforts for the Division of Student Affairs, which grew to include over 20 departments and programs employing over 1,000 staff and students. The University’s enrollment also increased from under 30,000 to over 50,000 due to a merger with Perimeter College.

Over time the complexity of her responsibilities grew as well, with the rapid development of the web, content management systems, mobile devices, and graphics software. With her previous corporate experience in management and training she handled all of these demands with amazing skill and aplomb. And just as impressive was the fact that she handled the additional workload leading a small group of students majoring in graphic design. This meant that not only was Gretchen directing all of the web and print design needs for the Division, she was constantly managing, motivating and training a group of students to meet her high standards.

While my Assistant Vice President’s duties primarily involved budgetary and HR issues, several members of my family held art degrees and I learned to appreciate the many contributions of artistic talent to our world. It was in that light that I truly enjoyed working with Gretchen, watching her train and inspire her student staff and produce an enormous quantity of websites, flyers, brochures, displays, and other works. She and her staff routinely produced hundreds of pieces of work per month – with no departmental templates or shortcuts used.

I was most impressed with Gretchen’s work on the University’s transition to WordPress as its content management system, which began when I became her supervisor. The short timeline for the transition was ambitious even for small departments but was extremely difficult for our Division as many of our sites were much more complex. Not only did Gretchen pull off the impossible with no additional staff, she made the most beautiful and compelling sites on campus. Her sites were routinely used as examples of taking WordPress to its aesthetic and functional limits.

In my 30 years of employment with Georgia State University, there was no one I was more proud of working with than Gretchen Cannon. She is a very talented artist, a great visual communicator and an undauntable manager. To find all of these qualities in one individual is rare indeed.

If I may provide further information, feel free to contact me at any time.

Sincerely,
Jeff Walker
Former Assistant Vice President
Division of Student Affairs
Georgia State University
jeffwalker@gsu.edu | 404-413-1521

Gretchen Cannon began working for me in February 1999 as an instructor. Gretchen has proven herself to be one of the most proficient and dependable instructors at New Horizons. She has a natural ability to work with people – which can be seen in the class evaluations (provided by the students), as well as reviews provided by my department.

Gretchen also has a very high technical aptitude. She easily grasps the difficult concepts needed to teach advanced classes. Also, on her own time and without assistance, Gretchen passed many certification exams while teaching a full load of classes.

However, what has most impressed me about Gretchen is her flexibility and willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty to pull off a successful class, aid another co-worker or help a student. Gretchen has, on numerous occasions, stayed after work to assist her peers. Gretchen’s dedication has been recognized by the management of New Horizons, which named her instructor of the year in 1999 and 2003, awarder her the Circle of Excellence in 2003, and many other awards throughout her career.

In conclusion, although I wish we had not lost Gretchen at New Horizons, I believe that she would be an excellent asset to any company.

Please do not hesitate to contact me regarding this excellent candidate.

With warm regards,

Jerome Arrington
Training Manager
New Horizons Atlanta