A warm welcome to new staff Damon Place and Kimberly Pavuk!

Damon Place began as the new Facilities Assistant on October 15th. Damon is new to the University and comes to the department with more than five years of experience working for the City of Chelsea Water Department. While at the City of Chelsea, he was partially responsible for maintaining the city water system and the equipment that supported the water system. This included maintaining one of only four Reverse Osmosis Filtration systems in the state of Michigan. He also preformed preventative maintenance and repairs on a variety of water department support equipment. The equipment he worked on ranged from water quality test equipment and autoclaves, to laboratory support equipment and backhoes. He worked in the water quality lab and also worked in the field on water main break repair calls.

Damon was a member of the United States Air force for four years, working in the 56th transportation wing stationed at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona. He also enjoys spending time with his nine-year old daughter Paige Roze and his wife Jackie. Damon's hobby is stock car racing and has received 27 Main event wins and three championships over the last seven years, two championships at Spartan Speedway in Mason, MI, and one championship at Springport Speedway in Springport, MI.

Kimberly Pavuk joins us as the new Student Administration Assistant in the Program in Biology . Kim joins us from the U-M College of Engineering where she worked for the Computer Science and Engineering division for three years. Prior to coming to the Ann Arbor Campus, Kim worked for University of Michigan - Flint, where she received her BA degree in Communication. She joined the Program in Biology full time on October 22nd. Kim joins Jill Beeson and Anna Cihak in the Program in Biology's new home in the Undergraduate Services Building. The Program in Biology, operated jointly by the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and by Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, is the formal administrative home for several concentrations in the life sciences.

Kim enjoys spending time with her husband and twin daughters (4 1/2 years old), baking bread from scratch, and "keeping track, with the kids, of the Mom and two baby deer that have taken up residence in our wooded backyard." She also enjoys landscaping her new house.