The University of Iowa will name a top human resources official to manage its hospital and medical college workforce after the previous administrator abruptly resigned and received a $450,000 severance payment after a short tenure. A UI Health Care search committee met several times in recent months to narrow a pool of 69 applicants to be its next associate vice president for human resources and a hiring decision is expected in the near future. Whoever is selected will replace Chad D. Simmons, a former Kraft Foods executive who had no experience in healthcare or academia before being hired for the job overseeing a workforce of roughly 10,000 full-time employees in January 2009. The university paid consulting firm Witt/Kieffer more than $109,000 for help with the prior search, and Simmons said he was contacted about the job by the firm.
