Health Science Center Announces Organizational Changes

Several organizational changes have been announced at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Governmental Relations

Sabrina Midkiff

Mary Maher

Michael Tramonte

Sabrina Midkiff has been named chief governmental relations officer for The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Midkiff first joined the health science center full time as a governmental relations consultant in March 2005, to assist with briefings to the 79th Texas Legislature.

“Dr. Willerson and I will work closely with Sabrina to continue to offer the health science center’s perspective to elected officials at various levels of government,” said UT Health Science Center Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Michael McKinney, M.D.

Midkiff has almost 25 years of experience managing complex government affairs issues and legislation in Texas, Washington, D.C., Georgia, New York and Florida. She has worked for the Texas Governor, the Texas General Land Office, Houston Mayor Bob Lanier, and Houston-based Dynegy Inc. Her experience includes managing the city’s effort to gain legislative approval for financing professional sports arenas such as Minute Maid Park.

Human Resources

Mary Maher, most recently the executive director of human resources at the University of Houston, joined the UT Health Science Center at Houston as chief human resources officer. Her academic background is in counseling psychology. Previous employment in HR has been at the University of Michigan, Scripps Health in California, and the University of California at San Diego Medical Center, among others.

“I am confident that Ms. Maher’s skills will enable Human Resources to continue to support the three-pronged mission of the university by hiring and retaining the very best employees to undergird all the work we do here at the UT Health Science Center,” said Kevin Dillon, executive vice president for finance and administration, to whom Maher reports.

Finance & Administration

Michael Tramonte, formerly assistant vice president in the Office of Finance and Administration, has been named controller for the UT Health Science Center. As a part of Tramonte’s role as controller, he will assume oversight of the Benefits area, in addition to continuing oversight of Payroll, General Accounting, Cash Management, Capital Assets, Payment and Account Facilitation, Systems Data Resources, Financial Administrative Support, Employee Reimbursement and the Bursar’s Office.

Benefits now reports directly to Dee Warren, director of payroll, instead of to the chief human resources officer.

“Because of Mike’s outstanding financial and people skills, he has assumed even greater responsibilities than he had previously, for health science center financial and administrative functions,” said Kevin Dillon, to whom Tramonte reports. “He’s a tireless and effective manager who gets things done.”