OMRFers find a shared sense of purpose, camaraderie
Every day of the year but one, the ornate headpiece sits atop a shelf high in Chase Pierce’s office. But on the Friday before Thanksgiving, OMRF’s director of food services takes it down from its perch and dons the turkey hat.
While wearing the hat, Pierce leads the OMRF team that provides a free Thanksgiving lunch to all of OMRF’s employees. This past year, that meant 16 commercial-sized pans of green bean casserole and cornbread dressing. Two hundred fifty pounds of turkey meat (and, for non-meat eaters, 15 pounds of turkey substitute). Three hundred pounds of mashed and sweet potatoes. And 500 miniature apple, pecan and pumpkin pies.
“Pumpkin is always the favorite,” says Pierce, who’s been serving up the annual Thanksgiving feast since he joined OMRF in 2012.
The holiday meal offers scientific and administrative departments the chance to break bread and enjoy one another’s company outside of their usual workspaces. Meanwhile, foundation administrators lend a hand to the Research Café staff as they fill hungry OMRFers’ plates.
Adam Cohen, the foundation’s senior vice president and general counsel, mans a station restocking pies and salads at the event each year. “I’m not sure I’m actually helping much,” he says. “But I really enjoy interacting with everybody and letting them know how much we appreciate them.”
Over the past year, OMRF has engaged in a foundation-wide effort to define the organization’s shared values.
President Dr. Andy Weyrich circulates from table to table, visiting with staffers as they enjoy the feast. “I make sure to tell every employee thank you in person,” he says. “I want them to know how important each one of them is in accomplishing our mission.”
That mission – “…so that more may live longer, healthier lives” – was the subject of a foundation-wide exercise in 2024. In a series of listening sessions and polls, employees discussed and voted on whether OMRF’s mission statement, first articulated on the heels of the foundation’s birth in 1946, remains on point today. They answered with a resounding yes: More than 80% voted that the statement sh
ould remain OMRF’s north star.
In the process, employees also helped OMRF craft new vision and value statements, which were unveiled this summer. That roll-out continued in the fall, with the new values – represented by colorful puzzle pieces – installed prominently in the Research Café and in conference rooms across the foundation. In October, Weyrich hosted a come-and-go breakfast buffet where all staffers got to choose a mug emblazoned with their favorite value.
“My favorite OMRF value is being compassionate,” says Crystalynn Pachucki, a technician in OMRF’s Comparative Medicine Department. Meanwhile, Carli Hartley of Human Resources opted for a “collaborative” mug, “because we all have to work as a team to further OMRF’s mission.”
While OMRFers may differ on which value best resonates with them, when it comes to their feelings about the foundation, they spoke with a single voice. In anonymous employee polling conducted as part of The Oklahoman/USA Today’s annual Best Places to Work competition, OMRF ranked third among the state’s large employers (350-plus employees) for 2024, the eighth straight year the foundation has finished in the top five.
OMRF has ranked as a Top 10 Oklahoma Workplace every year since the competition began in 2011.
Vice President of Human Resources Courtney Stevens Greenwood is less concerned with plaudits than with ensuring OMRF remains a mission-driven organization that draws and keeps people who share a sense of purpose. “Our goal is to offer an environment where everyone understands their contributions make an impact,” she says. “We work hard to make OMRF a place where people want to spend a career.”
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Read more from the Winter/Spring 2025 edition of Findings
President’s Letter: The Life-Changing Impact of Clinical Research
The Searcher
Family Legacy
Voices
Ask Dr. James
Three-Peat
Meeting the Challenge
A Biologist From Birth
Coming to America
