Nelson is the Associate Director of Business Operations for the Smithsonian Institution. Based out of Washington, DC, Nelson describes a typical day of managing the “backroom” of the museum. This includes everything from human resources to budgeting to installation procurement.
Transcript
>> My name is Nelson Torres and I work at the Smithsonian Institution. And my job there is the associate director for business operations. And business operations is a very broad term for everything related to HR, budget, procurement, and contracting, personal property, accountable property, and general administration. It will -- it will span the gamut of everything related to HR and hiring. It could be with professional development and training. It could be with workforce structure. And that's just the personnel side of it. With the budget side, it could be the allocation of resources. It could be contracting, reviewing contracts, approving contracts. Property management. It is just the accounting of, you know, the million dollars worth of property that we have there at the Smithsonian. And then just general admin review and letters and documents and -- and that sort of thing. So, the nice thing about my job is I can control my schedule. And so I can allocate my work. The tough thing about my job is sometimes I can't control my schedule because there are things that happen in -- within the museum and it's a very dynamic institution. And so sometimes I think I know what I'm going to do on a daily basis but sometimes that just -- that just doesn't happen.
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