Individual Award

Alexander Redfern is an operations supervisor for Michigan State University’s Infrastructure Planning and Facilities, or IPF, in the materials and logistics department. The department is responsible for all aspects of directly supporting the campus skilled trades. In addition to the general responsibilities of this position, Redfern is tasked with managing the DEI supplier program for the department, serving on the IPF Supplier Diversity Committee, assigning DEI-related goals to all buying staff and creating diverse spending reports capturing overall expenditures, number of vendors and breakdown of diversity demographics.

Redfern uses the performance excellence process to measure his team’s development and success in achieving its yearlong educational goal, most notably in the T-shaped competencies of Global Understanding, Empathy and Collaborative Communicator. His employees have taken 113 DEIrelated courses and classes such as cultural competencies, implicit bias and understanding pronouns. Additionally, he sets goals for his procurement staff to identify new suppliers that represent underrepresented groups to provide quote opportunities within each new calendar year. Redfern’s use of performance excellence tools for both professional development and diverse spending has become a model for all leaders at IPF.