Victoria Stratman to Retire

To: The Caltech Community
From: Thomas F. Rosenbaum
Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and Professor of Physics
Date: January 14, 2019
Re: Victoria Stratman

Dear Colleagues,

Victoria Stratman, who has served the Institute with distinction and dedication as Caltech's general counsel since 2009, will retire from her position this coming summer. I have appointed an Institute-wide search committee to identify Vicci's successor. The committee is chaired by Jean Ensminger (HSS), who is joined by trustees Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Ronald Olson, Steve Mayo (BBE division chair), Joe Shepherd (EAS, vice president for student affairs), René Fradet (JPL chief financial officer) and Mary Webster (secretary to the board of trustees). Julia McCallin, associate vice president for human resources, will staff the committee. The committee will solicit broad input from the Caltech community, information that will play a key role in its deliberations and recommendations.

Vicci has stood out as an astute, agile, and strategic counselor to the Institute and its leadership over her 23-year Caltech career. She has served to protect and advance Caltech's interests on matters ranging from employment law to intellectual property, and in all legal proceedings in which the Institute has been a party. Significant among Vicci's responsibilities was her extraordinary work to negotiate renewals of Caltech's prime contract with NASA for the management of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Vicci's impact has extended well beyond legal advice. She has served Caltech admirably as a member of senior management, contributing broadly to discussions of policy and potential opportunities to improve the operations of the Institute, and to advance its wider interests. My predecessors and I have depended on Vicci's steadfast defense of the Institute's values and her devotion to our students, faculty, and staff.

Prior to joining Caltech, Vicci was a litigation partner specializing in labor and employment law at the firm of O'Melveny & Myers, which she joined in 1983. Vicci is a member of the California bar and is admitted to practice in all California federal district courts, the Ninth, Seventh, and Tenth Circuits, and the United States Supreme Court. She is a member of the National Association of College and University Attorneys and the American Association of Corporate Counsel. Vicci graduated from the University of Iowa College of Law and earned an A.B. in zoology with a specialization in microbiology from the University of Missouri.

We will have an opportunity as a community to celebrate Vicci's manifest contributions later this year. For the time being, please join in thanking Vicci for all that she has done and continues to do for Caltech.