This podcast is a visit with Texas A&M's first chief operating officer, Greg Hartman, in a group ZOOM call with local reporters on August 31, 2021.

An administrative reorganization at Texas A&M by new president Katherine Banks has the university in a pretty exclusive club.

Greg Hartman is starting his fourth month as A&M's new chief operating officer (COO) after moving from leading the A&M health sciences center.

Hartman recently told reporters the COO position, which is used by fewer than a dozen universities, oversees functions that includes facilities, I-T, and human resources...whose customers are A&M employees and students..."to allow folks who do academics and research to do the great work that they do."

At the same time, an outside consultant is finishing their study of A&M's operations. Hartman says "There are some areas where we think there's been some duplication created. And it's not the fault of any one person. It's just a large organization like this. There's a fair amount of momentum over time that allows things to be created different places in responses to real specific incidents. And those structures sort of stay in place and they create a fair amount of underbrush in the organization that you have to kinda clean out every once in a while. I don't expect any kind of massive layoffs or any kind of stuff. That's not what this is about."

Hartman also reported about one-third of A&M employees and students completed mandatory pandemic testing during the first week of the testing period. The positivity rate of that group was 2.7 percent.

Vaccinations and wearing masks continue to be strongly encouraged.