Skip to main content

SLCC grants specialist also handy with a lasso

Ann Crissman has been known to lasso a budget or two while employed at Salt Lake Community College since November 2011 as a grants and contracts officer in the Office of Sponsored Projects.

And she can also handle a lariat for real, able to rope an ornery chair at 20 paces.



Crissman’s job at SLCC focuses on securing and managing federal funding by writing and monitoring grants that tap into funds from, for example, the U.S. Department of Labor. Other money streams she manages flow from the State of Utah through agencies like the Department of Workforce Services.

She handles grants that range in value from as little as $4,000 to two current federal grants each worth about $2.8 million, designed in part to help laid off or displaced workers train for new jobs or retrain to evolve in an existing job.

“My role in it is leading the program managers,” Crissman said.

Her big thing with grants is compliance, making sure managers of the programs at the college know what they can and can’t do with the money, relying on “volumes and volumes” of rules set by the school, state and federal government.

“I monitor all of that and help the grantees conform to, meet and exceed the grant requirements,” she said.

Some of those regulations are embedded in her mind, but her expertise is in being resourceful and knowing where to find the answers.

“Because if I were to try and stick all of that into my head I would explode,” Crissman laughed. “I don’t know how else to say that.”

If you benefit from a grant, you want Crissman on your team.

She will look at an existing grant and what its expected outcomes are in terms of types of curriculum offered, number of participants and finishers in the program and the percentage that will get jobs upon completion. After her careful analysis, she’ll meet with the program managers and go over their performance with the grant.

“I’m able to sort of get into it and give them different ideas on how to increase recruitment or outreach or even to say, ‘Hey, have you thought of trying this?’” she said. “Grants are a lot of work (to manage alone).”

It helps, Crissman added, when someone like her comes from the “outside” with knowledge of similar grants and then approaches a program manager with new ideas on how to make the grant work better.

“I have a hefty background in fixing things,” she said, referring to her previous employment with Unified Fire Authority, which when she started needed help with a backlog of issues with grants. To clarify the word “fixing,” she described it like taking something that’s going 5 miles per hour and getting it up to 60 mph, or to get that acceleration speed up to “boom.”

Her experience working with firefighters prepared her for a kind of baptism by fire just days after she started at SLCC when she was handed a grant that was floundering. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that people knowledgeable about the grant had recently moved on from SLCC, leaving Crissman and a colleague to handle it on their own.

“We spent every night on the phone,” she said. “It was the day before Christmas Eve and everyone was walking out – they were letting everyone go at noon. … We had an audit deadline that day. … Through it all, it was really kind of fun.”

Getting that grant in order meant that more contractors, electricians, home builders, people in construction and anyone with a “green energy” component to their business was getting the training and education they needed to stay current or ahead of regulations and client expectations.

And for Crissman, mother of two grown children, it was fun. Really.

Outside of analyzing grant budgets at work she finds fun on the golf course (she’s a “good” golfer who could be “great” if she could improve her putting), researching family history (she’s gone all the way back to the time of Charlemagne’s rule in Western Europe, finding Methodists and Quakers in her background along the way) and practicing her lassoing skills on the family dog.

“I can’t do it off of a horse,” said Crissman, a burgeoning roper. “But if I’m just standing … the chair, dog, sometimes my own head when you really screw up.”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rev Up Your Future at SLCC Annuals Hop into College

SLCC West Valley Center will be opening its doors on Friday, August 2, from 6-9 pm for their annual lowrider event that celebrates the automotive culture and welcomes current, past, and future Bruins into the SLCC community. This unique event allows lowriders to showcase their vehicles and for spectators to witness the creativity, craftsmanship, and passion that goes into a lowrider car. From the sleek custom paint jobs to the impressive hydraulics showcased at the hop-off, attendees get immersed in the vibrant culture created by SLCC West Valley’s community. Beyond the car show, Hop into College provides prospective students and their families the opportunity to explore SLCC, engage with their future peers, staff and faculty and obtain valuable insight into the degrees and programs offered. Furthermore, the community is provided with countless beneficial resources not only as an SLCC student but as a community member. Whether interested in learning more about the lowrider community o...

SLCC Alumnus and U.S. Diplomat to Speak at 2025 Commencement

Salt Lake Community College’s 2025 Commencement speaker Branigan Knowlton will share his perspectives drawn from a 12-year career as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State. In serving his country, Knowlton has honed his foreign relations and diplomacy skills in Hong Kong, Mexico, Colombia and Italy. Knowlton is also a proud Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) alumnus (2002).     Knowlton currently serves at the U.S. Embassy in Rome. Before reporting to the embassy, he was detailed to the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport as part of the Transatlantic Diplomatic Fellowship program. In Bogotá, Knowlton worked for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, and in Hermosillo, Mexico, he worked for the Bureau of Consular Affairs. His first assignment abroad was in Hong Kong, where he worked for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.     "I've actively sought opportunities that push me into the unfamiliar, even when ...

Recognizing SLCC's 2025 Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Andrew Vogt, PhD Associate Professor, Engineering

The Distinguished Faculty Lecturer is a recognition of quality work by one of Salt Lake Community College’s full-time faculty and a charge to develop that work over an academic year into a public presentation. A committee chosen by the Associate Provost for Learning Advancement selects the faculty lecturer each year. The lecture takes place in the spring. Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Andrew Vogt, PhD Associate Professor, Engineering Dr. Andrew Vogt’s teaching philosophy is guided by two principles, curiosity and efficiency.  “Curiosity leads us to study a topic and allows us to really understand the ins and outs of research, while efficiency is all about sustainability,” he says. Andrew describes curiosity as a pure, open-minded impulse to explore, such as the ease with which children learn new concepts with virtually no instruction. Efficiency adds maturity to that childlike impulse, creating structures and pathways for accomplishment.  Andrew’s work has alwa...