Hook, Line, and Sinker …new software to hit the computer world? No, not exactly. Allow yourself to get away from it all. No cars, no rush hour, no deadlines. Just a chance to relax. Picture yourself in the sun soaking up the beauty of nature, far away from the stress of your everyday life; a break from your hectic schedule. This DIT employee has fallen hook, line, and sinker for the relaxing pasttime of fishing. Meet Lou Anne Houchlei - the latest DIT employee to be featured in A Day in the Life.

Before beginning her career with the State of Michigan, Lou Anne worked in automotive materials. She has traveled all over the U.S. training materials employees.  She even spent some time in Mexico and Toronto setting up material departments in new plants.   If you ever want to hear some interesting stories of unusual things that happened to Lou Anne on the job, ask her about the monkey in Mexico.

Lou Anne first began her state career with the Department of Human Services (DHS) in 1998. While with DHS, she worked within the unit that purchased computer equipment. In April of 2004, she began in DIT and she has found herself working with some of the same people she did in DHS (it sure is a small world).

Along with the angler hat Lou Anne wears in her free time, she wears many different hats for the Office of Planning and Architecture within the Bureau of Strategic Policy (BSP). Lou Anne is the Human Resource Liaison for BSP and is responsible for working directly with managers, supervisors, client specialists/analysts and recruiters to help prepare the paperwork needed to establish, fill, reassign and reallocate positions within the area. Some of her duties as HR liaison include preparing for filling a position, scheduling interviews, preparing interview panel packets and reviewing position descriptions.

She also coordinates the office’s computer refresh purchases. Lou Anne is the content administrator for the Project Management Web page, responsible for updating the existing content and adding new content. In the past year, Lou Anne had the opportunity to work with the Governor’s office and the Cabinet in planning events and meetings for the Budgeting for Outcomes process. Lou Anne enjoys coordinating team building activities, like holiday celebrations and picnics. She also is keen on starting new projects, as she enjoys the challenge of learning something new. In a recent project, she even had the opportunity to have her picture taken with the Governor!

Lou Anne takes her fishing pretty seriously. When the weather isn’t cooperating for fishing, she is reading books about fishing and buying new lures to try out. She has even found that there is fishing beyond worms…artificial lures are Lou Anne’s choice of bait.  Since Lou Anne has mastered the whole fishing thing, she has decided to focus her attention on bass. No other fish will do. When Lou Anne isn’t fishing, reading about fishing or thinking of fishing, she is compiling a list of books from book reviews in magazines and newspapers to read and claims to shoot a mean game of pool. Lou Anne also enjoys the hobbie of photography. On a recent vacation she captured a beautiful photograph of the Frankfort lighthouse at sunset (see below).