IN RECOGNITION OF
THE 75th ANNIVERSARY OF THE OFFICE OF STATE HUMAN RESOURCES
2024
BY THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
A PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS, on April 1, 1949, the North Carolina General Assembly ratified and made into law Senate Bill 51, “An Act to Establish a State Personnel Department,” making April 1, 1949, the official start date for a consolidated state human resources agency in North Carolina; and
WHEREAS, 2024 marks the 75th anniversary—the diamond anniversary—
of the Office of State Human Resources, originally called the Office of State Personnel; the office was established in 1949 to attract and retain capable state employees and to alleviate disparities in job standards and pay for state employees not covered by the competitive merit system law; and
WHEREAS, in the 1960s, State Personnel Office Director Claude Caldwell supported expanded roles for women and minorities in state government under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination in employment, recruitment, wages, and promotions based on race, sex, color, religion, and national origin; and
WHEREAS, Governor Jim Hunt appointed Harold Webb as the first African American director of the Office of State Personnel in 1977; Webb, a former Tuskegee Airman, secured funding for the agency’s first Public Manager program for state employees, and enhanced the state’s Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) program with dedicated resources, diversifying and strengthening the state government workforce; and
WHEREAS, on January 1, 1989, under the leadership of State Personnel Director Richard D. Lee, the Governor’s Award for Excellence policy was created to acknowledge and express appreciation for outstanding accomplishments made by employees of the State; and
WHEREAS, in 2018, the office worked with state agencies to restructure the class and compensation system under State Human Resources Director Barbara Gibson to become a market-based system, bringing greater pay equity for all state employees; in recent years, OSHR also introduced paid parental leave; lead efforts to recognize experience-based job qualifications; and increased efforts to recruit workers with diverse skills and backgrounds;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, ROY COOPER, Governor of the State of North Carolina, do hereby proclaim April 1, 2024, as a day “IN RECOGNITION OF THE 75th ANNIVERSARY OF THE OFFICE OF STATE HUMAN RESOURCES” in North Carolina, and commend its observance to all citizens.
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Roy Cooper
Governor
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the Great Seal of the State of North Carolina at the Capitol in Raleigh this twenty-seventh day of March in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-four and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-eighth.
