Jennifer Shell, executive assistant to Cynthia Jenks, associate laboratory director for the Physical Sciences Directorate (Photo Credit: Genevieve Martin, ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy)
Managing day-to-day operations, staffing the phones, handling emails, preparing documents and presentations, scheduling, managing calendars, screening, ordering, networking, communicating, supporting. If this sounds like a lot, it is. It is what the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory administrative professionals do daily. They are, in a word, indispensable. In recognition of their work and in their honor on Administrative Professionals Day on April 26, ORNL Communications talked with some of them, and here is one of their stories, just a small representative sample of the people who help keep ORNL running.
Jennifer Shell didn’t think she had what it takes to be an administrative assistant, never mind an executive assistant. After all, her background was largely in retail and food service.
But she got a job with a lobbying firm in Washington, DC, and soon learned that, yes, she could do it. Since March 2023, Jennifer has been executive assistant to Cynthia Jenks, Associate Laboratory Director for the Physical Sciences Directorate.
“Being in retail and food service gave me the people skills,” Jennifer said. It also taught her to have a thick skin, as she once worked for a retail manager who was military in his approach to managing people.
Working in a jewelry store – ideal for one with a penchant for earrings – for a particularly difficult manager, she got some great advice from a coworker which she follows to this day: “Listen to what she’s saying, not how she’s saying it.”
With a GED, Jennifer moved around quite a bit early in her career. From Connecticut to Michigan, back to Connecticut, to the Washington, DC area, and finally to Tennessee. She started at ORNL in 2014 as the Administrative Assistant for the Chemical Sciences Division, supporting its staff for five years, then supported the Business Operations Division. When she saw a protocol assistant position had opened, she decided to go for that. And she got it.
“I hadn’t really considered moving higher than I was because I didn’t think I could,” Jennifer said. But she applied for the executive assistant job, and was hired.
I love what I do. I am really enjoying the position I’m in, and I’m trying to live in the now.
Her current position requires a little of everything. “Learning how to multitask is huge. You have to do many things at once, juggling calendars, moving things around, rearranging schedules, just all of the items you have to do on a daily basis.” And of course, she handles hundreds of emails a day. But now, instead of managing lives of several people, she manages for one.
Her advice: learn how to communicate, be detail-oriented, and hone your computer skills, “If that’s your aspiration, take courses, don’t give up, build your skill set and build your people skills,” Jennifer said. And even if you have to do something difficult, do it anyway. “You may not want to, but you have to.”
Outside of work Jennifer, her husband, two children and two cats have a busy life. Her hobby is reading, and any genre. “Horror, science fiction, romance novel, I don’t care.” — Lawrence Bernard
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.
