An unusual approach for the showcasing of University suppliers and their product lines recently hit the road when a member of the Business Services team applied her skills for organization and promotion to present this unique event.

Melissa Nematollahi-Rad received a Berkeley Campus Spot Award for her hard work and innovation in planning and coordinating the City Tour, which accompanied Strategic Sourcing’s launch of five new University agreements for wood furniture. Haworth, Kimball, Steelcase (wood line), First Office - Herman Miller, and Gunlocke all have extensive furniture showrooms in San Francisco. The challenge: how to expose potential campus customers to the breadth of their product lines without wrestling with the logistics that an on-campus vendor fair would have posed. The solution was a City Tour, funded by the suppliers, involving a chartered bus, refreshments, marketing materials, and guided tours of their showrooms, highlighting sustainable products, among other items. Approximately 20 Berkeley campus customers attended, primarily from Facilities, Capital Projects, and other large departments. Suppliers and customers alike were “transported” by the ingenuity of this event.

Melissa has been working as a data analyst for Strategic Sourcing for less than a year, but is no stranger to UC. She is a Cal alum (with a Master’s in Statistics from Cal State East Bay) and worked previously for Berkeley’s Information, Systems, and Technology department and for Human Resources at Office of the President.

She was also recently selected to serve on the Equity and Inclusion Council for the Vice Chancellor of Administration.