Calendar of Events

Please join us in May for an informative webinar panel presentation. We will have subject matter experts present on relevant and timely COVID-19 updates and steps that your company should be taking to reduce exposure and ensure a safe, secure and productive workplace. The panelist will share information on best practices including tips on maintaining an essential workplace, mental health, employee morale, EAPs access, data protection and cyber security, and evolving  laws. This comprehensive lab will arm you with knowledge to help your company effectively deal with this crisis and navigate a clear path through muddy waters.  

If you would like to submit a question for the panelists of this lab, please email them to eat0@eau0eav0eaw0. 

Key objectives:

• Best practices and pitfalls to avoid in keeping employees and others safe in an essential workplace during and after quarantine.
• Taking care of your employees: Utilizing EAP programs, mental health resources and stress management tools to provide support for your employees and manage morale and engagement.
• Doing work from home versus working at home: Employing workplace security practices while working remotely to prevent inadvertent cyber security breaches and protect company data. 
• COVID-19 legal update and assessing risks: Looking at risks introduced by recent legislation and what your company can do to ensure a safe workplace and protect itself.

Penny Horton will moderate this lab and Melissa Lockhart, Kristi Spaethe, Tom Vincent and Kirk Turner will make up the panel.

Melissa Lockhart, SHRM-CP, SPHR, serves as the Human Resources Director for APSCO, a Tulsa Manufacturer, which has been established as an essential business during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Melissa has over 12 years of HR management experience in the industries of manufacturing, engineering, non-profit and hospitality.  She also has over a decade of experience working in the areas of domestic violence and sexual assault.

Melissa is a native of Owasso, OK where she graduated high school and still lives today.  She received her Bachelor’s of Social Sciences and is a certified Domestic & Sexual Violence Response Professional (CDSVRP), and also holds her Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) certification through HRCI and her SHRM-Certified Professional (SHRM-CP) certification through SHRM.

Melissa has been a member of SHRM and TAHRA since 2008 and TEEOCA (Tulsa Equal Employment Opportunity Coordinator Association) since 2015. Melissa serves on the Oklahoma State Chamber Human Resources & Labor Law Policy Committee and previously was nominated by the Oklahoma Attorney General to sit on the Oklahoma Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board.  Melissa currently serves as the VP of Programs for TAHRA.

Melissa and her husband, Chuck, have 3 ornery and hilarious sons: Blythe, Landon and Karsen, 2 Boston Terrier dogs and a fiercely independent cat.

Kristi Spaethe is the president and principle consultant of The People Perspective, an HR consulting firm dedicated to helping organizations realize their best practices in human resources. With 15 years of experience in the human resources industry, Spaethe specializes in organizational development, leadership development, and custom HR solutions. She is a dynamic public speaker and trainer.

Spaethe earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a focus on human resources development from Northeastern State University and has earned both the Professional in Human Resources (PHR) and SHRM-CP certifications. She was awarded the Tulsa Area Human Resources Association President’s Award in 2016 and the Richard R. Messer Excellence in Human Resources award in 2019.

Throughout her career, Spaethe has been an active community volunteer. Volunteer organizations include the Tulsa Area Human Resources Association, Oklahoma Human Resources State Counsel, SCORE Tulsa, Women in Recovery and the Bixby Metro Chamber. Residents of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, Spaethe and her husband were married in 2004 and have one daughter.

Tom C. Vincent II brings extensive experience in regulatory compliance to his practice at GableGotwals. His background includes serving as chief compliance officer for different financial institutions, responsible for ensuring compliance with a myriad of requirements including customer protection, privacy, information security, and corporate governance.  Tom provides assistance to his clients with issues involving data security and privacy, including the establishment of privacy and cybersecurity programs, negotiation of appropriate protections for client information, breach identification, and required reporting.  Additionally, Tom has experience in investment advisory, trust and fiduciary, and insurance compliance, and has held various broker-dealer and investment advisory securities licenses.

Tom regularly presents on privacy and security issues to a variety of audiences, including attorneys, healthcare practices, financial and human resource professionals, and professional services firms.  He has also presented on trust administration and compliance topics to audiences of attorneys, bankers, and trust professionals.

As both a Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager and Certified Information Privacy Professional/United States, Tom’s hands-on industry experience helps him guide clients though the myriad of state and federal laws, regulations and requirements to ensure compliance and protect them from potential lawsuits and regulatory action.  Currently Tom serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Oklahoma Bar Foundation and of the Board of Directors of Tulsa Zoo Management, Inc.  Tom also serves as Co-Chair of the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee and chairs its Recruiting, Retention and Development Subcommittee.

For nearly 30 years, Kirk Turner has represented companies and management exclusively in all aspects of labor and employment law, with a specific emphasis on litigation before federal and state courts, regulatory and administrative agencies, and in arbitration matters. He has particularly extensive experience defending employers in discrimination, harassment and civil rights matters, and routinely represents management in proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Department of Labor, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

As part of his comprehensive labor and employment practice, Kirk draws upon his decades of courtroom experience to provide preventive counsel and training to corporate clients in the areas of employment claim prevention and legal compliance with a myriad of federal and state laws. He frequently counsels employers and their management in connection with internal investigations, wage and hour law, employment agreements, discipline and termination decisions, reductions in force and severance agreements, employee handbooks and the enforcement of company policies, protection of employees’ civil rights, workplace health and safety issues, employee leave, business-based immigration, unemployment, disability benefits, workers’ compensation discrimination, labor-management relations, and union avoidance strategies.

Kirk’s client list includes employers from virtually every major industry across the country. His experience in defending thousands of cases over his career makes Kirk a valued partner in helping clients navigate through and obtain successful results in litigation and other employment-related challenges.

In addition to his private practice, Kirk has served in leadership positions for a significant number of professional industry groups on a local, state and national level. He previously served on the board of directors for the Tulsa Area Human Resources Association (TAHRA) for two decades, served as the organization’s president in 2002-2003, and currently serves as its general counsel. He served five terms as the vice president of legislative affairs and general counsel for the Oklahoma State Council for Human Resource Management, an affiliate of the Society for Human Resource Management, and is a past board member of the Tulsa Equal Employment Opportunity Coordinators’ Association. Kirk has served on the State Chamber of Oklahoma’s Human Resources Committee and Legislative Affairs Committee, been a member of the National Employee and Labor Relations Committee for the Society for Human Resource Management, and has served as general counsel for the Tulsa Better Business Bureau.