The Norwalk Community School District has announced the hiring of Norwalk alum Leslie Merriman as the new Human Resources Manager. 

She has 12 years of experience in human resources management. For the last two and half years, Merriman has served on the Iowa State University Human Resources Delivery team, where most recently she served as the Human Resources Partner for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. In this role, she led HR efforts for all of the College’s departments and centers and oversaw a team of three HR Coordinators.

Prior to Iowa State, Leslie worked at Drake University Head Start, which provides early childhood education to children ages birth to five. She served as the organization’s HR Manager, overseeing HR functions for more than 100 full-time and part-time staff. She was responsible for maintaining the agency’s HRIS system and oversaw all agency hiring practices, employee training and addressing staff concerns.

Leslie holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Iowa State and an M.P.A. with an emphasis in human resources and nonprofit management from Drake University. She has also earned her Society for Human Resource Management-Senior Certified Professional Certification.

Leslie began her role at the Norwalk Community School District on Wednesday.