Zane Woolstenhulme is the Business Administrator for the Ogden City School District. In his position he responds to GRAMA and HIPAA requests.
Zane has been a records officer for 29 years. He served in South Summit School District and Logan School District before working for Ogden School District. Among the statutory responsibilities of the business administrator is the responsibility to have custody of “the records”. He states that the most challenging part of being a records officer is dealing with the sheer volume and variety of records kept by a school district.
In the winter of 2015, Zane called his records analyst at the State Archives because he had found a basement room full of records in one of his elementary schools, which led to the discovery of other records in other locations. Zane met with his analyst and the State Archives preservationist in order to come up with a plan for transferring the records to Archives custody. Since many of the found records dated back to the late 1890s, we wanted to ensure the historic records were preserved. For 4 days our Archives team worked in 3 different school district locations to gather historical records, some of which are still being processed to ensure preservation and access.
We asked Zane what tools and advice he would like to share with other records officers, and he said “The sharpest tool in my belt … is the speed-dial button to the office of the State Archives, particular the Government Records Ombudsman, who is always a helpful resource in dealing with GRAMA requests.” He also had two suggestions: “1) Don’t be afraid to throw things away; 2) When in doubt, call State Archives.”
Thanks for all of your hard work, Zane! We are glad to have you as one of our GREAT records officers!