Sara Barsness knew what she was getting into: The client-proposal department at Data Recognition Corporation was a high-stress, underappreciated, long-hour, short-deadline kind of place. “It was,” says one employee, “the kiss of death.”
“They weren’t having a whole lot of fun,” Barsness recalls. “I really thought I could make a difference.” Headquartered in Maple Grove, Data Recognition Corporation develops, publishes, and evaluates tests used to assess student and school performance; for business clients, it offers document scanning and management services. A year after Barsness took charge, life in the proposal department is good—so good that employees from elsewhere in the company are applying to work there.
“Sara really turned that department around,” says CEO and President Susan Engeleiter. “Her team has embraced the challenges and fast pace, and doubled our proposal output.”
Cranking out 25-plus error-free, technically sound, easy-to-read proposals a year is no small feat, especially because each is hundreds of pages long, due in a few weeks, and may gain or lose the company a multiyear contract worth millions. Barsness streamlined processes and standardized content to eliminate rework and duplications. She made sure her team understood the strategy behind each proposal—and that they got the credit they deserved.
“I worked a lot of long hours in the beginning,” Barsness says. “I wanted to show my team that I was willing to put in as much time as they did. I didn’t want to come in and be a Pollyanna about it. I acknowledged that it was hard work.”
She began her career with the company in January 1997 as a human resources intern while studying at the University of Minnesota. After graduation, she stayed on, first as an HR administrative assistant, then as head of benefits. In 1999, she left to earn her MA in human resources at the Carlson School of Management—never intending to come back.
“I was all about climbing the big corporate ladder,” she laughs. But she turned down job offers at 3M, St. Paul Companies, and Cargill to return to her former employer in January 2001. “I realized that there’s a lot to be said for creating something in a smaller company, rather than just maintaining something in a bigger one.”
Today, at 31, Barsness has been around the block at Data Recognition Corporation—working in HR, quality assurance, and project management, and gaining an understanding of the whole business. “My passion is working with all of the different functional areas and levels of the company,” she says. “I get energized by knowing what’s going on all over the place.”
The proposal department has been her favorite gig so far. “Part of what I love about this proposal job are the deadlines,” she says. “My most energizing proposal was the one that we did in 10 days. We had to work all weekend and we stayed up for 30 hours—but boy, did I get a rush from that!”
But “I’m most proud that my team likes to come to work,” Barsness says. “I’d been in this role for about a month, and one of my team members said, ‘You know, this is the first weekend that I didn’t look at the employment section for a new job.’ That was huge for me.”
Engeleiter is particularly impressed with Barsness’s people skills: “I’ve seen Sara defuse tense situations in meetings just because she has a fabulous sense of humor and she’s very charming. And that’s a skill I wish we could teach.”
