Melissa Rivera-Ferguson is a Designer at Christopher Designs Jewelry. Colleagues describe her as "Melissa was an outstanding colleague. We worked in a building that was definitely showing its age and we also had to rebuild a building, Fiterman Hall, that was destroyed on 9/11. Needless as it is to say we didn't have a very large staff to both oversee the reconstruction and also keep up the existing building that was not up to snuff. We also had really tight if not non-existent budgets. Working under these restraints and with a very small team to rely on Melissa pulled off some miracles in the time she was here. She managed along with the rest of the team to do some relatively low cost but high value projects to improve our classrooms, public spaces and cafeterias and to also make sure that the reconstruction project that was plagued by constant value engineering and budget insecurity turned out to be a much better building than the dollar amount would indicate. Fiterman Hall turned out quite nicely thanks to the attention she and her co-workers paid to it even though the heavy hitters at the University and the Dormitory Authority tried to keep the whole project very much outside of local control. Her diplomatic, interpersonal and design skills quietly pushed things in the right direction. Her Vice President at the time unfortunately passed away not that long ago and can't personally comment but I can report that he held her in very high regard as a team player, hard worker and creative individual who really went the extra mile for our students and her co-workers. We were very lucky to have her on staff as long as we did."