Racine Topaloglu

Classification and Compensation Coordinator, Human Resource Services
Start Date: January 18, 2024

She loves a challenge. She loved working in the tourism industry in different parts of Europe. More than anything, German-born Racine Topaloglu says she’s loving her time here at Stony Brook University, where she’s putting her HR experience, collaborative nature and friendly demeanor to work every day in an efficiency-oriented, exciting environment.

Racine is relatively new to the job here (starting in January 2024) but no stranger to the campus she fell in love with for so many reasons.

“When I decided I wanted to get my Bachelor’s degree, I applied to three local universities and when I was accepted, I chose Stony Brook,” she says. Her reason? “I'm always looking for something that challenges me,” says Racine. “That's my character. I don't like easy things. So I said ‘Okay, that's the hardest one.’ And when I looked back, I said to myself, ‘One day maybe I will come back to work here because you love it so much. You love everything about this campus.’”

‘Everything’ for Racine – who received her Bachelor’s in Political Science and Government from SBU in May 2022 – includes the bucolic nature of the campus itself. “It’s so nice, so beautiful every season, especially the summer … I like the opportunity just to walk around very easily or even just to look at a tree for, like, five minutes, or to look at the flowers, to get the smell of the flowers. You can’t find this kind of natural environment everywhere.”

In her Administration Building office on the third floor, the environment equally suits Racine. Mostly, she speaks about a congenial atmosphere where everyone works together to ensure employees are appropriately compensated. 

“We all know we’re part of the same chain, we’re all connected,” she says. “I think it's the most important thing for the team, not just to think about, okay, we are the Class[ification] and Comp[ensation] team. It's very important for us that we also talk to the people from payroll, that we are talking to the recruiters, to time and attendance people, that we are not just keeping to our small team of five people.”

Racine adds that “the managers let us know that the doors are always open. You can ask questions and you can say something about what you think is important. Just the feeling that someone is listening to you is so great.”

The value Racine feels she brings to Stony Brook is the fact that she has a broad HR background – having worked in HR recruiting, then compliance, at a Smithtown-based security firm and at Northwell Health as an HR technology team member before coming back to SBU.

“It's so important,” she says, “that you work in different kinds of sections of HR to understand the people who you're working with. So I was a recruiter. That's why I'm always understanding our recruiters. I understand their workflow, I understand what they are doing, their pressure and everything. Then I worked in compliance, so I know that part.” Racine’s ‘link in the chain’ centers around developing line management reports and making sure they are always updated and accurate in terms of title, compensation, job description, reporting lines and other critical information.

It also helps that she’s a ‘people person’:

“I like to know the people who are around me, so I like to give the person the feeling that I really care about him or her, the position they work in and what they need. I'm trying all the time with my emails and conversations to let them know that. Even if we are very busy, I don't want to give anyone the feeling like I do not care or something.”

Racine’s path to HR took some twists and turns and was not without its challenges. But she’s so happy where she landed. 

“I came to America 13 years ago from Germany. And when I came here, I wasn't speaking English at all. I couldn't even ask the cashier at Stop & Shop anything. I will never forget this.” 

She quickly remedied that by taking English as a Second Language courses, which led her to work for five years in the ESL advising office at Suffolk Community College in Selden, where she also completed her Associate’s degree in Business Administration and Management. Then onto the national security firm (where she rose to the level of HR Compliance Officer), followed by Northwell. About the unique security field experience, she says, “I really liked that I got to apply all the laws that I learned at political science,” says Racine. ”There were armed and unarmed laws for security guards in different states and I had the chance to talk to people to hire all over the country and check their licenses for wearing a gun on the job. It was really interesting.”

On that job, she was also involved in a similar workplace transformation to SBU’s new WolfieOne enterprise resource planning system, which she’s excited to get more involved with here, and which she believes will help everyone operate more efficiently when many different systems are consolidated to the same platform.

The best part, she says, is that “I learned that I loved HR and now here I am.” Beyond her current day-to-day work responsibilities, Racine is also hoping to take on a mentoring role for individuals with disabilities, as she’s done in past jobs.

When she’s not on the job, Racine enjoys being out in nature with her husband (originally from Turkey, where she met him, and the reason she moved to the US) and their nine-year-old son. These days you might find her on the beach watching the sunset, or in her Port Jeff backyard talking to her roses to make them grow. “My husband is laughing at me, but it’s working. So that’s what I like to do. It’s not like we need a lot of action but I like nature.”