The University of California, Berkeley

Success Story: Happy Retirement - Glenda Waugh

Glenda came to UC Berkeley in the summer of 1999 as a casual employee filling in for someone in P&T who was on maternity leave from Accounts Payable. Her expertise was in the field of banking and book keeping so she fit right in. After about a year of working in the A/P unit, the Director’s (Nadesan Permaul), Assistant left and that position became open. She applied for the job and the rest is history as we now know it.
From 1999 to present our department has experienced several changes in administration, leadership, and reorganizations as well as the transition from being under UCPD to BAS, all of which she has taken in stride with dignity and grace. Glenda has in her own quiet and unassuming manner successfully adapted to three different directors during her 13 years with the department, Nad Permaul, Noel Pinto and Seamus Wilmot, our current Director, without seemingly skipping a beat. According to her it was simply just a matter of adjusting to each ones different style.
Ms. Waugh serves on the Oversight Committee, Bike Committee and the Class Pass Committee. She is also the Secure Bike Coordinator and the Cal Net Deputy for Parking and Transportation. In addition to her many administrative duties Glenda maintains the department’s historical files and sets calendar events for the Director as well as the Oversight Committee. She named one of her greatest challenges that of setting the yearly schedule for the meetings of the Oversight Committee. Everybody calls Glenda if they need to know something – if she doesn’t know the answer then she always knows someone who might. She is always there and ready to help whenever she can.
Glenda is always there in the background taking care of things from setting up meetings to being the advocate between Permit and Citation Services and some of our more demanding public. She never puts herself out front and sometimes you don’t really realize she’s actually there or been there until you look around and find the monitor is on, the lap top set up, refreshments ordered, napkins laid out, pads and pens on the table and other little things that sometimes we so often just take for granted.
She and her husband, Greg Watty, who “coincidently” is retiring at the same time, have been married 37 years and have two daughters. There are no grandchildren yet; only as she laughingly said “just grand-dogs”. Glenda enjoys traveling, reading, genealogy, crafts, cooking and gardening for which she hasn’t had much time lately but plans on taking full advantage of soon. They are planning several trips in the near future from going to L.A. to visit their daughter to, Salt Lake, Canada, Hawaii and in the spring going to her favorite place of all – the South of France for a while. She just realized when planning the L.A. trip that “Oh, my we don’t have to plan a date to get back”.
This is actually her fourth retirement date but this time she means to stick to it. When asked about going now she said that she and her husband wanted to still be young enough to enjoy their retirement and the one thing that she won’t miss is getting up and leaving in the dark to come to work. When asked for words of wisdom she said “Stay professional and make sure that P&T has a good reputation. Try always to approach every call or situation so that the person walks away with a positive impression of P&T.” She reminds us that there have been lots of changes in P&T and is confident that we are headed in the right direction with exciting times ahead, however, when asked if she would consider staying on for the exciting new times, she without faltering for a second gave a big smile and said “NO”.