Wendy J. Fries living in Stoney Creek, ON:
“In September 1994, after eight years, I left Zeneca
Agro when the company's Government & Trade Affairs Dept. was eliminated. Having constantly worked since graduating
from Mohawk College in 1971, I decided to take advantage of this sabbatical and
I took a year off.
I enjoyed my condo, which I had just purchased in
April 1994, and I adopted a beautiful Yellow Lab named Lone Star Lucy II. The two of us ventured to Cayuga every week
for a couple of day’s visit with my elderly father (passed away in 2000; Mom
had passed away in 1981) and my brother, Rusty (passed away in 2003), who
worked at the Haldimand Association for the Developmentally Challenged. It was wonderful to have the extra time that
year to spend with them and Dad & Rusty really bonded with Lucy.
In October 1995 I started temping at the
Hamilton-Wentworth District Health Council in downtown Hamilton, which was
quite the experience working in the city’s core!
In 1997 I landed a great job with an up and coming
company, Philip Services Corp. I was the
Executive Assistant to the Vice-President, Mill Services. A few years later, there was a scandal, something
about missing copper (which I knew nothing about and gratefully told the RCMP
that same thing when they were investigating years later. Footnote - Bob Waxman’s trial finally
concluded last year and he will be sentenced this summer.) After Philip’s rewriting their financial
statements several times, their stock went from $27 to penny stocks and thus I
had the opportunity for yet another sabbatical in 1999!
In November 1999 I was fortunate to land another great
job, this time with Siemens Canada Limited, Energy Sector, Hamilton Plant (the
old Westinghouse plant at Sanford & Barton started in 1903). I was the Executive Administrator for the
Vice-President, Finance & Controlling until September 2011 when the gas
turbine plant was moved to Charlotte, NC putting 600 Hamilton employees out of
work. Another sabbatical for Wendy!!
This time I was able to take advantage of my young age
(it’s all relative, isn’t it?) plus years of service and I took early
retirement which I have been enjoying ever since!!
My sister, Bonnie Pugsley (Jack King & Hugo
Brown’s Executive Assistant) and her husband, Jim, threw me a terrific
Retirement Party for 60+ of my closest friends, many of whom I have known
throughout my working career. My old
boss from Firestone attended and his speech brought back many memories of the
seventies and disco days!! I raised
almost $1,000 for Hamilton Food Share in lieu of gifts.
As you all know, I started the Chipman / Zeneca Alumni
Project a few months ago and I have gone from having 60 colleagues in my
distribution list to 145 to date. We are
worldwide from Switzerland to Australia! And my, how the project has expanded with the help of Louis Caron in
Ottawa creating a Blog and Brad Smith in Calgary creating a Flickr account
which, I know, everyone will enjoy both of these immensely!
As if I wasn’t busy enough with that project, I
started volunteering around the same time on the Fundraising Subcommittee of
the Hamilton Council on Aging and got right into it with a Cake & Cabaret
Event coming up the night before our golf tournament.
In the meantime, I have started looking for work,
although I’m not so sure that I want to get back into the corporate “dog-eat-dog”
world! I like the non-profit charitable
world and hopefully will land something in the next year. If you hear of anything available in the
Hamilton area, please contact me at wjfries@teksavvy.com. Wendy”
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