NEWARK – After a career spanning three decades and more than half a dozen positions, Velda Henry will retire from the Worcester County school system in just a few short weeks.
Henry, human resources director for Worcester County Public Schools, will end her career in education June 30.
“It just became time to do something different,” Henry said.
School system officials say she will be missed.
“We are very appreciative of Velda’s dedication to both the staff and the students of Worcester County Public Schools,” Superintendent Jerry Wilson said. “While in the Human Resources department, and especially during her tenure of supervisor of the department, she has made significant contributions to transforming our HR practices across the county. She will certainly be missed, but we wish her all the best as she begins her retirement.”
Henry, the wife of well-known Berlin artist Patrick Henry, is looking forward to spending more time with her family. When she took a position as a substitute teacher in the 1970s, she had no idea she’d one day retire as the school system’s director of human resources. The daughter of a teacher and school bus driver, Henry is frank about what landed her in the classroom.
“It was a job,” she said, “and I was brought up in education.”
Henry spent time as a substitute and teacher’s aide before budget cuts left her without a job in 1980. In less than a year though, she was back, this time as a secretary at the county’s vocational school — what’s now Worcester Technical High School. Henry spent years there before moving to a secretarial position at the central office. She stayed there until taking maternity leave when she had her daughter. In an effort to stay close to her, she took a position at Atlantic General Hospital for two years. She missed the school system though, and when a job in the benefits department at the Worcester County Board of Education opened up she applied. She’s been in the human resources office ever since.
“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t learn something new,” she said.
Henry says she loves working in the “hub” — the board’s central office —and interacting with the array of people she sees on a daily basis. She does feel the pressure associated with hiring — having to make sure a potential employee’s qualifications are in order and that they’re the right person for the job — but says she enjoys the challenge.
“To hear a young teacher and their passion, it brings you to tears,” Henry said. “That makes you know you’ve hired the right person.”
She says the biggest changes she’s seen in her years with the school system are the incredible advancements in technology. Henry remembers the days before copiers and computers. She can still remember how excited she was when the office got its first Radio Shack computer.
“You’d turn it on when you came in in the morning and maybe by lunchtime it would work,” she said.
Henry says she’s grateful for the opportunities she’s been provided working at the board of education. Though she started with just an associate’s degree, she’s continued her education through the years, earning a master’s degree in 2013.
“I’ve enjoyed working here immensely,” she said. “I’m so thankful for the mentors I’ve had along the way. There were people who believed in me.”
She says her staff in the human resources department has also had a key role in her success.
“If it wasn’t for them I don’t know where I’d be,” she said.
Though not eager to leave the friends she’s made at work, Henry is looking forward to spending time with her family. She also expects to stay busy helping her husband with his business and by offering her skills to her church however they may be needed. Nevertheless she knows she’s going to miss her job.
“When you stay in a position like this, you can’t not miss it,” she said. “A lot of people never get this opportunity.”
