Pitt’s longest-serving female employee retires next week

After 47 years as a Pitt employee, Delores “Dee” Johnson will retire on Tuesday.

As an… After 47 years as a Pitt employee, Delores “Dee” Johnson will retire on Tuesday.

As an 18-year-old, Johnson began her career as a microscope technician in the physics department’s Cyclotron Laboratory. Today she is a communications support services specialist in the Office of Public Affairs.

Johnson is Pitt’s longest-serving female employee. She’s seen the University evolve from a private institution to the public one it is today.

“I’ve seen a lot of buildings go up and a lot of new people coming and going,” she said. “There have been so many changes.”

Mary Ann Aug – a co-worker of Johnson’s and a former assistant vice chancellor for executive communications in the Office of Public Affairs – said that Johnson’s length of tenure characterizes her well.

“It speaks to her responsibility, her steadiness and her commitment to the institution,” Aug said. “She outlasted many people at the faculty level and the administration level.”

Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs Robert Hill said that, in addition to being known as a hard worker who was mild-mannered and soft-spoken, Johnson was a renowned singer.

“When she got on stage, she just became a different person,” he said. “She would just light up. She had an extremely powerful voice that could belt out a song as well as anyone who earns a living doing it.”

Vicki Mauclair, the graphics director at University Marketing and Communications, remembers going in a group with Johnson to see a friend’s combo sing at a club. A request was made for Johnson to get up on stage and she humbly complied.

“I can’t remember what she sang,” Mauclair said. “But she sang and I thought she was going to blow the combo away.”

Johnson did more than sing at office Christmas parties. She also performed in public.

In the 1960s, she formed a group called The Twilighters, with fellow graduates of Pittsburgh’s Fifth Avenue High School. They performed in cities like New York and Detroit.

Johnson said that she also recorded for Dionne Warwick and guitarist Lee Valentine, among other notable musicians.

She continues to sing in the choir at Albright Methodist Church in Shadyside, but she can no longer pursue her love for piano and guitar because of health reasons.

Hill said that she will be missed at Pitt for more than her musical contributions.

“I am pleased to have been a part of the last six years of Dee’s Pitt journey,” he said. “I found her to be a wonderful staff member, an effective community servant, a powerful vocalist and, most importantly, a good human being.”

In 2000, Johnson received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence for Staff Employees for her dedication to Pitt along with her community service.

Aug said that Johnson was always interested in changing technology. The transitions from typewriters to stand-alone word processors to the computer age excited Johnson.

“She was never afraid to tackle the new technology,” Aug said. “She very quickly became highly skilled.”

When Johnson was a microscope technician, her job involved reading data from a magnetic spectrometer on a photographic plate, explained Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor James V. Maher.

“Delores was a very highly respected member of the group of scanners, both because of the accuracy of her work and because of her wonderful attitude toward communicating with the physicists and learning what we wanted her to look for on the plates,” Maher said.

In 1971, Johnson left the physics department to work at Pitt’s Office of News and Publications – now the Office of Public Affairs – where she has been ever since.

“She has been one of the backbones of our department,” Aug said. “A steady presence, she was always there and you could always count on her.”

Hill said that Pitt will remember Johnson for her dedication.

“In a world where people move around and change jobs fairly frequently, it was just refreshing to have somebody of her longevity, loyal to the University and continuously serving the great cause of the University of Pittsburgh for as long as she did,” he said.

And now, 47 years later, Johnson has made the decision to retire.

“I’m retiring because it’s about time,” she said. “But I’ll miss the work because I really love what I did.”