After 41 years with USF, Sandi Conway, director of Human Resources at USF St. Petersburg, is saying goodbye to bull country.
“I think I worked there when Asia was still connected to Africa or something,” Conway said, jokingly.
She began working at USF Tampa straight out of high school as a secretary in Student Affairs. She was hired by Phyllis Marshall, the namesake of Tampa’s Marshall Student Center. After getting married and having a child, Conway pursued higher paying career paths within the university, and ended up in Human Resources.
She worked her way through almost every area of the department, from an administrative assistant to managing employee relations and even working as
a class analyst for USF Health. As Conway escalated through her career, receiving promotion after promotion, Marshall encouraged her to take advantage of a program that allowed USF employees to take six credit hours a semester for free. Conway went on to earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree in counseling.
In 2007, she was offered a job at USF St. Petersburg as the director if its Human Resources department. At the time, the school was looking to have the organization change directions and become more strategic than transactional, Conway said. Dr. Ashok Dhingra, former regional vice chancellor for administrative and financial services, felt she was right for the job.
“I have nothing but positive to say about USFSP,” Conway said, touching on the small, family-like atmosphere of the campus. She explained that just as USFSP professors and students get to know each other personally, employees are able to form relationships with co-workers.
If it weren’t for the requirements of her retirement program, she doesn’t think she’d be leaving yet.
In her time here, Conway is proud to have provided a strategic direction for Human Resources. Recognition has come in the form of employees not feeling the need to go to Tampa with their problems # the St. Petersburg office is now equipped to handle their issues. When the department became part of the school’s leadership team, Conway knew she’d made an impact.
Though her experiences here have been “crazy,” “fun” and “not so fun,” knowing she made a difference has made it all worth it. She is thankful for the efforts of her employees and said she couldn’t have picked better people to work with.
In just seven years at USFSP, Conway has seen the campus grow and change tremendously. Then, the grassy harborwalk was a city street and the University Student Center and Science and Technology Building were nonexistent. The Barnes & Noble in the parking garage was just opening up.
Conway has seen an evolution in students as well.
“We really have some students that are just outstanding,” she said. “[They] seem to be a notch above, more attuned and aware of the community.”
Though she has been on annual leave for a few weeks now, Conway hasn’t quite settled into retired life. She officially retires on Jan. 1, 2014.
Conway remembers occasionally thinking, “God, I can’t wait till I retire,” but now that she has, it just feels like a vacation.
For now, getting ready for the holidays is keeping her busy. She hopes to have time to take a cooking class, get more involved with her home community in Temple Terrace, explore her family’s genealogy and travel. She and her husband, Michael, who used to be the police chief at USF Tampa, already have a trip to New Orleans planned for next month. She’ll also have more time to spend with her son Eric, who received a master’s degree from USF and played football there, as well as her dog, Cookie, a pitbull-terrier mix.
Bidding adieu: There will a retirement reception for Sandi Conway in the USC ballroom on Friday, Dec. 13.
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