After 37 years at UNMC, Martha Harmon is retiring, but don’t expect to see her relaxing near Lake Manawa.
“I’ve got a job,” says UNMC’s Academic Services’ administrator, whose institutional knowledge extends nearly as long as Memorial Stadium’s record for consecutive sellouts.
Beginning next month, Harmon will spend 20 hours a week at The Stephen Center, a homeless shelter on Q Street, organizing the center’s counseling office.
“The timing was perfect,” she said, of the new position recommended to her by a former colleague.
For nearly four decades years, Harmon’s career has been all about timing.
“I never expected to be anything but a mom,” she said, until her children’s preschool bills from the Omaha Hearing School mounted. “I was going to get a job to pay bills and then be home with my son and daughter. Now it’s 37 years later.”
Harmon, whose last day is Thursday, launched her career in the chemical engineering department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she and her husband moved so their children with hearing impairments could attend Prescott Elementary. They envisioned staying eight years, but one year later, Omaha Public Schools established courses for the deaf, and they returned to Omaha, where her husband worked for Union Pacific.
Harmon transferred to the medical center in 1969 and juggled part-time work in the Eppley Institute around her children’s schedules. From there, she moved to physiology and biophysics where she did cell cultures and clerical work. Then it was on to cardiology, the Creighton-Nebraska neurology department and UNMC’s Nursing Service Department of the then-University Hospital.
She left campus briefly to work as a legal secretary at Kutak Rock, but returned to UNMC six weeks shy of a year – timing which allowed her to be reinstated without losing her benefit accural rate — to do clerical work for then vice chancellor James Griesen.
Griesen later promoted her to administrative coordinator, where she assumed responsibility for faculty payroll, appointments, recruitments and contracts. “It’s a satellite of human resources that deals with the faculty side,” she said.
Her work as secretary of the UNMC Faculty Senate also began when she returned to campus in February 1979, one month after the senate held its first organizational meeting.
The farm girl, whose father homesteaded in Wolf Point, Mont., attended a one-room school through eighth grade, before completing half of her high school courses via correspondence because the closest high school was 26 miles away. “I really wanted to go to school and learned to type by correspondence,” she said.
Alongside their parents, Harmon and her three siblings milked cows, drove tractors, hauled hay, shoveled wheat and gardened in the open spaces of Big Sky Country, so isolated that their mailbox was 3 1/2 miles away and they once were snowed in for four months.
Eventually, Harmon and her sister moved to Omaha, where they passed the GED and enrolled at Grace Bible Institute, now Grace University. Two y ears later, Harmon married and, after their two children were born deaf, decided to attend Technical High School at night to get her high school diploma.
Thanks to the university’s employee scholarship program, Harmon earned her bachelor’s degree in general studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1985.
Her tenure at UNMC “is beyond imagination,” she said. “My goal was to pay the bills, but the people I have met are phenomenal. I couldn’t do this job in isolation.”
“I like the variety and the autonomy,” she said. “When you’re given more responsibility you just roll up your sleeves and get to work.”
Her husband, Charles, who retired six years ago, has recovered well since a December heart attack and is taking flying lessons, playing the violin and belongs to a gun club. “I can’t fit myself into any of those,” she said.
Instead, Harmon, a Word Perfect fan, may spend her retirement taking courses at nearby Iowa Western Community College. “If the wave of the future is Word, then I’ve got to master it,” she said. “Especially if I’m going to be working.”
The grandmother of two also dreams of working in a library, volunteering at Lauritzen Gardens and helping translate the Bible into sign language videos. UNMC’s Linda Merriman and Joan McGovern will assume Harmon’s duties.
What others are saying
Rubens Pamies, M.D., UNMC vice chancellor for academic affairs and dean of graduate studies — “Martha Harmon’s contribution to UNMC is immeasurable. She has an institutional memory that surpasses just about everyone that I’ve met and has been a major resource for everyone dealing with faculty affairs. She is going to be sorely missed and I certainly wish her very well on her retirement.”
Warren Sanger, Ph.D., director, Human Genetics Laboratory, professor, Pediatrics & Pathology/Microbiology, Munroe-Meyer Institute — “During the 30-plus years that I have known Martha she has been, and is, one of the most dedicated, hard-working and professional staff members I know. Whenever a faculty issue or question arises, the first resource, which comes to my mind to address these issues or problems, is Martha!! If she doesn’t have an immediate answer or solution, she promptly finds out and gets back with a solution or answer within hours, even if it is “after-hours”!! This type of dedication and expertise is priceless!! Martha has an extraordinary, complete and logical understanding of faculty issues and of UNMC and the energy to follow through on all UNMC matters to make things run as smoothly and efficiently as possible.”
Paul Paulman, M.D., professor and predoctoral director, UNMC Department of Family Medicine — “During my year as Faculty Senate President, I could not have functioned without Martha’s support. Her working knowledge of the UNMC system, as well as her way of gently reminding me of things that needed done and pitfalls to be avoided, were key to my surviving my year as president. Martha was made an honorary member of the Faculty Senate in recognition of her work through the years. She is someone whom you can’t really replace. I’ll miss her.”
Lynne Farr, Ph.D., emeritus professor, College of Nursing — “Martha is a treasure. She has institutional memory, which is without price. During my two terms as Faculty Senate president, I depended on Martha to know when and how things should be done. She has most of the NU and UNMC policies committed to memory. If she doesn’t remember the exact policy, she always knows where to look it up. Of equal importance is her discretion and professionalism. There was never any doubt that if I told Martha something or asked her advice, the information would go no further. UNMC is lucky to have had Martha for so many years and will miss her dearly. I’m just glad I retired before she did.”
Myrna Newland, M.D., director of the UNMC Equity Office — “Martha Harmon has served as a wonderful resource person for me while I was president of the Faculty Senate. In addition, she has been of great help in compiling data from UNMC to include with the University-Wide Gender Commission annual report to the Board of Regents. Her experience will be missed on campus.”
David Crouse, Ph.D., associate vice chancellor for academic affairs and associate dean of graduate studies — “I, along with all the other members of the administration, respect Martha’s knowledge in the areas of policies and practices of the medial center and institution as a whole. She is the go-to person if you have a question about how something came to be or how it works in everyday life. She pays close attention to detail and very little escapes her careful look. As the support person for the Faculty Senate she has the unique position of having seen every faculty senate meeting, except the first one when she was asked to attend. That’s quite a few. We’ll miss her greatly, personally and professionally.”