Photo by Christina VanHorn,
UNH Human Resources

In the past year Administrative Assistant, BJ Plantamuro, has discovered Tai Chi, a hobby that she has admitted will be a life long endeavor. There is little doubt that she will commit to it with similar dedication she has shown UNH for the past 30 years.

Plantamuro started at UNH in 1973 as an office worker in accounts payable.

“I worked there for about two or three years and wasn’t much older then the students,” Plantamuro remembers.

Later she took a job at MUB Food Service processing paper work for the two managers of the cafeteria. Plantamuro was then ready to break away from UNH, and in 1986 she left to see what the “outside world was like.”

“It was fine,” Plantamuro says, “but my life was changing drastically: divorce, kids growing up and new apartment. After 8 years, I came back to UNH, where, at least some things were the same. I found a position in the Vice President for Academic Affairs’ office. That’s where I work now”.

This is where Plantamuro has worked for the past 12 years under three different provosts. It is a demanding job where she has to balance calendars for many of the professionals in the office including the Provost and Executive Vice President. She also schedules numerous meetings for different administrators and each year organizes the New Faculty Orientation. On top of general office duties, Plantamuro also supports the Dean’s searches, and this past year was a main support for the Dean of WSBE search.

“I find it interesting to work in the main administrative office at UNH. I really enjoy the environment and all my co-workers,” said Plantamuro.

Being a graduate from Portsmouth High, Plantamuro did attend UNH for a semester majoring in Marine Biology. Her pursuit of a higher education was put on hold however, when she married a Navy Corpsman in 1967 who was then sent to Vietnam. After his return the couple had two sons and moved to Barrington.

Now, many years later, Plantamuro has returned to UNH not only as a professional but as a student as well. The renewed opportunity to continue her education is what Plantamuro enjoys the most about working here at UNH.

“I love the benefit of being able to take classes. I don’t take them often, but when I do the experience is soooo much better than when I ‘had’ to take them in school,” says Plantamuro.

Along with taking classes at UNH, Plantamuro has taken and helped produce transformational courses for Landmark Education, Inc., a global educational enterprise offering courses that are innovative, effective, and immediately relevant. It’s leading-edge methodology enables people to produce extraordinary results and enhance the quality of their lives. “I find it exhilarating to look into why I do what I do. The insights I’ve had about myself have helped me move through life and handle all its ups and downs.”

She constinues, "In the last ten years, I have discovered gardening – a great, artistic way to be outside. I still don’t always have luck keeping things alive in my garden, so I’ve created a new garden project – I purchased a kit to make bricks. The kit came with letters (like little branding irons) so you can put sayings, dates, names, etc. on your bricks before they set up. I plan to personalize a brick for each of my family members (children, grand children, pets). I’ve also collected a lot of inspirational sayings that “speak” to me and I will put them on some bricks too. I think they’ll add a personal touch to my garden. It’s also a project that my grandchildren can help me with.

I’m not so avid a gardener that I know plants by their Latin names, but I do know all plants are named. Another project I have is to find plants with the same names as my family members and incorporate them into my garden. This is a new project, so I only have a Phlox called ‘Nikki’ for my daughters-in-law who was killed in a car crash several years ago. If anyone reading this has any plants named: Charlotte, Sarah, Thomas, Gabriel, Nathan, Zachary or George, I’d love to know where you got them."

To get away from it all Plantamuro and her husband make a commitment to travel to Mexico each year for two weeks of relaxation. However, Plantamuro still has to make pressing decisions.

“The hardest decisions I have to make are: what bathing suit shall I wear today and which restaurant shall we have dinner in.”

Along with taking time for herself, Plantamuro dotes on her six grandchildren, two of who live with her husband and herself. Being a mother-figure the second time around has its challenges.

“We always wanted girls, but now I’m not sure why—the drama is overwhelming. Between homework, chauffeuring, girlfriend overnights, the music and singing so loud they could be auditioning and constantly trying to tone down the make-up, I’ve come to really appreciate the sons I raised. But I am grateful to have them; they are all keeping me young.”