Photo by Christina VanHorn,
UNH Human Resources

If you ever find it difficult to keep up with all of the changes going on in your office, imagine keeping up with all of that change while also staying on top of constant change in the way the government mandates that policies and procedures are handled within your organization. For many, this would be a nightmare. Not so for Lonn Sattler. In fact, he thrives in it!

"My best friend and fellow veteran (Rick) and I came to UNH in August of 1981 to start up our GI Bills," Lonn recalls. "Rick, being hugely outgoing, hit it off immediately with the Registrar's Office staff and applied for and got the vacant Veterans Coordinator position. He immediately hired me as his work-study. Before the school year was out he moved on to another job off campus and I was promoted into the Veterans Coordinator position in June of 1982."

Lonn has held that UNH Veterans Coordinator position in the Registrar's Office, for the past 22 years. He says, "I counsel, certify, monitor, record and verify students and their enrollments, ensure initial and annual approval/reapproval of our education programs, and report all various data to the State and Federal governments pertaining to various groups." These groups include: US military active duty personnel, National Guard and Reserve members, veterans, and eligible dependents of veterans attending UNH Durham, UNH-Manchester, College for Lifelong Learning (statewide), and receiving the various GI Bills, GI Bill Kickers, National Guard Scholarship, National Guard Tuition Waiver Program, military direct Tuition Assistance Program, Dependents Educational Assistance, Restored Entitlement Program for Survivors, State of New Hampshire War Orphans Scholarship, and Disabled Veterans Vocational Rehabilitation Program. He also serves as backup to the UNH registration front counter.

While Lonn mentions the need for "communication skills, endless patience and attention to detail, as well as extreme schedule flexibility" as necessary skills for his position, he also needs to possess an in-depth understanding of the application, administrative and payment processes of the each of the above programs at both the school and government ends. He spends a lot of time working with computer applications and on the Internet to report, certify, find and study programs and regulations, and communicating with government agencies and current/prospective students as far away as Iraq and Afghanistan. "Every hour I am finding, or ensuring monetary payments for students," he states. "Many times, I'm the one who gets to inform them of programs they didn't even know existed. So they all love me, except for the few hours when I'm reporting non-compliance with regulations and therefore taking money away. The students have so many things to remember with classes and everything else that this isn't always their chief focus, so I do all that I can to help them by staying on top of these issues."

When asked who or what at UNH has had a positive impact on him, Lonn quickly praises "Don Gordon (Dining) and Roland Goodbody (Dimond Library) for instilling zeal in 'employment issues'; Gary Marmontello, Gaynelle Pratt, and Joan Tambling (USNH Benefits Office and SPPC committee members) for making personnel policy formulation interesting, fun and rewarding; but especially Stephanie Thomas, Jim Wolf, and Kathy Forbes (Registrars and Associate Registrars past and present) who were/are marvelous supervisors and role models showing and instilling that attitude that gives one energy and passion for public and community service."

What does Lonn enjoy most about working at UNH? "My fellow staff and supervisors are fantastically team orientated," he says. "Second, I'm pushing middle age and I find it invigorating working constantly with the students. Third, as a 26-year retired Navy veteran myself (Chief Machinist Mate, 4 years active, 22 reserves), who worked his way through college with the help of the GI Bill, I can and do relate well to my student clients. Fourth, the UNH campus is a wonderful and beautiful place to work. Mostly though, it's the awesome parking - NOT!!"

A resident of Barrington, NH, Lonn says "my wife (Jo-Anne) and our two young daughters (Hannah, 10 and Emma, 6) are my hobbies. They are interesting, amusing and always reminding me they are the brains in the family. With two jobs there's not much time for anything else. I try to make time to watch the World Series and Patriots games with my friends, but I often fail. I do run the shot clock (sometimes the main clock) at the UNH Men's and Women's basketball games. Both teams play with total passion regardless of whatever level of success they are experiencing at the time. It's great, having that front row seat, and working the clocks forces me to make the time out to go to the games."