Photo by Christina VanHorn,
UNH Human Resources

Paul Sawyer has worked at the University of New Hampshire for the past 37 years and states "like the Grateful Dead said, 'What a long, strange trip it's been".

After leaving Boston University "to get married", Sawyer accepted an Electrician's Helper position at UNH in 1967. He was shortly thereafter promoted to Electrician and then to Alarm/Electronics Technician. In 1980, he began working with Telecommunications as a Computer Specialist/Information Technologist and the changes within the industry since that time have been enormous. "So much was done manually when I first started working here," Sawyer states. The continued hardware and software improvements have made many of the processes many times faster, but there are also many modifications made to "out of the box" software and this is an area where Sawyer's expertise has been invaluable to UNH. "The rules keep changing," Sawyer says. "Universities have many different needs than other types of institutions. We make modifications to software so UNH can use the data in formats that are required by the various user groups. We have a great group and we work together, separately."

In October of 2004, Sawyer was a recipient of a UNH Wildcat Award. His supervisor, Ken Mikelinich, says "Paul is just a great guy to be around and an asset to the Telecom team. He exemplifies the traditional 'Yankee' ingenuity and dry humor. His breadth of knowledge and dedication make him the ideal teacher to the group. As others get up to speed to learn the ways of the operations, Paul serves as a major disseminator of how things operate and the historical reasons behind the earlier decisions. Plus, he's a pretty good Unix/Linux guy to boot. In FY2004, Paul was responsible for designing and implementing a home-grown tool we call PortStat. This tool serves to provide a historical status of the data-ports throughout the campus. Now helpdesk personnel and technicians can "see" the status of the ports, resulting in less technician visits to remote sites. Operationally this tool can save technician time and improve the customer experience as a result. In this day and age where the employer-employee relationships are somewhat ephemeral … I think his 37 years of service speaks magnitudes of his dedication to the University of New Hampshire."

When asked who or what at UNH has had a positive impact on him, Sawyer's response is "My first supervisor was Electrical Foreman Dirk van den Heuvel, who was very patient with me in my first full-time job. As I began to specialize, I had to seek out information from those outside my own department, such as Fire Chiefs John Donovan and Roland LaRoche, whom I could always count on to share their expertise and knowledge of the fire service and fire and building codes relevant to my maintenance of alarm systems; Cliff Horigan, Cluster Consultant, who patiently put up with my learning the DEC-10 at lunchtimes and after work; Nick Alter, who was there for me when I had to learn to manage a Unix system in a hurry; Charlie Simpson, who helped merge Telecommunications into CIS; and most recently, Patty Hammar, who was the most qualified leader I had had to that point. As a Coast Guard Academy graduate, she had the engineering and organizational skills to mold our growing Telecom Computer Operations group from individuals into a unit. She recognized that I should attend The Dale Carnegie course to improve my non-technical skills, which has been a lot more necessary as the department changes."

A very strong family man, as one can attest by all the photos of his grandchildren in his cubicle, Sawyer almost glows with enthusiasm as he speaks of his family (wife June, who is an ED Tech and "June-of-all-Trades" at Exeter Hospital; two grown and married sons, Paul and his wife Katy and Rick and his wife Laura; and three grandchildren, RJ, Emma, and Elizabeth). He is also a Life Member of the Stratham Volunteer Fire department, and has worked on their major fundraiser, the Stratham Fair (he was in charge of their entire sound system for 18 years), since it started in 1968.

Other items found in abundance within Sawyer's work cubicle are various pieces of Disney paraphernalia. "I like to travel with my wife, especially to Walt Disney World, as members of the Disney Vacation Club," he mentions. "I'd wanted to get to Disney Land, and later Disney World, ever since they were developed. The first time we made the trip was in 1997, after the kids had grown up. In December of 2000, I decided it was time to take both sons and their wives to Disney World. Evidently, the news was so good that both wives soon announced they were pregnant (and advised not to fly). I was determined that we'd all go one way or another, so I scheduled an Amtrack trip (2 days) to Orlando and the trip was beautiful! My wife and I still try to get to Disney World once or twice each year."

June and Paul embarking on a Disney Magic Cruise (with 11 friends - not shown)

June and Paul celebrating their 37th anniversary at Spoodles Restaurant at Disney's Boardwalk Resort