Hats off to half a century of service to Yale
These two staff members are celebrating 50 years at Yale and were recently honored by President Salovey and his leadership team at the 23rd annual Long-Service Recognition Dinner on March 26, 2019. Here is the video that was shown at the dinner to honor the 50-and-45 year honorees.
Lee Heston
Pediatrics Infectious Diseases
Lee is a local girl who made good in the STEM field long before the term even existed. Her parents met at Hillhouse High School and her father received a scholarship to Yale while her mom went off to college and then to the Yale School of Public Health. She likes to tell the story of how her father had many jobs on campus including delivering dry cleaning to fellow students through the university’s underground steam tunnels. After the war, her parents settled in New Haven, then in Hamden. Lee has memories of swimming lessons in Payne Whitney Gym, Peabody Museum, “fabulous” Woolsey Hall, and the art gallery.
Once a staff member at Yale, Lee eventually lived close enough to walk to work and experienced once again all that Yale has to offer, including free concerts and student recitals. Like many of her colleagues all over campus, she often made her way to the Old Campus area to witness Commencement and vividly remembers one exciting scene: “There I was watching the parade, and I saw a very dapper-looking gentleman in cap and gown striding down Elm Street when a man next to me yelled out, ‘That’s Duke Ellington!’ And wouldn’t you know, the Duke came right over and shook this man’s hand. After Mr. Ellington received his honorary degree, he said into the microphone, ‘Take the A Train,’ and the crowd went wild, clapping endlessly and standing on their seats. It was such a joyous moment.”
Lee likes to point out that the one thing that has not changed in 50 years is that she is still growing cells. While modest about her contribution to infectious disease research, she is pleased that one particular “cell line” that she helped develop was used not only by the Miller Lab, but also other universities. Dr. Miller says that “Lee has been a major contributor to our lab’s work identifying a viral protein that mediates a switch for the EB virus to move from a resting state, latency, to a state of active replication. Lee is a truly talented experimentalist whose work has shed light on a fundamental problem in virology.”
When Lee looks out over her five decades at Yale, she says, “I always find as the years go by that just practicing a little gratitude every day is something that gets me through a lot of things.”
Lee Petrowski
Yale Medicine, Clinical Cashiering
Lee spent most of her Yale career in The Child Study Center with the last 11 years in her current position. A summer job at Yale in Accounts Payable, post Hillhouse High School, became her first full-time job—she needed to buy a car so she attended college at night. “At the time,’ recalls Lee, “I figured I would only stay a couple of years to appease my parents, who wanted me to work at Yale for the good benefits, but lo and behold, here I am 50 years later. And I couldn’t be happier.”
Today Lee’s work centers on processing all the payments that come through Clinical Cashiering and taking care of the main desk. “We are so lucky to have Lee, says supervisor Joel Ball, “she is our counselor, our compass, always contemporary with all our new methods and systems, and always a friendly face for our visitors.”
Both of Lee’s parents worked in Yale dining halls. She remembers riding her bicycle to where her mom was a baker in one of the colleges and feasting on leftover desserts and iced tea. Born in Yale New Haven Hospital, Lee grew up on Mechanic Street until she was five years old and then at various other New Haven locations before moving to Hamden after high school.
Lee has fond memories of working in The Child Study Center and interacting with the parents, patients, social workers, and clinicians. A special moment was when the clinicians and social workers had a picnic at one of their houses for her and other colleagues. “It was wonderful to see that they recognized how hard we worked,” Lee says, “and showed how much they appreciated it.”
Moving to her current workplace in Clinical Cashiering was particularly welcoming because Lee knew a lot of colleagues in the building. She credits Joel for “making it very warm and very inviting, which means a lot the older you get and makes coming to work just so nice.” But what really bowled her over most recently was the party Joel threw to celebrate her 50 years at Yale. “Joel outdid herself. She had an open house. She had trivia. We had everything. Everybody came in. Everybody congratulated me. It was like a big family. And I will never forget that.”