Paul Lange, above, has worked at UC Irvine for 25 years. Jennifer Craig Welti, inset photo, has served the campus for 15 years.
School staffers celebrate years of service
A dozen School of Social Ecology staff members are celebrating three, five, 10, 15 or 25 years of service this year.
If you frequent the school’s fifth floor administration offices or any of the all-staff meetings, announcements or celebrations, you have no doubt bumped into the pair topping the list: Paul Lange, director of facilities and space planning, at 25 years of service and Jennifer Craig Welti, director of graduate affairs & professional programs, at 15 years.
“What I can say about my time at UCI is it has felt like two completely different eras,” Lange says. “Having been here the first go around in the 1990s, to coming back in the decade of the 2010s the campus has changed so much. In the ’90’s, it was just a quiet campus, seemingly like any other institution of higher learning. Spring forward to my second time on campus, and it was like a completely different environment, so much more activity and notoriety attached to being on campus. I definitely enjoy being a part of such a now-vibrant campus.”
Asked for a “fun fact” about himself, Lange pointed to one of his hobbies.
“I play fantasy sports,” he says. “At one point, I was competing in all four of the major sports: football, baseball, basketball and hockey. For the past few years, it has been reduced to just football and baseball.”
Lange has been at it so long that he recalls in the mid-1980s when he started, fantasy sportsmen were referred to as nerds or geeks.
“All the statistical information gathering was done by hand; no computer software’s back then,” he observes. “Now, besides multiple software platforms to play on, there are TV and radio shows revolving around fantasy sports. Gambling has even become a component if you choose to participate.”
Welti, better known by faculty, staff and administrators as “Jennie,” decided to turn her years-of-service reaction into something akin to a Yelp review: “5/5 stars. No complaints. Clean facilities, friendly community, close to restaurants, theaters, libraries and parks. Would work here again. Highly recommend!”
Her “fun fact” was equally succinct.
“I actually started my UCI service as a shuttle bus driver for ASUCI!”
Also accelerating to service milestones are the following staffers:
10 years:
- Jessica Gutierrez, Master of Advanced Study (MAS) assistant director
5 years:
- Marie Gillespie, director of clinical programming
- Darren Gregorio, department analyst for criminology, law & society
- Anna Kamanzi, program director of the Alec Glasser Center for the Power of Music and Social Change
- Jorge Padilla, Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) assistant director
- Lizardy Velasco, academic counselor
- Yvonne Vo, academic counselor
3 years:
- Brittany Arias, department analyst for criminology, law & society
- Matt Coker, writer and social media manager
- Darren Mayes, department coordinator of urban planning & public policy