June 17, 2004

On June 20, fathers and their children everywhere will have dinner, exchange presents and visit with each other in honor of Father’s Day. For some, it has been weeks — even months or years — since they have seen each other. For others, like University of Houston’s James Andress and Mary Reed, it has been since only yesterday.

Reed, office coordinator in the College of Pharmacy, can’t help but scream, “Hi Daddy!” when she sees her father walking around campus. Andress, a supervisor in the Electronics Shop in the Cullen College of Engineering, feels equally elated when he sees his daughter hard at work. To him, it seems like yesterday that he was teaching her to ride a bike in their South Park neighborhood.

“I’m very proud of the woman my daughter has become,” Andress, a 25-year UH employee, said. “She has lived up to all the lessons and values her mother and I tried to instill in her as a child.”

Discipline, Reed said, was something her father taught her and her older brother since they were children. She took this lesson and applied it to all aspects of her life, especially her career. So, it came as no surprise when Reed landed a position in the co-op office in the Cullen College of Engineering five years ago.

“It was an advantage having my dad working in the same building as me,” she said with a smile. “Anytime there was a problem, my dad would come rushing over to fix it. I didn’t have to be placed on some waiting list.”

Andress admits that it was hard treating Reed as just a co-worker. His fatherly instincts would kick in every time he saw Reed. Whether it was fixing her computer or talking about family gatherings, Andress said he and his daughter have always shared a “wonderful, open relationship.”

Because of that relationship, Reed always wanted to be where her father was, so it’s no surprise to her that they now work together.

“There were days when I was young and didn’t have to go to school, and I would spend the day here at UH with my father,” she said. “Those times really meant a lot to me as a child. Even though I didn’t understand anything about electrical engineering, I just knew that I wanted to be with my dad.”

That bond between a father and daughter can be seen in other areas of campus as well. Alejandra Rodriguez, assistant librarian at the M.D. Anderson Library, cherishes every chance she gets to wave hello to her father, Santana Campos, a groundskeeper at UH for the last five years.

“It’s always neat to see my father at work,” she said. “Sometimes it’s like a game, though. Because of the uniform he wears, he looks like every other groundskeeper on campus.”

Rodriguez, who will mark her second anniversary at UH in August, also enjoys working with her father because they get the same holidays off. Many of these days are spent with other family members, barbecuing or just spending time together.

“My family is very close and always has been,” Rodriguez said. “Sometimes it’s hard to get together on campus, so we look forward to the times we do spend together.”

Leticia Vasquez
Lvasque5@central.uh.edu