Career and Friends at United Airlines
Joanie was originally hired on with United Airlines in 1968 and worked for approximately 5 years before deciding to leave United in approximately 1973 to take care of and enjoy her two young sons, John and Mike. Joanie spent about 5 years at home, raising her 2 boys before needing to return to the workforce.
It was in 1969 when she met her long-time friend, Eldeen Carlson. They worked together in the SFOED, Education and Training department. Joanie was a Librarian who took care of all the “home study” training material for all the maintenance employees. Joanie would meet with the employees who wanted to gain more knowledge in their jobs, or regarding safety. Then Joanie would gather all the materials for them, create a training packet with a test, and then give it to them to take home to study.
When the employees were completed with their studies, they would return the training material to Joanie, who would then review their test and correct / grade them. Eldeen was the film Librarian for the Safety training. The film was on reels that Eldeen needed to clean, and splice the actual film when there were revisions or updates. She would mail the Safety films all over the country to ensure that everyone was to date with their Safety training. Eldeen said that her and Joanie had so much fun in those days! They had a boss named Mr. Dodge who became easily flustered with their antics. They eventually started calling him Mr. “D”. On one work day, Joanie came to work in a dress that buttoned all the way down the front, and it kept coming unbuttoned accidentally. Eldeen called out, “Hey Mr. D, look at this”. Then Eldeen gently tugged on the collar of Joanie’s dress, and ALL of her dress buttons came undone! Mr. D was never the same after that!
When Eldeen and Joanie worked together in SFOED, they worked day shift while their husbands (Bill and Jay) worked at United on swing shift. Since they didn’t have any children at the time, and didn’t need to rush home for anything, they would spend many of their evenings together after they got off of work. They went to the 50 cent movie show in San Bruno, or would go into “The City” to walk around, or have something to eat. Eldeen and Joanie were friends for 45 years! Some of their vacations together included: Taking their children (Jayna, John and Mike) to the Odd Fellows in Russian River; trips to Washougal to visit Millie in her huge new house that the towns people thought was a hotel when it was being built; trips to The Pointe Reports in Phoenix with other UA “girls” and to visit Mokato and Gary; and to Amsterdam.
Joanie was rehired by United Airlines on May 22, 1978 as a Word Processing Operator, and soon became the dayshift Lead at the San Francisco Maintenance Center. It was in this job that she met Debbie Bentley (Van Wart), who she trained as a Word Processing Operator. Little did they know they would become best friends for nearly 32 years. Joanie was the Lead Word Processor until 1982 when she doubled her salary as a Pension Clerk A.
Joanie’s awesome work ethic and professionalism was noticed when she was offered a promotion in July of 1984 as a Maintenance Systems Specialist, where she worked on a high-tech maintenance component system called EMAC. It is there that she was nicknamed EMAC Nack. In her work area, Joanie wanted to be a bit warmer so she placed a small electric space heater under her desk. She must have had it turned up a little too high one day, because the papers in her trash can that was also under her desk, caught on fire! She was really embarrassed when the building’s fire alarm sounded!
Joanie’s longevity as EMAC Nack lasted for more than 11 years, where she gained many, many close friends who became her devoted extended United family.
After those 11 years, Joanie joined the Component Maintenance organization as a Management employee in SFORQ, where she made the “big money” and received a 10% pay increase! She was so proud of making it into a Management position, and really enjoyed working among all the nice (and some handsome) Component Mechanics and Supervisors. SFORQ is where Joanie found her UAL Home; where her work family grew by the hundreds and her knowledge, skills, and parties with big sweet heavy buttercream frosted cakes were in abundance!
When anyone visited Joanie at her desk in RQ, they would enjoy the many pictures of babies and children of her coworkers that were taped on the wall above her desk, all of which she would know their birthdays and names, and would remember each one at Christmas with a card or trinket of some kind.
It was during this time that on a daily basis she would join the “Lunch Bunch” in the cafeteria; George Lutz, Eldeen (Deenie), Rick, Roy Henderson, Rick (Guido), Debbie (Blondie), Bob Sample, and several others who would come and go, depending on how badly they were embarrassed based on the daily topics of conversation. Joanie would create a funny hand-crafted hat for each person whose birthday was celebrated by the Lunch Bunch at the lunch table. She would sing along, eat cake, and everyone would carry on with laughter for the entire lunch break. She had a blast, and laughed so hard until tears welled up in her eyes! When it was time for cake, Joanie would take the corner piece that had the most icing; she would eat the rich buttercream icing first with a big grin and happy blue eyes, then maybe she would eat the cake too.
Everyone at United knew that Joanie’s biggest joys were her sons; John and “Mikee”. In 1996 she became a Grandmother for the first time when Nathan was born. The sun rose and set on Nathan! A few years later Nathan’s sister, Janelle was born, and earlier this year Victoria Joan arrived. Joanie LOVED being their Grandma!
Joanie was also a loving Godmother to Hanky (Van Wart), also born in 1996, who she adored and bragged about, as if he were her own