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CONCORD — Mary Jarvi is retiring after 44 years of going to work each morning at the Haskell Ag Research lab.
She began her career years with the University of Nebraska in 1979. She has been affiliated with the Haskell Agricultural Lab (HAL) all of those years where she served in various roles as Secretary II, Word Processing Specialist, Project Assistant, and most recently, Office Associate.
She juggled many responsibilities as the point person for office, business and financial management, as well as developing a host of communications materials.
She also played an important role in coordinating the HAL Field Day, Fall Fest, Winter Fest, and other events. Mary was instrumental in coordinating the Nebraska Career Day at Wayne State College that draws in approximately 1,200 high school students each year. She often was the voice of HAL on the radio promoting events in radio interviews.
One of the things that drew Mary to working with the University was that she liked the idea of working for an educational institution and the programs they offered. Reflecting on her career, Mary noted, “The most enjoyable thing about working at the lab were the amazing people who worked there and how everyone truly cared about each other.” She says HAL was truly a “family”. Her career journey took her to various locations with HAL with a few organizational name changes, as well. She started at the Northeast Station at Concord. When the Lifelong Learning Center in Norfolk became a reality, the Norfolk location became the Northeast Research & Extension Center (headquarters for the district) and the name for the Concord location was changed to Haskell Ag Lab.
She worked at Concord from August 1979 November 1997 and transferred to the Norfolk location which at the time was the NE Research & Extension Center (November 1997 - November 2017). She then transferred back to Concord in November 2017 until retirement Feb. 29, 2024.
She noted when she first started, swine, beef, soils, weeds, dairy, forestry, entomology, ag engineering, and irrigation researchers and a district 4-H specialist worked on-site. She said that as time has gone on, while fewer researchers are on-site, HAL serves as an important educational site for the public.
“I always enjoyed the continual learning while working at HAL from various people,” she said, adding she immensely enjoyed the various people and positions she had the honor to work with.
She noted her appreciation of the supportive workplace culture, “I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with UNL/NEREC/HAL over the years. It has been a wonderful family-friendly work environment and it has been a joy to work with everyone.”
University of Nebraska Eastern Nebraska Research, Extension and Education Center Director, Doug Zalesky said, “Mary has been a long-time mainstay at the Haskell Ag Lab. Her loyalty and efforts to promote the lab will be missed. She has done a tremendous job during her tenure promoting and supporting the lab and its activities. I appreciate all that she did to support my administrative efforts and will miss having her as part of the team at HAL. I wish her all the best in her retirement.”
