‘Like a family’
After 47 years of employment, longtime conference staffer Pat Mack still going strong
By Jessica Brodie
You know someone loves their job when they’ve worked there so long they can barely remember a time when they didn’t.
That someone is Pat Mack, who this year celebrates 47 years of working for the South Carolina Conference of The United Methodist Church. That’s longer than some conference employees have been alive.
“I love it,” Mack says simply, gesturing to the paperwork stacked neatly on her desk in the lower level of the UMC Conference Center. “I still love what I do.”
Today she serves as the administrative assistant to Conference Secretary the Rev. Mel Arant, but over the years, Mack has seen many changes, both in her work and in the conference itself.
Mack came to work for the conference part-time in 1978 in the print shop, which has since closed. At the time, her daughter was around 4 or 5 years old and attending Timmerman kindergarten, and Mack said she worked for $2.50 an hour doing handwork.
“She’s 51 now,” Mack says of her daughter, shaking her head at the passage of time.
In those days, Edward Tullis was bishop, and the conference office was housed in the former Advocate building, located on Lady Street in Columbia. Mack remembers those days as a time of great fun and fellowship while everyone did their part to help the conference operate.
When the Advocate sold the building in 1980, the various conference and newspaper offices were temporarily displaced while what is today’s conference center, on Colonial Drive next to Columbia College, was being constructed. When it opened, Mack and other print shop employees had space on the ground floor, and in 1982, she shifted from hourly to salary, still remaining on staff part-time.
Back then, the print shop was a big open room, Mack remembers, with no shelving and a dark room where workers prepared all the items for print. Soon they added on space to accommodate the large printing presses, which were hard at work printing the conference journal, as well as various work for all the churches in the conference, from letterhead to business cards to envelopes. They also did printing for everyone in the building, which was expanding by then with new roles and departments, and for the various districts across the state.
“I enjoyed just helping people and being part of the service. If anybody wanted anything, we would do it.”
By now Roy Clark was bishop (1980-1988), and then came Bishops Joseph Bethea (1988-1996) and J. Lawrence McCleskey (1996-2004).
Mack worked alongside other longtime conference employees.
“It was a lot of young moms, and we were all family,” Mack remembers.
Many of the conference employees would bring their children to work on occasion, and children and teens would help in the print shop during pre-conference season and Journal time.
They didn’t use internet much back then, and Mack describes it as “a different world.” The whole building would get together and have devotionals every week and prayer time if anyone was having surgery. There was also a lot of crossover assistance, with one department pitching in to help another department when someone got busy.
“If we had a big print job, people would just stop by,” Mack says. “’I only have an hour and a half, but I’ll help you.’ It was a family.”
Over the years, Mack grew in skill and eventually learned formatting and layout. She became the print shop director.
But eventually, times caught up with the print shop. With the increase of digital communication and the decrease of print materials, business lessened.
When the conference journal’s budget was cut, Mack said that was the beginning of the end for the print shop. While they earned income on the other projects, the journal was how they broke even, she said, and it wasn’t long before the print shop ultimately closed.
Still, although Mack “retired” in 2012, she missed her work with the conference and the opportunity to connect with her fellow conference employees.
When then-treasurer Tony Prestipino and then-Bishop Mary Virginia Taylor invited her to come back to work part time, she agreed readily.
Now, Mack can’t imagine not working for the conference. She adores her job, and even though her work as an administrative assistant is different from running the print shop, she loves working for Conference Secretary Mel Arant, who she calls “a true joy to work with.”
They share a great working relationship, both attest.
“If I didn’t come to work every day, I’d be depressed, crazy, forgetful,” Mack says, laughing. “I just enjoy getting away from the house.”
Indeed, when COVID-19 hit, staying home was hard for her, reminding her why coming to work and being a part of the annual conference is still so important to her.
“It’s a lot different than it used to be, but I still enjoy what I do,” Mack said from her desk, smiling. “I love the opportunity to help, and all the work that goes into getting ready for conference. Everything done paper-wise, I do.”
“There is not much in our conference in which Pat hasn’t shared a part over the years, oftentimes working tirelessly in the background unseen,” Arant said about Mack. “She is an invaluable asset in the secretary’s office, especially now. As we have had the difficult task of maintaining the scope of work with dwindling personnel and funds, her institutional memory and skill has been a gift. She loves this conference deeply, and it shows in her dedication.
“I will be forever grateful that she has remained working with me in the secretary’s office.”