Close Up
Landel champions professional staff
As chair of the Professional Staff Senate, Ann Marie Landel sees her job as helping to facilitate more relationships between staff and the senior administration. Photo: NANCY J. PARISI
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“The one thing I want to achieve is better communication and I encourage staff to engage themselves with professional development opportunities and connect with other departments.”
Ann Marie Landel can remember working with computers at UB before the Computing Center on the North Campus was even built. It was 1977, when she was hired as a computer operator at UB’s Ridge Lea campus after receiving her associate’s degree in data processing from Morrisville Ag and Tech College.
But as the UB campus and technology adapted, so has Landel’s role within computer operations at UB. “My job is changing all the time. That’s the one thing about IT; nothing every stays the same,” says Landel, now a customer support analyst with CIT Network and Classroom Services. She says that when she came to UB, she was working with 80-column punch cards. “Now, everything is wireless,” she adds.
In the early 80s, Landel moved to Bell Hall, where she and two others helped establish and manage the VAX/VMS and Unix computers. In her position, she helped build an alliance between academic computing, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the Department of Computer Science. After returning to school to complete her bachelor’s degree in computer application systems, she was promoted to CIT accounts manager where, for 10 years, she administered computer accounts on three computer systems, registered training for computer applications and sold statistical software to faculty, staff and students. From that role, she became involved with software testing and packaging, and moved onto her current position in project management.
Landel is also the chair of the Professional Staff Senate (PSS). She became involved with the campus organization about 10 years ago, spurred by an interest in learning more about what was going on at the university. From her beginnings attending the PSS’ general membership meetings, she has worked her way up to senator, executive committee member, vice chair, and now, as chair, as she leads the organization.
In her role as PSS chair, she aims to help facilitate more relationships between staff and the senior administration. “The one thing I want to achieve is better communication and I encourage staff to engage themselves with professional development opportunities and connect with other departments. Take the opportunity to see what else is going on at the great university where we work!”
She’s also trying to recognize professional staff members for their contributions to the university and celebrate them through an enhanced PSS newsletter and monthly staff profiles on the PSS website.
In her free time, Landel likes to craft. Formerly a jewelry crafter, her new hobby of decorating wine bottles has turned from a free-time diversion into a small business. When she’s not giving away her bedazzled creations as gifts, she’s selling her illuminated bottles at a local boutique hotel.
Married with three children—two of whom attended UB and the other currently enrolled at Alfred State—she admits she and her husband are enjoying their new role as empty nesters. With her new freedom, she’s looking forward to travelling more. Fluent in German, she’s especially looking forward to her next trip back to her parent’s native land of Germany, where most of her extended family still resides.
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