It was the summer of 1974, and Barry Brooks had just landed his first job with what was then the Northeast Regional Data Center, or NERDC. The job was Computer Operator, and it paid $3.90 per hour.

Brooks has covered a lot of ground in the 35 years since that job. On June 24, 2009, coworkers and friends gathered at the Friends of Music room to wish him well in his retirement. Former NERDC and CNS Director Ron Schoenau and Registrar Steve Pritz were among the colleagues who spoke at Brooks' retirement celebration.

During Brooks' tenure at CNS, he was the Systems Coordinator for UF's installation of IBM's CICS (Customer Information Control System) system. Among other things, CICS governs the registration process at UF. Even better, for CNS and its CICS system, Brooks was a leader with SHARE, an independent, volunteer-run association serving more than 20,000 technology professionals representing over 2,000 of IBM's top enterprise computing customers. In 2008 the CICS Project at SHARE celebrated its 35th year of existence. Brooks was a member of the project for 26 years and Project Manager for the last 16.

You can see pictures of the retirement celebration at http://picasaweb.google.com/rockyessex/BarryBrooksRetirementCelebration?feat=email#.

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