*This blog was originally published Feb. 29, 2020
To say that Jerry Gregory was a hard worker would be a complete understatement.
Jerry was the ”face of Goodwill,” and indeed his image is still on some of our trucks.
At the time of his retirement in 2014, Jerry Gregory was the oldest employee at Goodwill North Central Texas. An icon at the Fort Worth regional offices, Jerry began his service with Goodwill May 11, 1959 as a trainee in the furniture department, working at a pay rate of only 15 cents per hour.
It wasn’t until Leap Day February 29, 1960 that he became an actual Goodwill employee at a pay rate of 50 cents per hour. Jerry went on to work in the shipping department in 1970 as a shipping helper and then on to material handler in 1990, a position he held until he retired.
Jerry was employed by Goodwill for more than 54 years – though if you count by his actual hire date it would only be 14 since he started on Leap Day. Taking only 2 weeks of vacations each year, which he reluctantly accepted, Jerry worked for Goodwill for nearly 20,000 days. 19,744 to be exact.
Jerry, who had a cognitive disability, explained that he had trouble finding work and that “Goodwill was the only person that would hire me.”
He proved beyond a doubt that Goodwill won the lottery hiring Jerry onto our staff. For more than half a century, he diligently rose early and caught a city bus to arrive at work on time. The one exception to this routine was the day he walked for over three hours to work in 1997 during a citywide bus strike.
He was as reliable as they come. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone – disabled or not – with his work ethic.
Jerry had an eye for detail, and was known to go above and beyond his personal workload. One manager recalled that he’d be working on something and leave a little mess and when he would turn back around, it had disappeared. Jerry was all over it.
When asked what he liked about working at Goodwill, Jerry replied that he liked the way everyone said “Hi Jerry” when he arrived at work. He also enjoyed how he and his friends would play jokes on one another.
After more than 50 years with Goodwill, you would think that Jerry looked forward to retirement. However, when asked of his plans during his 52nd work anniversary in 2012, he smiled and simply replied, “I’ll work here as long as they’ll let me.”
When we think of Leap Day, we always remember Jerry – a happy, joyful person who always made us smile.