In 1958, Tommy Gary was working part-time at N.C. Baptist Hospital when he was offered what was supposed to be a temporary job working full time in the place of someone who was recovering from surgery.
"When the 90 days was up, they didn't tell me to go," he said, "so I stayed."
More than 50 years later, Gary, 69, is still going strong. These days, he is the supervisor of materials management, which means he deals with trucks bringing in supplies, tracks thousands of packages and explains to people that it's not possible to produce a package that the supplier has yet to ship.
"He is absolutely one in a million," said Sallie Simpson, the director of materials management.
As valuable as his dedication and knowledge are, she said, his greatest strength is the way he deals with people.
"He treats each person as if they were the most important person on the face of this Earth," Simpson said. "If you are the CEO or work in housekeeping, he treats you with the same level of respect."
Equipment for the tower
Donny Lambeth, the president of Baptist Hospital, became friends with Gary back in the early 1970s when they worked together getting equipment into a new tower.
"He is one of the most-well-respected and friendly people I have ever worked with," Lambeth said. "He always has a smile and positive attitude….I just can't say enough about Tommy and what he has meant to me over these past years as a friend and a colleague."
Over the years, Gary has held a multitude of jobs at Baptist, which is now Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
"That's probably why I stayed so long," he said. "The job was never boring."
Gary was still a student at Atkins High School when he started working after school part time in the hospital cafeteria. That full-time "temporary" job was delivering supplies all over the hospital. In the years that followed, he helped out in the pharmacy, worked on boilers, took out trash and served as a waiter with the catering service.
"Back in those days, you did whatever had to be done," he said.
For a number of years, he was in charge of the offset-printing operation, printing out materials and distributing them. As the hospital grew and towers went up, he would bring over furniture from one of the warehouses when it was time to furnish the new spaces. For the past 30 years or so, he has mostly been in shipping-and-receiving.
Gary is the only medical-center employee with more than 50 years of service. When the hospital was smaller and he was younger, he knew every other employee by name. That's no longer the case.
From time to time, he has made noises about retiring but, so far, he hasn't followed through. His latest plan is to retire next year when he turns 70.
Gary used to play golf and bowl, but a stroke and bypass surgery slowed him down a bit. He and his wife, Lillie, are members of Ephesus Seventh Day Adventist Church. He met Lillie when she was a freshman at Atkins, and he was a sophomore. Asked whether he had to woo her for a while or they hit it off right off the bat, he smiled and said, "We hit it off right off the bat. I'm a likable fellow."
They have six girls and two boys and in the neighborhood of 20 grandchildren. His son Michael said, "My dad is my best friend. There is nothing that I can't talk to him about."
Gary is known for being even-tempered, and those who work for him feel comfortable enough to give him a hard time in jest. As Wayne Lash, a receiving clerk who has worked with him for 28 years, put it, "I don't want him to get too happy."
While Gary was getting his picture taken, one person after another walked by, and pretty much everyone had something to say. "You going to do any work today?" said one.
"They like to worry an old man," Gary said.
■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.
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