Mary Alvarez – USDA employee with the most years of full time federal service still employed is a Hispanic woman from south Texas

Mary Alvarez is an Animal Health Program Assistant with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Office in Brownsville, TX. She assists the APHIS “tick riders” who work the U.S. side of the Texas-Mexico border, as they attempt to control the fever tick population along the southern tip of Texas by spraying horses and dipping cattle with pesticide. “They’re riding the range outdoors,” she explained. “But, when they ultimately need to take care of the various reports to document their activities, that’s where I come in.”

In fact, Alvarez has been working at that job since 1976. But 32-plus years don’t even paint the whole picture, when compared to the fact that she’s been a federal employee almost continually since late World War II. In fact, since her federal service computation date is April 1948, she has over 60 years of federal service. Therefore, Alvarez is thought to be the USDA employee with the most years of full-time federal service who is still employed full-time at the Department. Calvin Beale, who was a Senior Demographer with the Economic Research Service in Washington, DC, previously held that distinction until he passed away from colon cancer, while on Sick Leave status, in September 2008. Beale was 85.

Alvarez, who is 87, was born on July 24, 1921 in San Benito, TX. She graduated from her local high school in 1939 and then worked some odd jobs for a number of years while living at home. “I was the second eldest of nine siblings,” she noted. “There weren’t many jobs in San Benito, and my family needed me to help out at home.” But then Uncle Sam came calling, looking for people to come to Washington, DC to work for the federal government. It was 1944. “I’d been attending Durham Business College in Harlingen, Texas–the school isn’t even there any more,” she recounted. “These officials came to the school, asking for typists to come to Washington, DC and work for the military.” She passed the typing test, and then, one week later, was mailed a train ticket–to head east.

First time out of the state? “First time out of the house!” she quipped. Alvarez lived with several women in a barracks-like facility in Arlington, VA, while working in a munitions building in Washington, DC–until moving to the just-completed Pentagon. She stayed for 15 months, got homesick and moved back to Texas, found no jobs there so moved back to DC, and was re-employed as a clerk typist in the Pentagon until 1950. She then moved back to San Benito where she clerked for the U.S. Department of Labor until taking a position as a clerk typist with the just-reopened Harlingen AFB in southern Texas. She worked there from 1952-62 when she took a position as a secretary with the U.S. Selective Service in San Benito from 1963-74. “That was during the Vietnam War,” she recounted. “Officials kept coming through, looking through our files, trying to find young men who were classified ‘1-A’–eligible for military service.” She moved to her current position with APHIS in 1976.

When asked for anecdotes from her USDA career, Alvarez related the time when a tick rider had an accident with his horse–because the horse fell on him. “I used to keep tabs on the riders using a two-way radio. This was 1979, and cellphones didn’t exist back then,” she explained. “The rider was a little fellow and the horse must have weighed 1,000 pounds. So I asked him ‘What kind of help do you need?’ ‘Human help!’ he replied. So I was able to figure out his approximate location, and then I coordinated getting ‘human help’ out there, to literally pull the horse off of him. I’m happy to say that his injuries were relatively minor–in spite of having that horse on top of him for about 45 minutes.”

* Last Book Read: “I used to belong to a local book club. But now I have glaucoma, so I’m not able to read as much as I used to.”
* Last Movie Seen: “I haven’t been to a movie in years. I figure I’m sitting in my office all day long, so why then go and sit in a movie theater? I’d rather go dancing.”
* Hobbies: “I like growing plants at home.”
* Something I Don’t Want People To Know About Me: “I’ve been a diabetic for about a year, so I’m supposed to check myself by drawing blood with a needle twice a day. But I hate pricking my finger–so I’m not doing that as often as I’m supposed to. But I don’t want people to know that–especially my doctor.”
* Priorities In The Months Ahead: “Paperwork here at the office, I take care of right away. But paperwork at home, like junk mail I get, keeps building up in piles. I actually have two shredders at home, so I need to start using ‘em. Soon.”"

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