It’s been a while

**After 44 years at Job Corps, Kim Heiden will retire on Monday.** Photo by Dan Mundt

Job Corps had just come into existence when Kim (Bergman) Heiden was hired as a clerk/typist.

“My first day was November 12, 1979,” she said. “They were still remodeling and getting the building ready. When I was hired, we didn’t have students yet.”

After 44 years of watching the school grow and change, Kim has decided to retire.

Her last day will be Monday, February 5.

Kim grew up in Kiron and is a 1977 graduate of Denison High School.

Her brother, Craig Bergman, works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and helped land NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars.

Kim might not have applied for the position at Job Corps if not for encouragement from her father, the late Gene Bergman.

“He told me about this new school that was coming to Denison,” she said. “I had gone to secretarial school at Iowa Central Community College. I thought the time was right, so I applied and I got hired.”

During her first few weeks, she worked in an office at Cottonwood Square, which is now the location of the St. Anthony Clinic and Carroll Area Nursing on Highway 30 in Denison.

“That’s where the staff reported initially, and then we moved out to the center,” Kim said. “We did lots of staff training to get prepared for our students; the students first arrived on my birthday, February 4th, 1980. I remember that very well.”

She worked several different clerical positions, then became secretary for basic education and vocational training, and then became a receptionist during the early- and mid-1980s.

“In 1988, I applied for the executive assistant position and, to my surprise, they offered the position to me; that’s the position I am currently in,” Kim said. “I’ve been doing what I’m currently doing since 1988. So, it’s been a while.”

As executive assistant, she reports primarily directly to the center director but she takes on many tasks.

“I do a lot of things for a lot of people,” Kim said. “I take meeting minutes, I schedule appointments, I do staff travel, and I try to be there for the students if they should need anything. It seems like it’s always something different.”

She makes herself available for students in a variety of ways.

“If they have an issue or a concern, or maybe they just want someone to talk to, I’ll ask them how their day is going, or I’ll ask them how far along they are in their trade and when do they think they’ll be finishing,” Kim said. “If they want to, I’ll schedule an appointment with the center director. I just try to do my best to help them in any way that I can.”

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Working at Job Corps has been a life-changing experience.

“I’ve worked with wonderful people; the students are wonderful and the staff are like my second family,” she said. “I say sometimes we see more of our coworkers than we do of our families. I worked for 10 different center directors. They’ve all been wonderful to work with and work for, and I’ve learned something from all of them. I feel very blessed and fortunate.”

She has seen many changes over her four-plus decades.

“The one thing I miss, that I wish we still had, is the wonderful child development center/solo parent program,” Kim said. “COVID closed that down and it hasn’t opened back up, yet, but hopefully someday it will because there’s a need for it.”

She said at Job Corps, she always felt she was working in the right place for her.

“The time has just gone by so fast; when I first started, I was a young’un like these students are,” Kim said. “And now … where has the time gone?”

She also wants to give recognition to the only other employee who has been at Job Corps as long as she has been.

“Linda Boyd is our buyer at Job Corps, and we both started on the same day,” Kim said.

With her retirement approaching on Monday, she is having trouble imagining that it will be her last day on the job.

“I think it will be emotional because I spent so many hours, days, years out there in the same office,” Kim said. “It will be hard driving down Opportunity Drive for the last time.”

She said she hopes the school will let her visit or have lunch at the school in future.

“I just realized it’s time for me to enjoy my golden years with my husband (Jay), so that’s what we’re going to do,” Kim said.

“I’m so grateful for the opportunity to have worked out there all this time.”

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