(Columbia, Missouri June 19, 2012) – In 1956, Bernie Bias left Iowa for Missouri to spend some time with her friends. While visiting, she decided to apply for a position at a telephone company. She was hired and retired with 30 years of service under her belt by 1986. “After three months of retirement, I was bored,” she says. “So, I started looking for something to do.”
Bernie’s husband owned a lawn care service at the time, and would often mow the grass for the OATS office. “He was always talking about how nice the people that worked there were,” Bernie says. “So I applied for a job.”
This month, Bernie celebrates her twenty-five year anniversary with OATS. Bernie finds great fulfillment through her position as the Accounts Payable Clerk. Linda Yaeger, Executive Director for OATS says, “She is one-of-a-kind.” OATS counts very heavily on Bernie to assure that vendors are paid promptly and properly.
Linda says, “She has been doing this for us for so long, she can immediately see if an amount is correct or if something is wrong. She is one of the old-type-ethics-driven employees who are invaluable on our staff. She watches us all, and is as quick to get on me, as she is to point out an inconsistency in a payment request from a driver…she is highly valued!”
Bernie is blessed to say that she and her husband have been married for 53 years. They have two sons, two daughters-in-law, three grandchildren and one great- grandson. She enjoys scrap booking when she is not working for OATS and has made each of her grandchildren as well as her great-grandson scrapbooks that go back five generations with pictures and stories of their ancestors. “Since my parents were immigrants from Holland, I feel it is important for them to have some records of their ancestors,” she says.
Over the past twenty-five years Bernie has worked for OATS, she has seen the changes that have taken place firsthand. “The vehicles have more than tripled, computers have been installed, we are now equipped with cell phones and MDT’s and even the number of employees working for OATS has increased,” she says. The changes that OATS has undergone over the years have been a remarkable improvement to the system according to Bernie. “The one thing that hasn’t changed is the service OATS provides.”
For more information about OATS, Inc., please visit their website www.oatstransit.org or contact Dorothy Yeager, Assistant Executive Director, OATS, Inc., 2501 Maguire Blvd., Suite 101, Columbia, Missouri, 65201-8252, (573) 443-4516, djyeager@oatstransit.org.