After “34 years, four months,” Pat Wilhite is closing the door on a lengthy career at Gates Corporation. But as the saying goes, when one door closes, another opens. THOUGH THE NATURE of the workforce has changed since she started, Pat said she has only fond memories of her time with one of Allen County’s most iconic employers. PAT SAID she was lucky to be at a younger retirement age, and she is going to take full advantage of it.
On Monday afternoon, Pat spent her last day at Gates soaking in the last moments with co-workers and supervisors.
To top off the day, a helicopter gave her a ride home.
“I didn’t even see the helicopter,” Pat said. That’s because as she was leaving work her family was outside to greet her with the special going-away present.
“I think I was in shock, I just got in.”
Humboldt pilot Jerry Daniels flew Pat off in a fitting goodbye, with her friends and family cheering her on.
“I was one of the early ones,” she said during a phone interview with The Register. She began working with the company in 1979, when there were around 300 employees at the factory.
There was less turnover when she first started working on the factory floor, where she helped in production of hydraulic hoses, then with production of “cut-length” hoses made to order. She said when Gates became corporate-owned, it lost a little bit of the “family-owned” feel, but it still is a company that cares for its own. All four of her children worked at Gates at some point in their lives, putting several of them through college.
“They were good enough to us that we worked for them,” Pat said. “They would do anything for you, and you would do anything for them.”
It’s a symbiotic relationship that is increasingly rare these days, she said, emphasizing the idea that employees are a company’s greatest asset.
Pat said people don’t stick with a career as long as they used to, and it cuts something away from the personality of a workforce.
“I think it makes a big difference, they (young people) don’t appreciate what they’ve got,” she said.
“It sounds like an old person talking, doesn’t it,” she quipped with a chuckle.
At 62, Wilhite is fortunate enough to retire at an age when can still make a joke like that.
She has 11 grandchildren, six in Humboldt, three in Gardner and two in Lee’s Summit.
“I don’t what to miss what’s going on in their lives,” she said. “We’re going to try to hit as many ballgames as possible.
Pat has been married to her husband Allen Wilhite for 43 years; he was a long-time journalism teacher in Humboldt who is now retired as well. All in all, the future is wide open for the two.
“We haven’t been around each other all day like this, I hope can handle it,” she laughed.
A CAREER CELEBRATION Wilhite retiring from Gates after 34 years
