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As the semester approaches its end and students get ready to leave PCC, some of the employees who have helped them along their journey are also making their departure.

Dina Chase, director of degree and transfer services, Kim Miles, assistant dean of scholarships and Dale Pittman, director of management information services are among some of those retiring.

Cynthia Olivo, dean of counseling, who worked with Chase for seven years, said she appreciated Chase’s steadfast service to the college and the effective relationships she maintained with universities to make sure students transferred with ease. Chase’s work with projects that helped students transfer helped keep PCC one of the top transfer colleges in California, she said.

“The PCC Transfer Center is home to many successful projects including the PCC Ambassador Program, the CLAVE and ROPE programs,” Olivo said. “Over the years, Dina provided the leadership to ensure these and many more services were running in tip top shape.”

With her office just down the hall from Chase’s, Kim Miles began her career at PCC 15 years ago when she applied for a job at the financial aid department.

“I came to PCC and like anything else, it was an opportunity that I applied for and I have no regrets,” Miles said.

A PCC alumni and graduate from Cal State LA with a degree in journalism, Kim Miles did not originally intend to work in financial aid. “I don’t think most of us working here planned to work in financial aid,” Miles said.

Despite that Miles says she fell in love with the job and her workplace environment.

“There is something about it that once you’re in it, it draws you in,” she said.

Olivo, who has worked with Miles for seven years, said she was impressed with Miles’ ability to ensure that students were served in the best possible manner. In a time when there was no technological support to run processes electronically, Miles did so manually.

“Needless to say this was very stressful, yet Kim ensured the work was completed correctly for the sake of helping students succeed,” Olivo said.

Olivo was not the only who recognized the hard work Miles did for the PCC community. For continuing to make higher education available to minority students, Miles was the recipient of the NAACP Education Award last year.

“I am extremely humbled by the honor and even to this day it is something I can’t believe,” she said.

Though she is retiring, Miles said she will still keep in contact with PCC as a member of the community.

“I am still going to continue to be involved with the community so I’ll definitely keeping in touch with PCC,” she said.

A student here at PCC when computer systems were first introduced to the college, Pittman has seen the many changes in the technology he’s worked with over the years.

“We’ve had many leaps forward here over the decades,” he said.

It wasn’t until 1985, 29 years ago, that Pittman was hired by PCC as the Director of Administrative Computing Services.

“I was hired as the Director of Administrative Computing services which then became Management Information Services and then to its current form of Information Technology Services,” Pittman said.

And while students may not think twice about it, Pittman says it took and still takes a lot to deliver the content, which they use to get information on the school or register.

Regarding what he considers his greatest accomplishment while working at PCC, Pittman said that the accolades should go to his Information and Technology team.

“The best thing that I leave behind is a superior IT team that not only supports everything that we currently have, but also continuing to prepare for the next steps,” he said.

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