OREANDA-NEWS. January 22, 2016. It takes a certain something to stay with a single company for most of one’s life. For Mary Voigt, who recently celebrated 60 years with Ford Motor Company, it was her pride in her work and enjoyment of her career that kept her going.

Voigt, who currently works as an administrative assistant in Building 1, started her career at Ford Motor Company at the age of 19 on Dec. 29, 1955, at the Triple-E Building in Dearborn.  Her first stint was as a secretary in Product Study Components. Voigt then went to work in Purchasing at the Triple-E Building, typing quotations before Purchasing was moved to World Headquarters.

She left Purchasing and went to work in the Manufacturing Services Building, involving mostly government contracts. Voigt then left that position for salaried personnel in the Steel Division, where she typed letters of hire to marine personnel for the three iron ore boats: The Henry, The Benson and The William Clay Ford.

Voigt transferred to Glass Division salaried personnel, working with Form 60s and taking many hours of shorthand on various reports, as well as explaining benefits programs to incoming FCGs and new employees.

Voigt later transferred to Dearborn Engine Plant, working for the plant manager by monitoring the lobby, recording meeting minutes and charting weekly sabotage reports, before transitioning back to the Triple-E Building to work for Irving Bishop.

Her duties didn’t just end with what was written down on her statement of functions. Voigt recalls one standout instance demonstrating her devotion to her supervisors while working for Bishop:

“Irv needed to renew his passport for a last-minute trip to England,” she said. “The only way to do that in time was to fly to Chicago. The passport could be renewed in four hours by going to th?e Kluczynski Federal Building. There was my day at work, wandering around Michigan Avenue waiting to renew this passport.”

This is just up to the 30th year of Voigt’s 60-year role at Ford; the plethora of duties and positions she’s held are too numerous to list here in full. 

Voigt said she takes it one day at a time.

“I guess I never thought about it,” she said. “I’m a friendly person, so whenever I go out shopping, I’m very proud to tell anyone I talk to that I work for Ford Motor Company. They ask ‘How long?’ and I’m proud to tell them I’ve been here for 60 years. They’re a little speechless.

“It doesn’t seem that long,” she said. “I’ve just worked every day. I pretty much always have perfect attendance, which enabled me to put my children through school and educate them.”

Voigt recently had the chance to meet President and CEO Mark Fields.

“He’s very nice,” she said. “He’s very gracious, too. I was pleased to meet him and I enjoyed it.”

Voigt said that after more than 60 years in the workforce, she’s thought about retirement but hasn’t quite settled on exactly when.

“I have to come up with something I’d rather do and I haven’t yet,” she said. “I guess everybody thinks about it from time to time, I know that when you retire from anything, you have to have something to retire to.

“I think a lot of people retire because of health or because they don’t like their boss or because maybe they want to take care of their grandchildren or there’s sickness in the family,” she said, “but I was not in that situation, so for me it was just better to work.”

Voigt offered this insight for prospective employees looking to foster a similar career:

“You have to be someone who wants to work,” she said. “Some people are very ambitious, some aren’t. It’s such an individual thing, so it’s up to you to do whatever you feel like doing.”

Regardless of the motivation, she said that procrastination should not be an option.

“Never do tomorrow what you can do today,” she said. “Don’t let things go; try to get them done.”