In the Spotlight Johnstown paralegal on the job for 70 years -- and counting

Dec. 23—JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — A framed page from a 2004 edition of The Tribune-Democrat hangs in the lobby at the law office of Kaminsky, Thomas, Wharton, Lovette and Vigna in downtown Johnstown.

An article on that page reported that paralegal Jo Ann Brewer had been working at the law firm for 50 years, "steady as a compass," and that the firm's attorneys counted on and appreciated her considerable experience.

"At age 68, Brewer has no plans to retire," reporter Tom Lavis wrote then, "saying she loves her work and the people around her."

And she meant it, too.

Brewer, now 87, is still on the job 20 years after that story was written. She will mark the 70th anniversary of her employment at the firm on Jan. 20 and says she doesn't plan to stop there.

"I enjoy what I do," she said in an interview earlier this month at the KTWL&V office, 360 Stonycreek St., echoing the words of her younger self. "I really do like my work, so I figured as long as I can do it, I'll do it."

She is highly regarded by the firm's attorneys and other employees because of what one of those attorneys, Robert Thomas, called "her long experience and vast knowledge of the law."

"She's my right arm in practice," said Thomas, who has had Brewer as his assistant for more than 40 years, first as a secretary and now as a paralegal.

Brewer was a 17-year-old Johnstown High School senior on Jan. 20, 1954, when she started working part-time at the downtown law firm, then known as Kaminsky & Kelly, through a work-study program meant to give secretarial and bookkeeping students some real-world experience.

"I worked from nine to 12 every day — Monday through Saturday, then — and then I went to Grant's and I ate lunch, and then I went out the back door and went to Johnstown High for my afternoon classes," she said.

She started working full-time at the firm right after she graduated from high school, turning down an offer from relatives who lived in Virginia and worked for the federal government to join them there. Her starting wage as a secretary in 1954 was 50 cents an hour.

"Thank heavens that's improved," she said with a laugh, "or I wouldn't be here."

The tools of her trade have improved over the decades, too, as technology marches on.

"We had clunky typewriters that you pounded away on," she recalled, "and that dirty copy paper you had to put between everything to make copies — so if you made a mistake you were in trouble. ... Now we're into computers. I have a typewriter to type certain things, like forms, but other than that, I use a computer all the time."

But some of the skills she learned long ago still come in handy.

"I still take shorthand," she said, "which a lot of people don't even know what it is. ... I use it every day here, or even at home I use it sometimes."

The law firm has had three different locations downtown since Brewer started working there, landing at its current Stonycreek Street offices around 1970 or so, she said; she recalls that its operations were moved to a temporary site on Main Street for a few weeks while the building was cleaned up after the 1977 flood.

Attorneys have come and gone around her.

She was employed at various times as a secretary, a bookkeeper and a receptionist at the firm, working for attorneys including Bill Kelly and Harold Kaminsky. She became Thomas' secretary after Kelly retired in 1981, she said, and soon after that, in 1985, she studied at Indiana University of Pennsylvania to become a paralegal.

"You're always learning something new," she said. "Even the attorneys sometimes will find something new that they've never heard of or done. ... That's why I went to paralegal school. I thought, 'Well, you know, I've worked here all those years, but I still probably don't know enough.' "

Today, Brewer works part-time, two days a week in the office, but she also logs into her computer every day from her Richland Township home to check her emails and see if anything has come in that Thomas ought to know about. She is in good health, she said, and plans to keep working for as long as she can.

She credited her long career in one place to her enjoyment of her job and her liking for her employer and coworkers.

"One thing, working for so many years, is the fact that if you have good bosses, that helps," she said. "If you get one that you don't like, you don't want to stay, a lot of times. And our staff's always been good."

Thomas said that Brewer is "competent and experienced" and rarely misses a day of work. She represents seven decades of valuable institutional knowledge — of the inner workings of the legal system in general and of Kaminsky, Thomas, Wharton, Lovette & Vigna in particular.

"It's nice to be able to say, 'Don't you remember when we did that petition?' and she'll say, 'Oh, yeah, I think it was this,' and she'll go and find it for you. ... She's certainly been a very important part of my law practice over the years," Thomas said. "I wouldn't be able to have done it as well or as efficiently without her."