Shari Conroy, administrative assistant at MSU's National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. Photo by G.L. Kohuth.

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After 31 years as an administrative assistant at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, Shari Conroy has seen the facility celebrate many milestones. The most recent was the Department of Energy awarding the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams contract to the NSCL last December.

She celebrated a milestone of her own on Sept. 18: her 31st anniversary with the NSCL. She’ll celebrate one more Dec. 11 with her retirement.

“I think that will be one of the memories I have that you always remember, the morning that we knew we had (FRIB),” Conroy said. “I heard a ‘whoop’ from downstairs and I thought, ‘Well, somebody’s either fallen down the stairs or we got it.’”

Conroy has been there since the cyclotron’s founding and helped it become one of the finest facilities of its kind, on a college campus, in the world.

“I believe it was 1978, when the superconducting cyclotron was commissioned. Henry Blosser was director of the lab then. He compared it to the commitment that people used to have to building a great cathedral,” Conroy said. “People might not be here for the entire project, but they were all betting their careers and other things that it would work – and it did.”