With her avid interest in golf and bridge and her winning Southern charm, a stranger meeting Kathy Jo Roberts for the first time might think she spent her days on the golf course or hosting bridge parties. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kathy Jo Roberts is, in fact, among our company's hardest working and most technologically savvy employees, devoting her days and often her evenings and weekends, to her highly technical job as Business Architect in the Product Development area of our company.

As Business Architect, Kathy Jo has responsibilities for analyzing data files, importing data to convert new loans to our system, modifying and testing System IIISM as changes are made to loan programs, and formatting data using Excel and Access to create reports. Currently, one of her chief responsibilities is working to automate the reporting of data to the National Student Clearinghouse, a national repository that maintains data on student enrollment at 2,400 participating schools.

Clearinghouse reporting, which will be available to customers in July, will help determine if borrowers are enrolled in schools participating in the Clearinghouse. Companies, like Campus Partners, can access this database in order to process deferment requests or reversals, update separation dates, or report borrower accounts to our Customer Support area for additional review and action.

Kathy Jo has developed new codes for this process on System III and created a reporting method for electronically transmitting borrower information via FTP to the Clearinghouse. Information will be sent to the Clearinghouse to determine if any of our borrowers are currently enrolled in school. The Clearinghouse will electronically inform us of any matches so we can take appropriate action.
Kathy Jo got to this point in her career through hard work and perseverance. She started with Wachovia Services in 1972, and in 1974, she joined its student loan servicing division as an Accounts Analyst. In 1978 she moved to Loan Conversions. Although conversions are now usually processed by FTP electronic exchange, in those days she had to visit schools and manually review their files in order to convert them to System III. She estimates that her work took her to schools in 40 states, staying for as long as two months at a time in some cases. The upside of these long sojourns away from home was the opportunity to make many friends across the country.

In 1996 she transferred to a former office in Minnesota. There she helped convert loans to System III and had to adjust to climatic changes. Despite the snowy winters, she made many close friends and managed to play golf five months out of the year. She returned to our Winston-Salem office in 1999. As a longtime employee, Kathy Jo offers this advice to new employees. "Take the opportunity to learn something new every day--I’ve had a good day if I’ve learned something new. And don’t be afraid to try. If you depend on others to solve problems, you will never learn."

That said, she is always available to help other people--on or off the job. She readily admits to giving money to panhandlers carrying "I will work for food" signs. "I believe if you are kind to people, life will be good to you," she says.

She credits growing up in a strong, stable family consisting of a brother, sister, and her hard working mother, as a key to her work ethic. She means it when she says her mother is her "idol." She considers her co-workers and other industry contacts as her extended family because of the close ties she has developed over the past 29 years.

In her spare time, she plays golf and Internet bridge. Jokingly calling herself "Tigress," she says she would like "to learn to drive like Duval and putt like Tiger." Internet bridge has allowed her to meet local people as well as players living as far away as Holland. She will move into a new home later this month with her dog, Shasta. Immediate plans include adopting a cat--and if we know Kathy Jo, learning something new.