Mailroom Mainstay Retires After 42 Years At North Campus: ‘His Presence Will Be Missed’
Ricky Nelson Sr. has been a North Campus staple for more than 40 years.
His professional journey—he was a preschool student at the campus in the late 1960s—at the College started in 1983 as a fresh-faced teenager working as a part-time custodian.
Seven years later he started working full-time as the moving crew supervisor.
By 2004, Nelson was greeting students, faculty and staff with his easygoing disposition as a copy technician before he was promoted to mailroom manager.
Simply put, North Campus was Nelson’s second home. His dad retired as campus support supervisor for custodial services in 1995 after 30 years; his brother, Charles, who held the same position, retired in 2024 after 31 years.
Now Rick, as he is affectionately known by his friends and colleagues, is following in their footsteps.
The 59-year-old retired from Miami Dade College on Feb. 28.
“I have been walking those grounds all my life,” Nelson said. “Miami Dade College is everything to me and my family.”
When he graduated from Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High School in 1983, Nelson briefly considered a career in the military, but he was destined to carve out his niche at MDC.
“In custodial work, you have to clean bathrooms, move chairs and tables, and do a lot of different stuff,” Nelson said. “In the mailroom, you know what you are getting into, [while] in the custodial [department], you don’t know what you might come upon.”
Around 2004, the copy center and mailroom merged into one space in Room 3103. That led to cross-training that would define the rest of his career.
As a copy technician, Nelson printed course materials and event programs, occasionally making up to 4,000 copies daily.
In the mailroom, he handled approximately 75 packages per day—or 375 packages per week—which amounts to about 75 pounds of mail, according to his estimation.
“I didn’t know what I was doing or what to do,” said Nelson, when describing his first day in the mailroom. “Back then, there was a lot of mail and we [had] at least 75 mailboxes that we had to [fill]. It’s like a puzzle.”
Three years ago, Nelson was promoted to mailroom manager with the added responsibility of overseeing UPS and USPS deliveries.
Throughout the years, he witnessed significant changes in the mail industry, particularly with the rise of email and e-commerce.
“We started using a lot of email systems and that’s why the mail changed and slowed down but it hasn’t stopped,” Nelson said. “It’s not going to stop.”
In 2009, barcodes were fully implemented into postal services, which allowed the team to track packages digitally. After Amazon became popular, Nelson witnessed an uptick in deliveries, receiving at least 100 packages daily from the e-commerce company.
For the past five years, he has toiled in the mailroom alongside his unofficial understudy, Ian McKinney, who is a mailroom clerk.
The dynamic duo used Nelson’s favorite jazz blues as fuel to complete tasks. As a boombox echoed their daily soundtrack, Nelson’s gravelly voice was often heard on the phone telling colleagues: “you got a package.”
“I probably would not be here had he not been here to guide me along the way,” McKinney fondly remembered.
Octavia Anderson, who worked with Nelson for more than 20 years, said his departure has left a sizable void in the office.
“It hasn’t really [dawned] on me yet,” said Anderson, who is the duplicating center’s quick copy supervisor. “I just noticed when I come in the morning, the office is quiet, so what he used to do is turn on the radio. Now because he is not here, I turn on the radio. I have no one to say, ‘Good morning’ to…I will miss him.”
During retirement, Nelson plans to spend more time with his family, including his wife, four sons and granddaughter.
“His presence will be missed,” McKinney said. “It’s like seeing your mailman everyday, and then all of a sudden, you don’t see him no more.”
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