After 17.5 years, our Receptionist, Rebecca Key is retiring! We appreciate all her hard work and her willingness to help with anything and everything over the years. She has been the first face we and our customers see when they enter the office, and her presence will be missed.
To send her off properly we wanted to share some highlights of her personal life and career.
Career
Rebecca is originally from Iowa and moved to the Twin Cities in 1974. Her first job was a secretarial position downtown while waitressing part time at Perkins. She takes pride in how great of a waitress she was and enjoyed it immensely. Steve Cannon even mentioned her on WCCO news as “Becky, my favorite waitress.” She met her husband, David, while waitressing at Perkins. They were married in 1983 and after living out east from 1986 to 1999, they returned to Minnesota and settled in Maple Grove. After becoming empty nesters, they fulfilled their dream of purchasing a condo downtown Minneapolis in 2013. Throughout this time, she continued working in secretarial positions while waitressing part time. In 2004 she found herself here at Matrix-NDI. She likes to refer to herself as the “director of first impressions” after a friend and colleague called her that at work. She really enjoys people and this position allowed her to be around them all day, every day.
Her goal was to retire when she was 67 based on a radio special that discussed the perfect age for women to retire. She held true to that goal, and will be retiring on the day of her 67th birthday
Personal Life & Hobbies
Rebecca has been married to her husband, David, for 38 years. Together they have two daughters, Gillian and Lindley, as well as two grandsons, Parker and Brooks. When asked about pets Rebecca says, “we’ve never had any, and we sure don’t plan to have any in the future!”
As far as hobbies, everyone who knows Rebecca, knows she has a multitude of them. She loves to scrapbook, sew, and read – her favorite genre being biographies. She is also one of the Minnesota State Fair’s biggest fans. She and her family go multiple times every year and have a bench with their name on it as well as a brick by the grandstand. Rebecca has won awards for her scrapbook pages at the State Fair and has entire scrapbooks dedicated to it. She is also a member of the handbell choir at her church and enjoys walking around downtown and along the river.
Rebecca is a very active volunteer and dedicates a lot of time to her community. She and Gillian are directors of a non-profit called “Maple Grove Ambassador Scholarship Program” which is dedicated to serving young women ages 17-21 with educational scholarships. She also volunteers at Arc Value Village in New Hope which is a non-profit focused on supporting disabled adults. She has been volunteering there for 14 years on the weekends.
Plans for After Retirement
After retirement Rebecca plans to put more time into volunteering at Arc Value Village and will continue to run Maple Grove Ambassador Scholarship Program. She would like to play a lot more golf and continue with scrapbooking and sewing. She and David plan to travel to Massachusetts to attend the US Open in 2022. They would also like to travel to Hawaii, Nova Scotia and return to the UK after enjoying a trip there a few years ago. She is very close to her sisters and father in Iowa, so she is looking forward to having the ability to visit them frequently. She would also consider doing part time work at a theater (like the Guthrie) downtown Minneapolis.
When asked about her time working at Matrix-NDI she said:
“Matrix-NDI fit me very well. I was always busy which I like, and I love talking to people and the variety of the work I was doing. I really enjoy solving problems and helping people. Every day was different, so I was never bored! I have made a lot of friends here and plan on staying in touch.”
Comments about Rebecca from her peers: