Director of Disability Resources and Services Frank Perez will retire at the end of the academic year, though he will not stop his caring for those around him.
On Friday, friends and colleagues gathered to honor Perez and wish him the best in his life after school.
“He’s exceptional,” said Phyllis Fink, Perez’s administrative assistant. “He’s an exceptional boss. He’s caring. He’ll talk to his students as long as they need him. Anything they need is what he’ll do.”
Students he has helped agree.
“When I was first started having troubles in math, I went to talk to him and then I was tested for a math disability,” said Stephanie Clemons, an undergrad majoring in kinesiology. “He helped me with that process. He helped me get re-enrolled in school because I had to sit out a semester because of my math scores.”
A university employee for 32 years, Perez also holds the position of assistant director of the MACH III program which assists students having difficulties in various subjects.
A Laredo native, Perez grew up in Kingsville and came to this area in 1965. He went in the Army in 1968.
“I started working here in September of 1974,” Perez said. “I had just come back from the Army. I got out in December 1971.”
After his discharge, he finished his bachelor’s degree in 1972 and got his master’s a year later.
His first job at the university was as an instructor-counselor to work with Hispanic kids.
“I really enjoyed it,” he said. “I really did. I worked with a lot of students that had the same background that I did. Hispanic kids tend to be very close to family values.
“It reminded me of my childhood.”
Perez started working with students with disabilities in 1976. At the time, the federal government had enacted some of the first laws dealing with discrimination against those with disabilities such as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and its subsequent amendments in 1978.
“When the law was changed …,” Perez said, “I knew we would have an influx of students. I made it my goal to work with students with disabilities and learn from them.”
Perez’s ability to work with those with disabilities came from his youth. He said as a boy he spent time with his blind grandmother following his parents’ deaths.
“Back then I don’t think they classified people as being disabled,” he said. “My mother had cancer and my dad had heart problems. But they were sick – very sick – especially my mother. … Not that it becomes natural or something normal you deal with. You get very sensitive and then you tend to learn how to work with people who have physical problems …
“Everybody has relatives with disabilities. My grandmother was blind. I was very young and I used to sit with her and talk with her. I just enjoyed listening to her.
Perez’s mother died when he was 14-years-old. His dad died at 49. His mother passed at 42. His sister died at 41 of cancer as well. His brother currently has liver cancer.
Perez says he has never been to the doctor, but promises he’ll “do it as soon as I retire.”
His grandmother died a year after his mother.
At the time, his oldest sister was 18-years-old and had just finished high school when his mother died. His brother was two years younger, Perez was 14-years-old and he had a younger brother, 6. With all their immediate family gone, the siblings decided to stay together and take care of themselves. His sister raised them. A few years later, his brother went into the military. They all worked and with a little money from Social Security, they survived.
He met his first wife in December 1964. They married in 1968 and had three children together. They were married 27 years when she passed away in 1995.
“The things we go through in life prepare us for what we do and I’ve always been very sensitive to the needs of people.
“When I first started working with students who had disabilities, there were two visually impaired students. One was working on her graduate degree in counseling. The other was working on her bachelor’s in business.
“Sometimes we’re intimidated when we come across someone who has disabilities. Not that we don’t want to work with them or help them, but we tend to think, ‘I might not do enough or I might do too much or I could hurt the person.’
“I came to realize that persons with disabilities will tell you … They’ll teach you. I think I learned more from them than I ever did reading a book.”
Perez remarried in 2004 to a childhood friend. His current wife retired from teaching school three years ago.
Now he has decided to retire as well.
“I think I worked enough and there are other things I look forward to doing.”
Perez says he plans on moving closer to his brother and visiting family scattered across Texas.
“Like my father, he didn’t visit those who visited him,” he said. “He visited everybody. And I can start at one end of Texas and drive to Brownsville and always have a place to stay.”
Reflecting on his tenure, Perez said the biggest difference he made “was helping faculty and staff change their opinion about disability”
“Disability doesn’t discriminate. It can happen to anybody.”