Not out to pasture
Local 2209 member is looking toward retirement – but don’t think he’s going to stop working
fter 30 years on the assembly line, UAW Local 2209 member Jaime Ramos knows a lot about quality control for cars – and cows.
“We do our best, but sometimes customers complain about a car after they buy it. With cows we can control quality before they get sick with diseases such as mastitis,” said Ramos, a Fort Wayne (Ind.) Assembly worker and dairy cattle expert.
Using the union’s tuition assistance program (TAP) funds, Ramos attended the University of Illinois and Purdue and received his bachelor’s degree in agriculture and dairy science.
Next spring Ramos plans to retire, join the Peace Corps and move to Costa Rica with his wife to help poor dairy farmers. In order to practice what he’ll soon teach, Ramos lives on a dairy farm in Markle, Ind.
Hard work is nothing new to Ramos, a Peruvian immigrant who has taken care of cows since age 8. “I wanted to work and went to school as well. It was fun, almost like a hobby,” he recalled.
Ramos later worked in the Peace Corps and spent time in India and Bangladesh. “When I was a kid, I thought we were poor. Not true. They are the poorest people in the world,” he said of the Bangladeshis. “They don’t have tomorrow.”
In 1966 Ramos began a 9-1/2-month journey to America to find the girl of his dreams. He tells the story as if it happened yesterday.
“We met as children but never spoke. She was younger and also the boss’ daughter,” he said of his sweetheart, Olga, who moved to the United States to attend Northwestern University in Chicago.
He literally worked his way northward from Peru to Colombia, then Panama, Costa Rica and eventually Chicago. “When I got there, she said, ‘I knew you’d come,’ ” he recalled. They’ve been married nearly 40 years.
Ramos has always believed in the Golden Rule. “You help others if you can and give something back. I tell my kids that all the time,” said the father of three sons, a daughter, four adopted daughters and grandfather to nine.
His Peace Corps commitment is two years, but he may stay longer. His children are proud, and his daughter-in-law is even writing his biography, tentatively titled, “Abuelito’s Life.” (Abuelito is Spanish for grandpa.)
Back to those dairy cows. Just how do you keep them from getting mastitis, an infection of the milk ducts?
“You keep them standing for two hours after milking,” he said.
