School business admin. announces retirement

JACKSON — Retirement will be coming in the near future for board secretary and Jackson School District Business Administrator Gregory Brennan.

After 13 years of employment in Jackson, Brennan, 55, has decided to retire effective Jan. 1.

"I've been in Jackson since July 1995," Brennan said. "Before that I was in Spotswood for a little over 10 years and before that I was in Westfield for a little over three years as an assistant."

Brennan also worked at Union County Vo-Tech/Technical Institute for several years and prior to that he was involved in public accounting.

Looking back at the highlights of his career as a business administrator, Brennan recalled a Tri-Town News article from June 1995 when he was interviewed and asked why he was leaving a tenured position in Spotswood, Middlesex County, to come to Jackson.

Brennan responded by saying that he wanted to get into a growing K-12 school district where he could build some schools. At the time, Jackson had about 5,200 children enrolled. Today the number of students in Jackson schools has almost doubled.

During his years as Jackson's business administrator, Brennan was involved with the design and construction of the Crawford-Rodriguez Elementary School, the Elms Elementary School and Jackson Liberty High School.

On his watch, additions were constructed at the Johnson School, Goetz Middle School and Jackson Memorial High School, and gymnasiums were added at the Switlik and Johnson schools.

"Of the district's 10 schools, my name is on the plaque in seven of them. So I kind of left my mark," he said.

Brennan also noted the conversion of the Johnson and Holman schools from all electric service to geothermal systems and air conditioning.

"We were able to provide air conditioning in all of the elementary schools," he said. "We also did a major energy retrofit about eight years ago which converted part of Jackson Memorial from electric to natural gas. That was a savings which was used to pay for the replacement of all the rooftop units at the Goetz Middle School."

The administrator said the work also included lighting retrofits for the entire district that resulted in savings.

Brennan said two other items also saved taxpayers money — an application to the state to get a retroactive refund of $1 million for an addition at the Goetz Middle School and the refinancing of the district's existing debt, which he said saved millions of dollars in interest payments.

Brennan said he will miss working on behalf of Jackson's children.

"Not that I see them on a daily basis, but they provide the daily drive to do this job, especially the elementary kids. Just seeing them makes all the aggravation of this job worth it," he said.

He said he will also miss his colleagues in the school district.

"There are some great people who have gone above and beyond for me, who I will truly miss," the business administrator said.

Brennan said he is leaving due to a chronic disease he has right now.

"It's a health problem I am hoping to correct by getting into rehab," he said. "I'm not going out on disability, but I want to get my health back first."

Brennan said he has already received calls from administrators in several school districts who are interested in having him work as an interim business administrator. He said he may pursue those opportunities or develop his own consulting business.

"It has been a privilege and an honor to have worked here assessing the needs of Jackson's schoolchildren," he said. "I am almost here 14 years and a lot of the children I saw as kindergarteners have graduated from high school. I've seen them go through the full spectrum and it's nice.

"You really feel that you're making a difference, not only for the people of Jackson, but you never know what may come out of a school district. It may even be the next president of the United States," Brennan said.

Speaking about Brennan, Superintendent of Schools Thomas Gialanella said. "We thank him for all he has done and wish him nothing but the best in his retirement. Mr. Brennan's tenure as business administrator saw the opening of three new schools, all of which were opened on time and on budget, and numerous additions to existing schools."

He said in recent years Brennan, as the business administrator, had to deal with frozen state aid and a growing enrollment as he helped to develop the school district's annual budget.

"That is a difficult combination to handle, but by working together we were able to continue to provide the facilities and quality programs the students of Jackson needed," Gialanella said.

He said the district grew and changed dramatically during the course of Brennan's employment in Jackson.