Utah Woman Celebrates 90th Birthday On The Clock
Dec 13, 2019, 10:41 PM
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Everybody who works dreams about the day when retirement finally arrives.
Not Wanda Ostler though, who just celebrated her 90th birthday Friday while on the clock.
“It’s good to get up in the morning and go to work and have a purpose in life and keep going, you know,” said Ostler, the human resources manager at South Salt Lake City-based CertiFit, Inc.
Oster said the job, which involves an incredible amount of paperwork given the company’s 380 employees, helps keep her mind and memory sharp.
“If you’re there alone like I was, I needed something to challenge me,” she said.
Wanda Ostler celebrated her 90th birthday at work on Friday.
Ostler began her career at the family business when it was still in its infancy in 1984, following an unforeseen tragedy.
“It was a car wreck,” Ostler recalled of the accident that also left her son, Ralph, a paraplegic. “My husband got killed and I had to go on with life and so I had to get a job somewhere.”
The mother to 11 and grandmother to 36 helped raise the company into maturity.
Some of her grandchildren are now her coworkers.
It hadn’t escaped Jonathan Ostler, 31, that his grandmother has worked at CertiFit longer than he has been alive.
“It’s awesome,” he said. “It’s awesome working with your grandma when she gives you your paycheck.”
Jeff Ostler said it was “really neat” Wanda had worked to 90.
“She’s great!” he said.
Ralph Ostler, who works in the orders department, said his mother has been amazing through it all.
“(It) kind of helps bind us in knowing that, at the end of the day, we’re all related and we’re all siblings and we’ve all got to get along and work together,” he smiled.
Wanda Ostler said she has no plans to retire.
“I think it helps you as far as not growing old quite so fast,” she said.
