TheBuzz
TheBuzz
Signed, sealed,
delivered -- and retiredAside from the neighborhood mail carrier, Felice Broglio has been the U.S. Postal Service's most visible presence in the islands.
That ends today.
The senior communications specialist for Hawaii, Guam and American Samoa told few people she would be retiring after nearly 25 years of service to the service.
"I'm making the announcement today," she said yesterday. No replacement has been named.
Hawaii is most familiar with her job doing the spokeswoman thing for radio and newspapers and for the live shots on TV news in the hours prior to the annual midnight mailing deadline for income tax returns.
In the tense months following Sept. 11 she provided official statements on postal security and safety for postal workers during the anthrax scares.
More happily, she was also interviewed in front of snaking lines of beaming holiday mailers hoping to get packages over-the-ocean-and-through-the-woods-to-grandmother's-house-in-time.
Early in her career she was a customer service representative for business clients, a mail carrier out of the Kaneohe post office and started in 1978 as a part-time clerk.
Strands of the ropes were familiar to her as she was a postal brat.
"My mother started as secretary to the postmaster for Honolulu," she said. Mom worked her way up and retired as postmaster for Waimanalo. Her father started his career as a clerk and became the first station manager for the Waialae-Kahala post office.
Continuing the postal family theme she married U.S. Postal Service District Manager Ed Broglio in 1996 but nepotism rules didn't apply.
Hers is a headquarters position answerable to Washington, D.C., while as district manager for the Pacific he was her client.
Broglio's swan song was the unveiling of the new stamp honoring Duke Kahanamoku, an event she knew would be huge. "It was a nice farewell event," she said.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com