Faculty image Francis Cameron Shiel Manager of Service Enterprises Plant Department
Biography/Memoir

 

The Regents of the University take the occasion of his retirement to salute FRANCIS CAMERON SHIEL, Manager of Service Enterprises, who has concluded forty-two years on the University staff.

A native of Chicago, Mr. Shiel moved to Hillsdale as a boy and attended Hillsdale College for two years. Following further study in the Department of Civil Engineering here, he joined the University staff in 1927 as a draftsman for Buildings and Grounds. Transferred to the Business Office in 1930, he assisted variously in planning, equipping, and maintaining the residence halls built during that decade. In 1939 he was appointed Business Manager, and in 1941 Acting Director, of the Residence Halls. In 1951, his responsibilities being significantly broadened, he was given the title, which he is now relinquishing.

The duties of general management in a vast university are at once exacting and diverse. Mr. Shiel has himself supervised operation so various as those of the Printing Office, the Laundry, Martha Cook Residence, Radrick Farms Golf Course, and the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre. Neither his capacity for taking pains nor his spirit of service has ever flagged. Among Big Ten schools, and also nationally, he has been a respected authority on the operations and financing of student housing.

The Regents extend to him their hearty thanks for his long and able fidelity. They would add, as well, their warm good wishes for his personal happiness during his well-merited retirement years. 

 

Regents' Proceedings, July 1969, Page 18

Reflections/Stories
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