Back in December 1972, when Dennis Kamilos took a job as a general service worker at the old Sacramento County Hospital he looked at it as a temporary post.
"I was kind of in between jobs," said the former grocery clerk, whose father, Jerry Kamilos, was one of the first grocers at the old Sacramento Public Market.
But after UC Davis took over the hospital the next year, Kamilos stayed on the job, which primarily involved custodial work. And he was still at the medical center in 1979 when a job in the UCDMC warehouse on Stockton Boulevard opened up, offering a little more money and better hours.
Kamilos remains at the warehouse today as a stores worker. He receives capital supplies such as operating room tables, diagnostic equipment and surgical instruments and checks their condition before shipping them out for delivery.
"The benefits are good and so is the security," he said, explaining why he’s still working at the university after all these years. Kamilos also has served a couple of terms as president of his union local, the Association of State, Federal, County and Municipal Employees.
Kamilos said he also enjoys the camaraderie that exists at the warehouse. Most of the dozen or so store workers have been in their positions for at least 20 years. One colleague, Joe Lewis, has worked at his post for about 32 years, Kamilos said.
"We’re all like family," he said. "Everyone knows each other’s business."
A Folsom resident, Kamilos grew up close to the medical center, near the Campbell’s Soup plant in once-rural south Sacramento. He lived on his family’s grape farm and attended Luther Burbank High School.
His son, Bill, is studying to be an electronic engineer. And Kamilos is engaged to Robin Davis – the supervisor of the cytology lab in the Department of Pathology.
Kamilos, 55, has begun to think about leaving the medical center, but it won’t be for a leisurely retirement. At the age of 59-and-a-half he plans to retire and start a new career at another sort of warehouse – a Home Depot or Lowe’s Home Improvement.
"I like that kind of stuff," Kamilos said. "I should have been a carpenter, a plumber or an electrician."