Carole Epstein
Carole Epstein works with Mayor Terry Oden in City Hall in Crestline. Photo by Olivia Burton.
In her time at City Hall, Carole Epstein has seen a lot of changes.
When she was being interviewed for her first job with the city of Mountain Brook in February of 1986, City Manager Wayne Campbell told her that the city would be switching to computers.
“Thirty years ago, I didn’t even know what a computer looked like,” she said. “But I was determined to learn how to operate one.”
Epstein officially retired in July after almost 30 years of working at Mountain Brook’s City Hall.
After she started the job, a lieutenant from the police station would come to City Hall every day to instruct her in basic computer skills such as word processing. Epstein would teach herself how to use other programs in her free time.
At age 41, Epstein enrolled at Samford University. Over the next eight years, she worked at City Hall full time during the day and went to classes at night. “I didn’t have a computer at home, so I would go back to the office and do my homework and term papers,” she said. Because her studies related to her job, the city paid for Epstein’s tuition and books.
Epstein’s son graduated from the University of Montevallo on a Friday night in 1996, and Epstein herself graduated from Samford the next day with a bachelor’s degree in administrative services.
“This has been a lifelong dream for me,” she told The Birmingham News in 1996. In the same article, she said that City Manager Sam Gaston encouraged her to keep going whenever she had a difficult day.
“It was fantastic because I knew that without education I was not going to progress,” Epstein said. “It was a benefit to me personally and to the city.”
During her time in Mountain Brook, Epstein has served as executive assistant to three city managers, four mayors, and multiple boards and commissions. The Birmingham Chapter of the International Association of Administrative Professionals elected her as Administrative Professional of the Year in 1999, and she served as its president in 2001. Epstein also served as president of the Jefferson County City Clerks Association in 2012.
“I do whatever needs to be done and I don’t question it, I just do it. Get the job done!” said Epstein. “We have to be able to do that to provide the level of services that we do to our residents.”
With her many roles at City Hall, city officials say Epstein will be difficult to replace.
“She thinks on her feet,” said Mayor Terry Oden. “She takes all the incoming calls and can field them wherever they need to go. She always gives the right answers, and she’s an original thinker.”
City Hall employees said they will miss Epstein’s friendly personality in addition to her hardworking and dependable character, just as she said she will miss them. “I’ve never seen her in a grumpy mood,” said Oden.
“I love coming to work, and I’m very sad that I’m leaving,” said Epstein.
Epstein has lived in Mountain Brook for 23 years and raised two children in the Mountain Brook school system. She looks forward to sleeping late and taking road trips to parts of the United States that she has never visited before during her retirement.
