OAKLAND, CA — Lowana Gooch has pushed a lot of envelopes in her 35-year postal carrier, and today from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Civic center Post Office, 201 13th Street, Room 218, Oakland CA 94612, she will push her last.
Gooch has a series of firsts in her storied career, including being the first Black female to be the Postmaster of Oakland. “There comes a time for each of us to hang up the satchel, or stop pushing the envelope as the case may be,” said James Clausen, the district manager for the Bay-Valley postal district.” And the best time is always when you decide it is. Lowana has decided that it is her time now. While she may be making her last appointed rounds, by no means will Lowana stop delivering.”
Gooch has been delivering performance since her first day on the job in 1978 as a San Francisco letter sorting operator, where she worked the graveyard shift for 9 years. After tiring of keying letters on the graveyard shift, she decided to supervise those that do.
Gooch soon moved on to higher management positions in Chicago IL and as the senior manager of Post Office Operations in Nevada. Her life-long dream was to be a Postmaster, and in 2007 she was selected as the Oakland Postmaster. True to her creed of serving people, Gooch believes “if you do something you love, you will never have to work a day in your life.”
During her tenure as Postmaster, Gooch always involved herself, and that of her employees, in community events. To her, managing a Post Office was more than managing the daily operations of delivering the mail. To her, managing a personal relationship with her customers, business leaders and elected officials meant involving herself in community outreach efforts. During the annual letter carrier food drive, the Oakland Post Office exceeded all collections of food to replenish the food banks throughout the district. One of her proudest moments was when four of her letter carriers out of the Piedmont Station pulled 100 elderly residents from a burning apartment building, even before the fire department arrived. Of note, the battalion chief who arrived on the scene learned that his mother was one of the elderly saved. Her carriers where later featured in People Magazine and on the Oprah Winfrey show as a result of their heroism.
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