Romeo Alejandro, a maintenance manager for 24 years at St. Stephen Diocesan Center, shows off some of his favorite tools. He retired on June 29. (HCH photo | Patrick Downes)
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Romeo Alejandro, a maintenance manager for 24 years at St. Stephen Diocesan Center in Kaneohe, will no longer be parking his white truck every day under the huge common mango tree on the Kailua side of the property. He retired on June 29.
Alejandro does not look his age of 57. He is trim, with a ready smile on a youthful face and without a single gray hair. When you shake his hand, it’s what you would expect of a man who has done maintenance for a quarter century — firm and calloused.
The Hawaii Catholic Herald spoke with Alejandro the day before his retirement.
When St. Stephen Diocesan Center assistant administrator Sabrina Izaguirre handed him a new St. Stephen Diocesan Center T-shirt for a photo, he politely declined preferring the slightly faded one he is wearing with the splatter of paint in the front.
Alejandro was one of those behind-the-scenes workers without whom church operations would likely fall apart. As part of the two-person full-time maintenance staff for the 21-acre center, he made sure those who lived there, worked there or visited there for meetings and overnight retreats experienced trouble-free facilities.
Contractors do most of the labor-intensive maintenance done at the center, like grounds keeping, housekeeping, painting and roofing. Professionals do the major specialized work like appliance repairs, electrical work and plumbing.
Alejandro, with his former partner Per “Pelle” Vig, did everything in between.
For example, he saw that burnt out light bulbs were replaced and toilets flushed properly.
“We made sure everything is in good working condition,” he said.
“Basic things.”
As another example, he pointed to the ceiling fan in Izaguirre’s office.
“I installed that,” he said.
Alejandro’s former boss, Gene Pollock, once described him as a man with many talents and skills.
His last boss, diocesan facilities management manager Vincent Vernay, described Alejandro as “very energetic and very accommodating.”
Vernay said that, between paint jobs and power washes, Alejandro kept that place “bright, clean and neat — always looking nice.”
Alejandro came to Hawaii from the Philippines at age 19. Pollock hired him in March of 1994, after he had spent four years in the U.S. Navy Reserve. Bishop Joseph A. Ferrario had just retired and Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo had come on board.
It has been a good job, he said, with its “ups and downs,” just like life.
Why retire now?
“I need to move on,” he said.
Perhaps the long daily commute from Ewa where he now lives with his bachelor brother had something to do with it. He used to live closer, in Kahaluu.
“I want to relax for a while,” he said.
He said the first thing he is going to do is renew his passport and take a vacation visiting his sister and other family members in Ilocos Norte, Philippines.
Alejandro, who is single, doesn’t expect to remain retired too long. He said he will probably find another job.
As to his previous job, “I will most miss the people,” he said, “and the view” — a panorama of Kailua and parts of Kaneohe.
Three of the people he said he misses had already left before him. The late St. Stephen resident Msgr. Daniel Dever, who himself enjoyed maintenance work, died in 2011. Pollock retired in 2014.
“Gene taught me all kinds of things,” he said.
Then there was fellow maintenance worker David Moniz, who Alejandro said kept him laughing.
Reminding Alejandro of Moniz is a scar on his left knee from knee replacement surgery seven years ago. Moniz had visited him as he recovered in the hospital. It was the last time he saw Moniz, who died unexpectedly a few weeks later.
Moniz was never replaced. Pollock was replaced by Per Vig.
Alejandro expects to return to St. Stephen every so often to help the Carmelite Sisters who live on the property and who, he said, are sorely in need of assistance. He does that work for free, but said, with a smile, that he will accept an occasional bunch of bananas from the trees that grow on convent grounds, or lychees when they are in season.
You will know he is there by his white truck, no longer under the mango tree, but beside the bamboo grove across from the Carmelite convent.
Which reminded him, he still had to trim the bamboo before he retired. The following day.
