Hines is a finishing supervisor for the company. She works 40 hours a week doing finishing operations on parts for military aircraft including the F-18 Hornet, the Osprey helicopter and the F-23 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter. "I've been in die cast work for 36 years," she said proudly.
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Hines spends her days in a windowless room in the back of the shop. Her work ensures the parts are ready for Carden's customers, which include Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Bell Helicopter and General Dynamics.
"She has one of the dirtiest and hardest jobs in the plant," said Colon "Butch" Moore, vice president of Carden. "Her work is vital to what we do."
Moore said not only does Hines come to work every day and do her job, she is one of the most productive members of the staff, having never ruined a part.
Her job requires good vision, steady hand control and attention to extreme. "It's all important," she said. "I don't know what all the parts do, but I know they won't work if they aren't done right."
Moore said it is Hines' attention to detail that makes her so good at her job. "She is meticulous," Moore said. "This isn't a job for everyone - she wouldn't be here if she couldn't do the work."
It was Moore and Sam Witt, Carden's director of operations, who nominated Hines for the Missouri Outstanding Outer Worker award.
"It was just this little story in the Steelville paper," Moore said. "I saw that they were taking nominations for the older worker of the year and I thought of Jean."
The award was sponsored by the state Department of Health and Human Services and various social service agencies.
After Hines was approached, Witt helped prepare her application. The application was filed March 14, 2008.
Hines was then notified that she was a regional winner. She and other regional winners were invited to a luncheon at the Missouri Governor's Mansion May 2.
Hines, her daughter and Witt attended the luncheon along with the other 2008 regional winners Vivian Barks, Cape Girardeau; Ruby Ward, Bowling Green; Sister Lucy Vehige, St. Louis; Duke Dunbar, Mansfield; Laurel Lee Burton, St. Joseph; Alice Ruth Bremer, Bourbon; Clifford Mitchell, Riverside; Marge Caffey, Kansas City; Richard Peckman, Nevada; Donald Mason, Branson; Bill Don Patty, St. Louis; Ernest M. Hagar, St. Peters; and Janice Sims, Aurora.
Each nominee was asked to get up and speak about themselves before the overall state winner was announced.
Hines' win at the state level qualified her to represent Missouri at the Experience Works Prime Time Awards in Washington, D.C., in September. She said she was surprised by the varied professionals at the national awards. "A lot of those people are doing hard work - they aren't greeters at a Wal-Mart," she said. "One of them was a doctor who had delivered over 4,000 children and there was a 100-year-old woman who worked at a newspaper." Hines said the nominees came from all walks of life, from ranchers, factory workers, clergymen and lawyers.
In addition to the sightseeing, meeting the other nominees was the highlight of her D.C. trip.
Hines has worked all her life. She had chores as a child and waitressed as a teenager.
She said she doesn't know what else she would do if she wasn't working. "I'm not going to sit at home and quilt," she said. "That's not me - I enjoy what I do and I'm going to keep doing it as long as I can."
Early Life
Hines was born Nov. 8, 1924, in Eunice, Mo.
As a child she attended a one-room schoolhouse in Eunice.
She graduated from high school in Summersville. It was in Summersville that she met her husband, Vern Hines. The couple wed in 1945.
A year after their wedding, Hines gave birth to their first child. She spent the next 17 years at home raising the couple's five children:
*ÊCarol Baumann-Northup, Chesterfield;
*ÊVern Hines Jr., Godfrey, Ill.;
*ÊBeverly Derrossett, now deceased;
*ÊDonna Hines, St. Louis; and
*ÊPatricia Halverson, Mountain Home, Ark.
"It was hard work - harder than this," she said.
After her children got a little older, she went to work for A. O. Smith in Granite City, Ill.
Hines worked as a parts delivery person for the firm that built car frames for General Motors. She made her deliveries in her own Ford station wagon. In 1965, Hines became a departmental supervisor at Scotch Die Company in Berkeley, Mo. She worked there until the company layoff in late 1999.
The job at Scotch got Hines where she is now. Her husband passed away in 1979, and when Scotch decided to move to Sullivan in 1980, she went with them.
Hines even worked at both facilities until the move to Sullivan was complete. She remained with the firm until October of 1999. She started at Carden in March 2000.
"They interviewed me on a Wednesday and I started that Friday at 7 a.m.," she said.
Hines has earned the nickname "Mean Jean Machine," for her tenacious work ethic. She hasn't missed a day of work or even clocked in late since she was hired.
Part of the reason she is so eager to get to work, Hines said, is that she likes what she does and the people she works with.
"I do what I'm assigned," she said. "You do what needs to get done."
Hines uses her Saturdays for shopping and cleaning. Sunday, she said, is a day for herself.
She wouldn't know what she would do if she didn't work her 40 hours a week.
"Annoy my children, I guess," she says with a smile. "It's better that I have something to do."
She said Carden has been good to her and she plans to work until she can no longer do the job.
"It keeps me sharp, I think," she said. "I have to learn new things every day." Because Carden makes many replacement parts for aircraft already in use by the military, Moore said business remains steady.
"With the war in Iraq, the parts get sandy and need replacement," he said. "It keeps us pretty busy."
Since winning the award, Hines has been featured in several local and regional newspapers.
"We couldn't believe it when she made the front page of the Post-Dispatch," Witt said. "We expected to find the story inside - not on the front page." Hines was featured in a Post story on older workers.
The regional and statewide publication of her story has brought her back in touch with people she hasn't seen since high school.
"I was on the phone the other night for an hour and a half," she said. "They saw a story about me and tracked me down."
Hines will soon end her year as the Missouri's Older Worker of the Year, but she said it was an experience she won't soon forget.
"It's just been so unexpected," she said.
Experience Works
The Older Worker award is given each year by Experience Works, a national, nonprofit organization that provides training and employment services for mature workers.
Nominees for the award must be 65 years or older, currently employed and working at least 20 hours a week for pay.
The Experience Works Prime Time Awards Program serves to remove barriers to employment and dispel negative stereotypes about older workers.
The Prime Time Awards are the only national program that annually honors the contributions of working seniors.
"Jean Hines is a wonderful example of how seniors who stay active, both mentally and physically, can continue to make valuable contributions to the workplace and to their communities," said CEO Cynthia Metzler, Experience Works CEO.
Nominations are still available for the 2009 awards.
