Tim Adcock, left, and James Lawson will retire June 30 after 10 and 18 years, respectively, at NCSSM.
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James Lawson joined NCSSM in 1998 after working for the City of Durham, running his own business, and other jobs. Tim Adcock came to campus in 2006 after working for Mitsubishi for 10 years and Fluor Daniels in Research Triangle Park for 10 years. Lawson worked mostly as the school’s painter while Adcock tended our aging HVAC system. On June 30, they will leave the Plant Facilities office for the last time, heading into retirement.
Lawson plans to visit his favorite fishing holes, visit his brother in California, and visit Louisiana before taking on part-time work installing flooring. He and his wife, Irene, have three grown daughters, two grandsons, and a granddaughter on the way.
Adcock plans to finish the many projects he’s begun around his farm in Bahama, in northern Durham County. The land has been in his family since his great-great-grandfather, with graves in a cemetery that date back to the Civil War. Adcock has been remodeling his shop, in a former tobacco barn, and parts of his house. And he and his wife have a garden to tend.
“My wife and I get up about 4 a.m., we’re early risers,” Adcock says. “I’ve got to stay busy.”
Lawson has mixed feelings about retirement. On one hand, he’s ready, but also wary, because he’s never not worked, beginning with helping with his father’s landscaping business. “It’s been good people to work for,” he says of NCSSM. “I just took it one day at a time.”
Adcock has a grown son and daughter, each of whom have a daughter. He and his wife want to take the granddaughters to Disney World. And even though working at Science and Math “really is like one big family,” he says he’s excited to retire. “I embrace change, I’ve been doing the same thing for so long.”