If you didn’t see HR Vice President Dwaine Duckett with a microphone in his hand entertain a giddy audience of 150 ice-cream-eating UCOP employees on a sunny afternoon, you missed a treat at the Service Award Milestone Achievement Celebration in the Franklin building’s rooftop garden last week.

Duckett got musical on us when he did his best George Benson/Whitney Houston imitation, singing nearly two choruses of “Greatest Love of All,” one of the top songs of 1986. It was his way of taking us back 25 years to celebrate OP staff members who have served the university for a quarter century.

But taking center stage were the 120 UCOP employees who, between December 2010 and June 2011, hit milestones of 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35 years of UC service.

VP Nathan Brostrom and Duckett took turns at the podium to read the names of employees, traveling backward through time in five-year increments to paint a picture of the pop culture scene for that year. They also spotlighted the top revenue-generating UC invention of the year, like the UCSF 1981 Hepatitis B vaccine that has since generated millions of dollars in revenue.

Ripples of recognition went through the crowd as names were read and people realized that some of their colleagues had been working at UCOP for more years than they knew. Names like Jesus Loo, IT resource manager in HR Information Systems and Support, who just reached his 35-year milestone.

The weather cooperated, offering up a clear and bright summer afternoon, perfect for eating ice cream with toppings and fruit.

UCOP Local Human Resources and the OP Staff Assembly cosponsored the event, with support from the BRC Event Services Group. Initiated in July 2010, it is held twice yearly to celebrate longstanding employees in a social setting.

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