On the morning of her third day as Schuylkill County’s human resources director, Andrea L. Whelan has her boots firmly on the ground.

Whelan, of Tower City, was hired Aug. 11 at $80,000 a year, and started the job on Aug. 15.

“I was active duty in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard for 20-plus years. I was retired from the military, but not quite ready to hang up my boots and my hat,” she said with a smile.

Whelan served as Unit Readiness NCO.

“In military-speak, that is human resources at the company level,” she said.

That title covered myriad duties, including training, human resources, and many other tasks.

“I primarily acted as the liaison between the upper headquarters and my company commander,” she said.

“I did all the payroll, all the personnel records, medical records, all of that.”

Whelan joined the military in 1998, when she was 32 years old.

“I was much older than the average private,” she said. “It was the right time and the right place. Everything worked out, just worked out exactly the way it was supposed to for me.”

“I enjoyed my time in the military,” she said.

After retirement, she had applied at several other places, and when the human resources job popped up on a job search website, she applied.

She got the first call, from Hubric Resources, asking for an interview while she was volunteering at a camp for foster children, Hope’s Haven. The Christian camp is held each summer at Camp Swatara, Bethel, Berks County.

Commissioners in June hired Hubric Resources, Wyomissing, for $215 an hour as an interim human resources director. The firm also was hired to recruit candidates for the director’s position at $165 per hour.

She became involved with Hope’s Haven when she learned of it through her church, Twin Valley Alliance, where she is a co-youth leader.

The former executive director of Hope’s Haven also belongs to the church, and in 2019 asked for volunteers for the camp.

“It worked out well for me because I was at Liberty University pursuing my degree in psychology, and I had to do an internship. Liberty allowed camps as an internship,” she said.

She continues to serve at the camp.

She told Hubric she would be able to be interviewed the following week. First, she met with county officials, including Administrator Gary R. Bender and interim human resources director Doreen M. Kutzler, then she was interviewed by the commissioners.

Although she had a few moments of doubt that she’d be capable of handling the duties, she overcame them quickly.

“I believe I am where I need to be, in the right time and in the right place,” she said.

“I’ll probably need a few weeks to really get my feet underneath me.”

“I want to build a cohesive team. I’m not interested in coming in and making all these crazy changes,” she said. “I’m a big proponent of ‘if it’s not broke, don’t try to fix it.’?”

“So far, my team’s been great, very patient with me.”

Whelan views her job as “to serve the employees of the Schuylkill County courthouse, and I want to do the best job I can for them.

I’m passionate about taking care of people, and I want to try to help people.”

That was evident in her deployment to Kuwait in 2020-2021.

There, she served as a sexual assault victim advocate, serving on the Sexual Harassment and Assault Response and Prevention (SHARK) team.

We did a lot of outreach. we did a coffee bar every Tuesday - we called it Teal Tuesday, because teal is the color of sexual assault awareness.

She worked with the sexual assault response coordinator, and hosted the coffee bar to promote sexual assault and sexual harassment awareness.

“We invited everybody on post to come,” she said.

In the same area, her team created what they called the “Free X.” a take on the “PX” - post exchange.

Instead of having to buy hygiene items, snacks, and other things, soldiers could come into the Free X to “shop” for what they needed, free of charge.

The items had been “care packages” donated to the troops.

Whelan said that the Free X served another purpose: It allowed soldiers who needed to report or get counseling for sexual assault or harassment anonymity. No one knew if they were in the area to visit the Free X or the SHARK team or the chaplain or the equal opportunity adviser.

Those experiences will serve her well as she leads an office that has been involved in an ongoing federal sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Commissioner George F. Halcovage Jr. by four women who work in the courthouse.

Human resources’ most recent director, Heidi L. Zula, resigned in June to take another job.

Zula is among those named in the lawsuit, which was filed in March 2021 in U.S. District Court, Scranton.

The other defendants are the county, First Assistant County Solicitor/Risk Manager Glenn T. Roth Jr., County Administrator Gary R. Bender, and Kutzler.

In the suit, the women say Halcovage sexually harassed them from the time he was elected in 2012.

The others are accused of failing to stop him and what the women say are retaliatory measures taken against them.