As the Curry Student Center celebrates its 40th birthday this month, Director of Operations Bob Grier is celebrating his own milestone – 30 years as an employee of the student center.

Over the years, he said he has watched the student center grow and flourish as a destination for students and student leadership on campus.

Grier arrived at Northeastern in 1975, submitting his application for game room supervisor. By the time he arrived for work, however, he found he had been placed as a building manager for the student center. He remained there for two years before becoming building manager supervisor.

It was at that time, he said, he enrolled in Northeastern’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies, then called University College. Working at Northeastern gave Grier the opportunity to advance his education, he said.

“My goal for working at a college was to get an education,” he said.

Earning his associate’s degree in criminal justice in 1978, Grier continued studying to receive his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and his master’s in college student development during the 1980s, all while working at the student center.

During the ’70s and ’80s, Grier said there was a much larger student commuter population on campus that would use the student center as a resting point in between classes or before commuting home for the night.

“Students were drawn to the building for the services it provided,” he said. “It was just a vibrant place, there is not a place on campus like the Curry Student Center.”

While he was a night manager in the building in 1980, Grier said he oversaw the bar and pub on campus, and said “there was smoking in every room” of the student center. Both were eliminated in the ’80s, he said.

By 1982, he was the assistant director of operations, and he took over as director in 1989, the position he remains in today.

The student center was refurbished in a “two-phased renovation” in 1994 and 1995, Grier said. In the summer of 1994, the food court and West Addition were built. In 1995, when the students wrote a referendum to double fees to $50 a quarter, enough capital was made to complete the second phase during the summer of 1995, which included renovating the first through fourth floors, he said.

Balconies, a more prominent elevator, fire stairwells and the grand stair system were all added for convenience, Grier said.

“It was much better than what we had thought,” Grier said of the end result. The major renovations, he said, also allowed his office to focus on making smaller, practical changes to the student center, such as adding rooms on the fourth floor and making the best use of the space in the student center.

Grier said there are three main reasons he loves his job at the student center: