From Green Fatigues to the Red and Black

When Frank Roberts finished his active-duty service to the Army in 1997, he began a job search that didn't take him very far from SDSU.

After serving as professor of military science and department chair of the SDSU Army ROTC program for five years, he was offered a job in SDSU Admissions.

'Trying' times

"Just about the time I was retiring from the Army, I had gotten to know several people on campus," Roberts said.

"I admired a lot of people here, as well as the mission of the university. I was starting my job hunt and the associate director of outreach at the time said, 'Hey, we have a couple of outreach positions open here on campus. Why don't you try? So, I tried and here I am. "

During his time in Enrollment Services, Roberts has seen many prospective students make the choice to attend SDSU, and he's played a key role in the university's new Troops to College initiative.

"As a retired Army lieutenant colonel, Frank's military background and knowledge has become invaluable to SDSU's veterans affairs efforts," said Sandra Cook, executive director of Enrollment Services. "Frank works extensively with active-duty military applying to SDSU to ensure they can obtain a college education."

Roberts' retirement party

After a dozen years of helping students, Roberts now finds himself retiring from his position of director of Prospective Student Services later this month.

A retirement party for Roberts will be held from 3:30 – 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 24 in Love Library, room 430. Please RSVP to Susan Naiman at (619) 594-0744 or [email protected].

Memorable moments

During his time in Enrollment Services, Roberts has several key memories. While he admits that his department's move from Student Affairs to Academic Affairs was a big moment and helped unify resources and information for current and prospective students, there's one memory that still makes him laugh to this day.

"The CSU has an annual professional development meeting for all the campuses and one year we went up to CSU Northridge, so most of the office went," Roberts said. "After the first day of meetings, Reggie Blaylock, who was the director then – this was right around the time that  Krispy Kreme had opened in Southern California – so Reggie got us all together and said 'We've gotta go find the local Krispy Kreme.'

"Here it is nine o' clock at night or thereabouts and we all jump into the van. We are driving, wandering around the environs of the San Fernando Valley, looking for Krispy Kreme, which we did find. And I can't tell you how many dozens of donuts we brought back to the hotel.

"It was part of the whole team deal where we were all together as a unit, learning as a unit, but then having a little bit of fun, too."

Roberts does have other memories, too, in particular a more recent one. Last fall, he started corresponding via e-mail with a U.S. Marine in Iraq. Since then, the Marine applied and was accepted to SDSU.

Last week, the Marine, now a soon-to-be Aztec, met with Roberts and then headed to the Veterans Center to learn more about the campus. For Roberts, the experience showed how his SDSU career had come full circle.

"He's on his way with his life," Roberts said. "I played a very small role in that, but just the opportunity to correspond and meet with him one-on-one, it's a great feeling. You're out there; you're trying to help somebody. It was very meaningful to me."