Deb Dubberly celebrates 40th anniversary at The Journal.

NEW ULM – The Journal recently celebrated a major milestone for one of its longtime employees.

Deb Dubberly, the Business Manager for The Journal office, reached her 40 year anniversary with the paper.

Dubberly began working for The Journal in April 1985. Dubberly said she first applied at The Journal after she and her husband moved back to the area from Las Vegas. Dubberly said her unemployment had run and she needed a job quick.

In her 40 years at The Journal, she said the biggest change was the computers.

“We use to go through mountains of paper for daily work,” she said. “Now it takes far less people — it takes far less time — and I can save everything on a thumb drive or server.”

Asked what advice she would give her younger self if she could, Dubberly said “Don’t spend a lot of time obsessing about change. When I think about the worrying I did when I found out we were getting computers for example, ‘Oh, my, I am going to have to create spreadsheets.’ I could have avoided a lot of heartburn.

Asked what her favorite memory was from The Journal, she said it was the time of The Journal softball team.

“We didn’t win much, but we had a blast playing,” she said. Of course, we were much younger then.”

Asked which co-worker was the most fun to work with, Dubberly could not name a specific person.

“We’ve always had a great bunch here at The Journal. Some stayed, some left, but when you enjoy the people you work with, time really does fly by.”