Chet Frost Spotlight

Chet Frost, Faculty Affairs and Staffing Manager

What I Do

I support Faculty, Staff, and Student hires for the department; I am the Staffing Manager for our department.

Origins

I am from Corning, NY, the town in upstate NY where the dishes “CorningWare”, Corelle and Pyrex were made. Although some of these products are still manufactured in the US, some are produced in France and China now.

I currently live in San Jose. I have also lived in Cleveland, OH; San Diego, CA; Philadelphia, PA; Atlanta, GA; Long Island, NY, and Lake Charles, LA.

I worked as a cashier/shelf stocker in a grocery store right out of high school, then spent almost 13 years in the hospitality industry in front office management. My last hotel job was working for Leona Helmsley (The Queen of Mean), look her up and you’ll understand why I quit.

I hold a Bachelor’s degree in American History and Film Studies from The New School, New York, NY. When I went back to school, I worked as a student employee, video store manager, and airport car rental agent. Then moved to San Diego and continued my path of working in higher education as a faculty administrator, faculty affairs manager, department chair’s, dean’s and director’s administrative assistants at UC San Diego, Princeton University, Georgia Tech, Stony Brook University and Lamar Institute of Technology in all the cities previously listed.

My EExperience

After finally returning back to California, I entered Stanford through their temp services program, working for the Alumni Association, then became a permanent employee in the Office of Communication and Public Affairs in the SoM. I moved from there to the Department of Ophthalmology and finally to EE in 2017.

My initial role in EE was as a faculty administrator for six faculty members and their student groups...a really rewarding experience, as several of the faculty are distinguished with extremely interesting histories, while others are more junior and on the cusp of significant breakthroughs. Learning more about EE disciplines and research has helped me better anticipate group needs. Also, working with the students has been a very refreshing experience, getting to know them and their individual journeys have been very special.

My colleagues in EE and some other departments here at Stanford are among the best people I’ve ever worked with and now consider many of them friends.

Outside of Work

Of course, films and TV are both hobbies. I credit my mother for introducing me to old Hollywood films and tend to favor those from the 1930s-60s.

I grew up in a family of sports enthusiasts and found myself on a softball field at such a young age, I can't even remember exactly how old. My maternal grandfather was a semi-pro/company baseball player, and an aunt played professional baseball, drafted out of high school at 16 years old and then went on to professional softball. All six of my sisters (4 older, 2 younger) played softball and my mother was often their coach. At 5 years old I began playing baseball, then moved onto softball as an adult.

I’ve played competitive softball for more than 20 years on teams with my husband, garnishing six tournament championships and too many to count 2nd and 3rd place finishes along the way. I am still playing softball and recently put another tournament championship in my win column during this year’s Memorial Day weekend.

Favorite Spot

On campus, anywhere! It’s such a beautiful campus. Off campus, my favorite spot is anywhere with my husband and new puppy. And of course, anywhere my feet are on the dirt of a softball infield, I’m very content.