Patricia Velie is coming back home to Wayland to serve as the school district’s finance director.

Velie, who succeeds the retired Bill Melching, worked in the schools’ business office from 1995 to 2006, but left when her husband, Larry, took a job in Massachussetts. Her husband has been asked to return to work at Steelcase in Grand Rapids, so she applied for the finance director’s post after learning of the opening.

She was introduced to the Wayland Board of Education at its work session Monday night. She will begin Tuesday, Nov. 1.

Velie most recently has been director finance and administration at Medford Public Schools, a district that has nine schools in the city serving grades K-12. She also was accounting supervisor for Hingham Public Schools.

The Velies are parents of Capt. Jordan Velie, U.S. Army 101st Airborne, who served in Afghanistan and is a 2005 Wayland High School graduate. Their daughter, Kelsey, is a clinical trial coordinator at Biogen in Cambridge Mass. Kelsey attended Wayland schools, but graduated from high school in Hull, Mass.

Mrs. Velie earned a graduate degree from the University of Phoenix and her undergraduate degree from Western Michigan University.

A graduate of Mendon High School, she and her family previously lived in Shelbyville.