hey everybody my name is Alex torpy I'm
the town manager here and I am here with
Pete kalbaki our director of Public
Works how's it going Pete I'm okay so we
are here to talk a little bit about a
job posting that you're probably looking
at right now which is the deputy
director for Highway and Fleet yes and
so tell us a little bit about what that
job is so this job entails um obviously
overseeing the highway department
um and making sure our equipment
town-wide equipment is in Top Notch
shape as well as looking at Future
Replacements of our Fleet um one thing
we need a little bit unique in most dpws
is that we do a lot of construction so
we're not just talking about trucks like
these behind us but excavators uh
backhoes rollers
um smaller equipment that we can pave
with or do some minor work such as that
so we do quite a bit more work in the
way of construction than we do just in
maintenance there's a lot in-house
that's done here
um as we can hear behind us
um and so so this position what is the
deputy director responsible for doing
and how do they fit in with the other
divisions within public works here the
deputy director's responsible for
um as I came before the all the highway
operations which is
um wintertime plowing sanding all that
sort of stuff making sure that's running
not necessarily out there running trucks
but making sure they have the resources
to actually do that work
um the training
um training folks to make sure they do
things safely and then during the summer
months um we do far more of uh routine
maintenance along the roads but also the
construction projects managing the
projects Contracting subcontracted
bidders whether it be Paving or people
doing flat work Curbing and concrete
work such as that but working with some
of the plans we have two in-house
Engineers I'm an engineer and an audit
Deputy of engineering and utilities will
do designs and help throughout layouts
managing all the um Street signals all
the lighting the towel lighting which
we have one of the street lights along
with our signals which are all
controlled and automated so we're seeing
all that and how many staff do we have
here total in the public works
department and in how many divisions uh
so there's 39 staff in public works that
includes water Wastewater and there's
water treatment wastewater treatment
Wastewater collection is a line
maintenance we call it sewer line
maintenance and then water distribution
which works with the sewer line
maintenance and doing like more utility
construction and maintenance then we
have a highway division
we have a fleet Division and we also
have a building a facilities division
which that directly reports to me
because I do more of the work feeling
projects with energy and building
infrastructure improvements so that
those positions all work together along
with the our administrative division
which deals with our GIS deals without
billing all our engineering as well as
all the permitting and all the functions
that make sure that
fill all the paperwork out right now one
of the things that you mentioned which
is a big priority here is sustainability
and so I imagine that that's something
that should be on somebody's mind but
what else I mean what's the right
background for someone coming into this
what's a good professional experience
that someone might have that would set
them up really well for success in this
position so positions that done well in
this area are folks that have actually
worked in construction as construction
managers we've had to work with pressing
deadlines work in the public eye working
the streets work around a lot of other
contractors and a lot of things going on
the traffic moving around
um
generally the that position isn't a a
position that's on call for emergencies
unless there's a disaster
okay
um anything else that you want to share
so I know the job posting is up on the
website right now
um anything else that someone who might
be looking at this job might want to
know about
um we have a staff that's aging
um and at some point we'll see
um yeah we have some some vacancies that
we're trying to fill so we have a lot of
newer folks uh for this opportunity to
train uh new folks and bring them along
some new techniques new ideas and
opportunity to put your step on a bunch
of folks all right I was going to say it
sounds like I mean based on the turnover
that we're having and sort of where
we're at person coming into this role is
going to have a lot of impact on how the
division looks in the future yeah
absolutely this is an area that um when
I started 25 years ago a lot of the
people who are retiring now were all
young right I don't know what happened
but now um I think you'll find it coming
into this position you'll find a lot of
the people coming in will be younger on
the younger side we do still have some
some pretty skilled people who who would
still be around for uh 10 or 15 years
but a lot of them will be less than 10
years so there will be definitely some
opportunities to groom people into new
skill sets and new techniques as well as
looking at um you know new directions
and where we we specialize we do a lot
of In-House things like the background
you hear on this the scraping stencils
because they do we do all inside all the
paintings so that's something that most
communities do some but we do all the
long line painting as well as all the
steps Awards so those are things that
we've added we've been looking at new
techniques of like uh
um winter maintenance we're using Brian
for several years within the first
communities to use brine we're the First
Community in the state to put a
roundabout in I've nearly lynched a
couple times for that but um now they're
everywhere right they work well so we
we're not afraid and we get a lot of
good uh to try new things
um community supports what we do
um words have been very supportive our
managers supportive so we've got a lot
of opportunities to do some pretty cool
stuff yeah I appreciate that last note
because I think it's important for
people coming into these positions to
know that there is a lot of support in
the capital plan from myself from the
board from town meeting for all these
sorts of projects and like you said for
trying new things we're also in the
midst of changing the way a lot works
here from an employment perspective so
there's a lot sort of in transition
right now and it's kind of an exciting
time there's a lot to do and a lot to
think about but it's also an exciting
time to join the organization because
like Pete said earlier uh someone coming
into this is going to really get to put
their stamp on this you know for you
know for the next decade or two going
forward so if you are looking at this
and you do have questions you can reach
out to our human resources department
and we can answer any questions or put
you in touch with Pete or anybody else
to answer any questions that you might
have in
um we hope to see your application so
thanks Pete for sharing some stuff with
us and hopefully we'll see you yeah