Kevin Anderson, Airway Heights' new public works director, has roots in the Spokane/Eastern Washington area having graduated from Shadle Park High School and Washington State University.
Ross Dunfee calls it a "brain drain."
It's what happens when an individual with extensive knowledge about a subject leaves a position and the knowledge does not get passed along.
Dunfee said that's what has been the situation with the Airway Heights Public Works Department, which lost its sixth director over the past 10 years when Kelly Williquette left for a new position last March. Dunfee, hired by the city through the consulting firm Prothman Company as interim public works director but mainly tasked with re-organizing the department, believes the efforts he and other city officials have taken should break that cycle - for good.
One of the first steps was to change the job description of the public works director. Dunfee said the previous director was too involved in the daily operations of the department's functions rather than being focused on the city's long-term infrastructure needs and challenges.
"We missed some opportunities because of this," Dunfee said.
Dunfee said they not only completely rewrote the director's job description, putting a heavy emphasis on civil engineering, but they added a new position of city engineer, who will be tasked with handling the current, daily responsibilities of running the city's water reclamation plant and road maintenance, along with other many duties.
The moves have led to the promotion of department employee Justin Van Dyck to the city engineer position, and the hiring of long-time civil engineering consultant Kevin Anderson as the new public works director. And when Van Dyck, a Washington State University civil engineering graduate who has been with Airway Heights for three years, completes his final requirements, it will mean the two top officials in charge of infrastructure will be professional engineers.
"Kevin will be wrapped into trying to enhance and protect Airway Heights in the long range elements like planning, streets, water and wastewater," Dunfee said.
For Anderson, the chance to head up a municipalities public works department was the opportunity of a lifetime. A 1981 graduate of Shadle Park High School and 1985 civil engineering graduate from WSU, with the exception of a short first engineering stint in Wenatchee, Anderson has worked as a consultant at the firm RH2 Engineering in Bothell, Wash. since 1986.
His projects at the Seattle-area firm are wide ranging, running from water booster pump stations to major sewer interceptors and reservoir analysis; winning a Pacific Northwest Section AWWA Excellence in Engineering Award in 2010 for managing a project team working on the Northeast Sammamish Sewer and Water District for the Crest Reservoir, Booster Pump Station and Treatment Facility.
Besides potable (long o sound) water and wastewater, Anderson said he became heavily involved in road projects, becoming the firm's Bothell office's main roadway corridor designer, working on projects such as the city of Stanwood's 68th Avenue roadway extension, Stevens Way reconstruction projects at the University of Washington, and many other road system design and traffic impact analysis projects.
Looking for a new and different challenge, Anderson said he jumped at the opportunity to return to where he grew up when the Airway Heights public works director position opened.
"To me, it was a logical thing to jump to the other side of the fence and serve a community," he said.
Anderson said he sees Airway Heights as a "great community" with a lot of future challenges stemming from growth. Questions such as how to deal with a potentially large incoming development, a fragile aquifer system and the need to balance all of this is in a forward-thinking manner is appealing.
"It's an exciting time to be leading the department," Anderson said.
And that department is much more efficient, Dunfee added. Not only the new positions, but also other positions have been re-organized, or perhaps re-bundled under their more proper sections. The changes have also been physical, with remodeling projects taking place in several public works buildings.
Dunfee believes the changes will make for a more focused department, one that is made up of people with "servants hearts" for their community.
"I think we have a better organization and good people," he said.
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.
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