September 29, 2025 • 15 mins
Every time a police officer responds to an emergency call, a firefighter races to a blaze, or a snowplow clears your street after a winter storm, there's an unsung team of experts making it all possible. In this fascinating conversation with Ben Willcome, Walker's Fleet Services Supervisor, we pull back the curtain on the critical but often invisible work that keeps our city vehicles running.
Ben and his three-person team maintain over 300 pieces of city equipment—"anything from a chainsaw to a platform fire truck." With remarkable versatility and technical expertise, they handle everything from routine maintenance to complex rebuilds, saving taxpayers substantial money compared to outsourced repairs. A fire truck repair that might cost $200 per hour at a specialty shop gets handled in-house by certified Emergency Vehicle Technicians. Their preventative maintenance program includes innovative approaches like applying specialized rust prevention coatings and completely rebuilding aging vehicles to extend their service life.
The conversation reveals fascinating insights about vehicle lifecycles (police cars typically serve 3 years while fire trucks may run for 30), winter preparation procedures for snowplows, and a particularly rewarding project where the team transformed an underperforming fire tanker into a high-capacity emergency response vehicle. Beyond the technical aspects, Ben shares how his childhood passion for working on vehicles with his father evolved into a fulfilling career serving the public. "We keep the city rolling," he explains, taking pride in supporting every department and participating in community events that showcase their essential role. As Walker grows and vehicle technology evolves toward autonomy and alternative fuels, Ben and his team stand ready to adapt and continue their vital mission.
Ready to discover more about the people and services that make Walker work? Subscribe to Made in Walker for more behind-the-scenes conversations with the dedicated professionals serving our community.
If you have comments about this podcast, or ideas for future episodes, please email us at PODCAST@WALKER.CITY
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Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Made in Walker, a podcast that connects
you to the people, the storiesand the ideas shaping our
community, from local innovatorsto everyday changemakers.
We're diving deep into whatmakes Walker a great place to
live, work and grow.
Here's your host, nicoleDiDonato.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
City vehicles are more than just machines.
They help keep our city runningsmoothly, and the man who is in
charge of making sure that theyall run smoothly is Ben Wilkham
.
He is here now.
He is our Fleet ServicesSupervisor.
Fleet Maintenance Supervisor.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Fleet Services Supervisor yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
All right, it took me a little bit, but it's a
mouthful it's awesome having youhere.
I know you're busy in thegarage, so thank you for taking
time out to do this with us?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Oh, absolutely, yeah, I think it's important.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, I think our residents are kind of interested
in what all goes behind makingthose, all those vehicles,
because you've got police, fireour snow plows.
There's so much more.
What is the fleet look like foreveryone?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yeah, so the city owns over 300 pieces of
equipment, that's, I like to say, anything from a chainsaw to a
platform fire truck and thegarage, which is made up of
myself and three fleettechnicians.
We take care of every piece ofequipment the city owns, so you
have to be pretty versatile todo that.
(01:25):
So it's pretty fun.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, I love being able to just kind of like walk
in there and oh, there's a firetruck on a hoist or oh, there's
a police cruiser.
So you never know what you'regoing to get, and is that kind
of how you approach every day,is I'm not sure what's going to
happen?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yeah, we're working towards doing we do a lot of
preventative maintenance.
That's working towards being ona schedule, um, but it's hard
to predict.
You know the the weekend, oryou know um fire trucks breaking
down or um police cars gettingflat tires, but we do take, take
those as they come.
So, um, but it is.
You know, as a kid you knowplaying with trucks and stuff,
(01:59):
it's fun to come into the garageand talk trucks and, uh, work
on them all day.
So it's a great point.
Was that always something thatyou saw yourself doing?
How did that all start?
Not exactly.
I just really liked my dad andI worked on snowmobiles as kids
and then, as I got my license,started working on cars and just
found a passion for it.
So it's kind of fun to bringthat passion to the city too.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And what kind of skills do you need to work on a
fire truck or work on these?
You know random city vehiclesthat you get.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
So that's a great question, because you know it's
not like a dealership or sayMichigan CAD or anything not to
plug anybody here but just youknow they work on a very similar
piece of equipment every day.
It's always something different.
You know you have to be able towork on those smaller items or
those big fire trucks, and youknow we have a very talented
(02:53):
group of people in the garagethat are very flexible and able
to work on all those differentthings.
And that's those are some keypieces that make us successful.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
So Very much so, and the city probably hasn't always
had an in-house maintenance forour vehicles.
So what does that kind of dofor residents or how does that,
you know, help with financialside of having that done
in-house?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah, so well it's.
It's as simple as I mean.
You know, changing your oilyourself versus taking it to
somebody.
You know.
You know changing your oilyourself versus taking it to
somebody.
You know you, that servicecomes at a cost.
So say, we had to bring a truckinto a fire truck to get worked
on.
You're talking roughly $200 anhour for somebody to work on
(03:38):
that truck, whereas we have EVTtechnicians on staff and we're
able to do those services rightin-house.
And then there's a lot of stuffthat we take a lot of pride in.
We know the use of it betterthan an outside source, so we're
able to project those differentrepairs differently and save
some money there too.
So we take a lot of pride inmaintaining our equipment to
(04:02):
make it last.
We want to stretch that pieceof equipment as long as we can
for the city's dollar.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So yeah, you're very good at that and especially
keeping the residents money inmind.
You know that's very fiscallyresponsible one of my favorite
things yeah, so, um, you know.
So it's getting ready to prepfor winter season.
The, the snow plows, they, theytake a lot of a beating.
Your police cruisers, theycould be running 24 hours a day,
absolutely Fire trucks, theselarge vehicles that you are
(04:30):
sitting in the garage.
Then when they need to go out,they're running down the road
and everything that is on themis kind of moving jumbling.
What do you guys do to justpreserve what we have?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Yeah.
So with the plow trucks, forexample, every fall we do a
winter prep we actually alreadystarted about a month ago on
those and we go through and tryand project any possible
failures.
We inspect all the hydrauliclines and things like that.
It's a lot easier to replacethose now than it is in the
middle of a snowstorm when thattruck is needed on the road.
(05:06):
So we do a lot of thosepreventative measures and then
in the last few years weactually do this.
We've added sandblasting andpainting to a lot of our
maintenance items.
As far as, as a truck gets afew years in service, we'll
actually sandblast and paint theframes.
(05:27):
And then we use this productcalled fluid film and it's just
basically a rust preventativeand we treat almost all of our
fleet with this fluid film tohelp prevent rust and preserve
the vehicle as long as possible,Because they're always out in
the worst conditions, so try andkeep them nice, you know, while
(05:49):
they're out there in those badconditions.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, very much.
One of the things that you allhave been working on in the
garage was you were, it seemed,like rebuilding a fire truck or
a fire tender.
I think that what does thathelp?
Keep like sure what a tender is.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
but so a tender is just another name for a tanker,
gotcha.
Ours is a 4,000 gallon tanker.
It's a 2006 model and from thebeginning it was.
It was a fiberglass tank and itwas specced with some.
I don't know if it was a costthing or whatever at the time,
but it was specced with somedifferent plumbing and it didn't
(06:28):
flow the water capacity that itreally should.
So it was always kind of theyuse multiple different agencies
tankers when they are running achain of tankers.
Typically Okay, ours was kind ofthe slow one to offload so
people wouldn't call on it veryoften.
So we also had problems withthe fiberglass tanks actually
(06:49):
cracking.
I think in the 10 years I'vebeen here we've had it replaced
or had it repaired five times.
So it was time to do somethingelse with that and we actually
purchased an all-plastic or polytank.
It's all fabricated and uhplastic welded, very cool.
Um, and then um at.
(07:10):
We took that chance torefurbish or bring some more
modern life into the truck by um.
We work very closely with umlocal uh lighting agency and we
purchase new lights and we havea talented technician that
actually built fire trucksbefore and uh.
So um has all new lights on it.
(07:33):
Um, use the chance to do theblack over red scheme on it and
give it that fresh look.
And then, uh, it now has a fourinch valve versus two and a
half and it flows like youwouldn't believe it Past pump
test testing with flying colors,which was a huge, huge relief
and success.
So it was exciting to hearfirefighters say that trucks
(07:54):
never worked, that, you know,never pumped like that before,
and so it was really rewardingto hear that.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, so crucial in a time ofneed.
And yeah, how does that makeyou feel?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah.
So it's really cool in our, inour position.
You know I always joke, we thatwe keep the city rolling.
You know that, uh, policeofficers and firefighters and
the dpw couldn't do their jobwithout the equipment they need.
So it's, um, it's veryimportant that in the background
we're we're keeping, you know,all these vehicles maintained
(08:24):
and, um, you know they're ableto travel the streets, make them
safe, they're able to put outthose fires or rescue a person.
So it means a lot that we'repart of the team that way.
And I think Walker's close-knitenough and small enough still
that you feel like you'rewelcome and part of that team.
And I think all the guys in theshop I think I could speak for
(08:47):
them where they feel likethey're part of each department.
So we're kind of a little theblack sheep of the family in a
way, and we relate to everybodyand everybody comes to us to fix
things.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yes, yeah, that is great.
You guys are so knowledgeableand you really do try to get out
in the public too.
You see you at some of thecommunity events the ones that
maybe you're not helping set upfor but you've got a table.
You love showing off thevehicles, you love bringing them
to touch a truck.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Events, what is that like that community feel, yeah,
I'll never turn down a time totalk about trucks, for sure, and
you know it was, it's perfectto.
You know, for example, you knowjust showing these, seeing kids
light up when they see the firetrucks lights turn on, or the,
you know the loader, you knowloader set up and just climbing
in the cab, you know you couldbe inspiring somebody for a
(09:34):
future position.
You know, or you know, just youknow, igniting that spark and
it's, it's really fun to be outin front of the public and
educating them, the public, ofwhat the DPW does and the garage
and I think we're a very humbledepartment and we don't brag
about ourselves or you know, andit's fun to get out there and
(09:55):
just you know, see peopleexpressing interest.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
I do social media for you guysand, like you had mentioned, you
are very humble.
You're not used to being like,hey, this is what we're doing,
oh, post this picture of usdoing this.
So it's hard to get thatinformation out of you, but it's
because of a mindset.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
It's just like we're here doing our job public I
think you don't know what goeson behind the scenes, and it's
fun to share a little bit ofthat.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Do you think there is a misconception of anything
when it comes to public works,whether it could be like what
you guys do, whether it's parks,roads, fleet management?
Speaker 3 (10:40):
It's really hard just to, when you say what you do
for a living you work for adepartment of public works or
something like that people thinkyou're there's that, uh
misrepresentation of a shovelleaner or something like that,
and it is just so, um false.
And I I think, uh, you know weare definitely not that way and
uh, just I hope we can educatepeople and show them that we are
(11:03):
extremely busy and there's notime for leaning.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah right, you know, and you're just very proud.
I mean, we brought this up.
You're just very proud of whatyou do.
This is your way to serve andgive back to the community.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yep, absolutely.
Yeah, I couldn't imagine doinganything else at this moment.
You know, it's just, it's greatto do.
Like I said, serve the publicand, you know, do what we can to
be successful.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
And coming from, yeah , a car guy in maintenance.
Any kind of tips for folks whoyou know may want to kind of
like work on things on their own, of how you maintain things or
how you do preventative measures, any kind of tips you can give
to the neighborhood garageperson?
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah, it's definitely getting harder and harder to do
yourself.
With all the electronics andeverything.
It's easy to mess stuff up.
So make sure you takeprecautions, use those jack
stands you know.
Consult somebody beforetackling a project and make sure
you know what you're gettingyourself into.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Great words of advice , and how long do you typically
like to keep certain vehicles onhand?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
for how long do those last of service, just because
of failure rates and the usage.
Those, like I said, aretypically around three years for
(12:31):
a police car, a fire truck,just because the amount of cost
involved and the amount thereare less mileage but more hours
than mileage To spread that costout.
For it to make sense, we keepthose for about 30 years, okay.
And then a DPW truck.
We're shooting for that 15 to20 year range, okay.
(12:52):
We had a long cycle where wekept them 25 to 30 years.
We actually still have a truckthat's 30 years old, oh wow, and
it just it doesn't.
There's been enough change inthe city where it doesn't fit
our need as well anymore and Ithink you're going to find that
that 15 to 20 year range isgoing to be.
(13:12):
It's a, like you said earlier,the it's a rough life for a plow
truck.
You know it's, it's doing atough job and it takes its toll
over time.
So, it's expensive in the end,but no, it all.
It all varies just a makingsense cost per um age of the
vehicle.
So um and and use is a bigthing.
(13:33):
Yeah, idle time on a police carversus a dpw truck, that's you
know, in and out every day makesa big difference.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah I can see how it would yeah and you also are
able to.
Not only are you workingunderneath the vehicles, you
actually hop in the driver'sseat because I see you doing
some plowing and such.
So you get that kind of needcrisis.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
We're obviously part of the team, we will be out
there.
If you could see one of us witha chainsaw in our hand or, like
(14:12):
you said, I'm in the loaderplowing the complex, that way
I'm close.
If something does break In timeof crisis, dpw is there to do
whatever is needed.
So we definitely have that teamatmosphere where we can help
each other out Awesome.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
And you're looking toward the future.
Where do you see you know asfar as like maintenance or the
city's direction of theirvehicles?
Where do you kind of see thatgoing?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
So the city is growing at a rapid rate and I
think with added staff you'regoing to see that the fleet will
grow, grow more as timecontinues, just because of the
amount of people that are justgoing to need more vehicles
moving around the city.
And I think the other thing isyou know, as far as not only
(14:59):
being more vehicles.
I think they're also going tocontinue to get more complex.
I think you're going to see,you know you're starting to see
in agriculture the autonomoustractors and things like that.
I think we're not far off inthe future of seeing, you know,
autonomous mower mowing a soccerfield, you know, in a park
maybe, who knows?
But then I think in my lifetimewe'll also be dealing with
(15:21):
alternative fuels and thingslike that too, not saying any
particular type at this moment,but I think that's definitely in
the future.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yes, well, ben, we appreciate your insight.
It's really cool to kind of gobehind the scenes, into the
garage and know what it's allabout.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, I really appreciate you highlighting us.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Of course.
Well, thank you so much andkeep up the awesome work that
you do for our city, ben Awesome, thank you.
All right, and thank you.
Welcome to Made in Walker, a podcast that connects
you to the people, the storiesand the ideas shaping our
community, from local innovatorsto everyday changemakers.
We're diving deep into whatmakes Walker a great place to
live, work and grow.
Here's your host, nicoleDiDonato.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
City vehicles are more than just machines.
They help keep our city runningsmoothly, and the man who is in
charge of making sure that theyall run smoothly is Ben Wilkham
.
He is here now.
He is our Fleet ServicesSupervisor.
Fleet Maintenance Supervisor.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Fleet Services Supervisor yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
All right, it took me a little bit, but it's a
mouthful it's awesome having youhere.
I know you're busy in thegarage, so thank you for taking
time out to do this with us?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Oh, absolutely, yeah, I think it's important.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, I think our residents are kind of interested
in what all goes behind makingthose, all those vehicles,
because you've got police, fireour snow plows.
There's so much more.
What is the fleet look like foreveryone?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yeah, so the city owns over 300 pieces of
equipment, that's, I like to say, anything from a chainsaw to a
platform fire truck and thegarage, which is made up of
myself and three fleettechnicians.
We take care of every piece ofequipment the city owns, so you
have to be pretty versatile todo that.
(01:25):
So it's pretty fun.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, I love being able to just kind of like walk
in there and oh, there's a firetruck on a hoist or oh, there's
a police cruiser.
So you never know what you'regoing to get, and is that kind
of how you approach every day,is I'm not sure what's going to
happen?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yeah, we're working towards doing we do a lot of
preventative maintenance.
That's working towards being ona schedule, um, but it's hard
to predict.
You know the the weekend, oryou know um fire trucks breaking
down or um police cars gettingflat tires, but we do take, take
those as they come.
So, um, but it is.
You know, as a kid you knowplaying with trucks and stuff,
(01:59):
it's fun to come into the garageand talk trucks and, uh, work
on them all day.
So it's a great point.
Was that always something thatyou saw yourself doing?
How did that all start?
Not exactly.
I just really liked my dad andI worked on snowmobiles as kids
and then, as I got my license,started working on cars and just
found a passion for it.
So it's kind of fun to bringthat passion to the city too.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And what kind of skills do you need to work on a
fire truck or work on these?
You know random city vehiclesthat you get.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
So that's a great question, because you know it's
not like a dealership or sayMichigan CAD or anything not to
plug anybody here but just youknow they work on a very similar
piece of equipment every day.
It's always something different.
You know you have to be able towork on those smaller items or
those big fire trucks, and youknow we have a very talented
(02:53):
group of people in the garagethat are very flexible and able
to work on all those differentthings.
And that's those are some keypieces that make us successful.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
So Very much so, and the city probably hasn't always
had an in-house maintenance forour vehicles.
So what does that kind of dofor residents or how does that,
you know, help with financialside of having that done
in-house?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah, so well it's.
It's as simple as I mean.
You know, changing your oilyourself versus taking it to
somebody.
You know.
You know changing your oilyourself versus taking it to
somebody.
You know you, that servicecomes at a cost.
So say, we had to bring a truckinto a fire truck to get worked
on.
You're talking roughly $200 anhour for somebody to work on
(03:38):
that truck, whereas we have EVTtechnicians on staff and we're
able to do those services rightin-house.
And then there's a lot of stuffthat we take a lot of pride in.
We know the use of it betterthan an outside source, so we're
able to project those differentrepairs differently and save
some money there too.
So we take a lot of pride inmaintaining our equipment to
(04:02):
make it last.
We want to stretch that pieceof equipment as long as we can
for the city's dollar.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So yeah, you're very good at that and especially
keeping the residents money inmind.
You know that's very fiscallyresponsible one of my favorite
things yeah, so, um, you know.
So it's getting ready to prepfor winter season.
The, the snow plows, they, theytake a lot of a beating.
Your police cruisers, theycould be running 24 hours a day,
absolutely Fire trucks, theselarge vehicles that you are
(04:30):
sitting in the garage.
Then when they need to go out,they're running down the road
and everything that is on themis kind of moving jumbling.
What do you guys do to justpreserve what we have?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Yeah.
So with the plow trucks, forexample, every fall we do a
winter prep we actually alreadystarted about a month ago on
those and we go through and tryand project any possible
failures.
We inspect all the hydrauliclines and things like that.
It's a lot easier to replacethose now than it is in the
middle of a snowstorm when thattruck is needed on the road.
(05:06):
So we do a lot of thosepreventative measures and then
in the last few years weactually do this.
We've added sandblasting andpainting to a lot of our
maintenance items.
As far as, as a truck gets afew years in service, we'll
actually sandblast and paint theframes.
(05:27):
And then we use this productcalled fluid film and it's just
basically a rust preventativeand we treat almost all of our
fleet with this fluid film tohelp prevent rust and preserve
the vehicle as long as possible,Because they're always out in
the worst conditions, so try andkeep them nice, you know, while
(05:49):
they're out there in those badconditions.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, very much.
One of the things that you allhave been working on in the
garage was you were, it seemed,like rebuilding a fire truck or
a fire tender.
I think that what does thathelp?
Keep like sure what a tender is.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
but so a tender is just another name for a tanker,
gotcha.
Ours is a 4,000 gallon tanker.
It's a 2006 model and from thebeginning it was.
It was a fiberglass tank and itwas specced with some.
I don't know if it was a costthing or whatever at the time,
but it was specced with somedifferent plumbing and it didn't
(06:28):
flow the water capacity that itreally should.
So it was always kind of theyuse multiple different agencies
tankers when they are running achain of tankers.
Typically Okay, ours was kind ofthe slow one to offload so
people wouldn't call on it veryoften.
So we also had problems withthe fiberglass tanks actually
(06:49):
cracking.
I think in the 10 years I'vebeen here we've had it replaced
or had it repaired five times.
So it was time to do somethingelse with that and we actually
purchased an all-plastic or polytank.
It's all fabricated and uhplastic welded, very cool.
Um, and then um at.
(07:10):
We took that chance torefurbish or bring some more
modern life into the truck by um.
We work very closely with umlocal uh lighting agency and we
purchase new lights and we havea talented technician that
actually built fire trucksbefore and uh.
So um has all new lights on it.
(07:33):
Um, use the chance to do theblack over red scheme on it and
give it that fresh look.
And then, uh, it now has a fourinch valve versus two and a
half and it flows like youwouldn't believe it Past pump
test testing with flying colors,which was a huge, huge relief
and success.
So it was exciting to hearfirefighters say that trucks
(07:54):
never worked, that, you know,never pumped like that before,
and so it was really rewardingto hear that.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, so crucial in a time ofneed.
And yeah, how does that makeyou feel?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah.
So it's really cool in our, inour position.
You know I always joke, we thatwe keep the city rolling.
You know that, uh, policeofficers and firefighters and
the dpw couldn't do their jobwithout the equipment they need.
So it's, um, it's veryimportant that in the background
we're we're keeping, you know,all these vehicles maintained
(08:24):
and, um, you know they're ableto travel the streets, make them
safe, they're able to put outthose fires or rescue a person.
So it means a lot that we'repart of the team that way.
And I think Walker's close-knitenough and small enough still
that you feel like you'rewelcome and part of that team.
And I think all the guys in theshop I think I could speak for
(08:47):
them where they feel likethey're part of each department.
So we're kind of a little theblack sheep of the family in a
way, and we relate to everybodyand everybody comes to us to fix
things.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yes, yeah, that is great.
You guys are so knowledgeableand you really do try to get out
in the public too.
You see you at some of thecommunity events the ones that
maybe you're not helping set upfor but you've got a table.
You love showing off thevehicles, you love bringing them
to touch a truck.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Events, what is that like that community feel, yeah,
I'll never turn down a time totalk about trucks, for sure, and
you know it was, it's perfectto.
You know, for example, you knowjust showing these, seeing kids
light up when they see the firetrucks lights turn on, or the,
you know the loader, you knowloader set up and just climbing
in the cab, you know you couldbe inspiring somebody for a
(09:34):
future position.
You know, or you know, just youknow, igniting that spark and
it's, it's really fun to be outin front of the public and
educating them, the public, ofwhat the DPW does and the garage
and I think we're a very humbledepartment and we don't brag
about ourselves or you know, andit's fun to get out there and
(09:55):
just you know, see peopleexpressing interest.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
I do social media for you guysand, like you had mentioned, you
are very humble.
You're not used to being like,hey, this is what we're doing,
oh, post this picture of usdoing this.
So it's hard to get thatinformation out of you, but it's
because of a mindset.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
It's just like we're here doing our job public I
think you don't know what goeson behind the scenes, and it's
fun to share a little bit ofthat.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Do you think there is a misconception of anything
when it comes to public works,whether it could be like what
you guys do, whether it's parks,roads, fleet management?
Speaker 3 (10:40):
It's really hard just to, when you say what you do
for a living you work for adepartment of public works or
something like that people thinkyou're there's that, uh
misrepresentation of a shovelleaner or something like that,
and it is just so, um false.
And I I think, uh, you know weare definitely not that way and
uh, just I hope we can educatepeople and show them that we are
(11:03):
extremely busy and there's notime for leaning.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah right, you know, and you're just very proud.
I mean, we brought this up.
You're just very proud of whatyou do.
This is your way to serve andgive back to the community.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yep, absolutely.
Yeah, I couldn't imagine doinganything else at this moment.
You know, it's just, it's greatto do.
Like I said, serve the publicand, you know, do what we can to
be successful.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
And coming from, yeah , a car guy in maintenance.
Any kind of tips for folks whoyou know may want to kind of
like work on things on their own, of how you maintain things or
how you do preventative measures, any kind of tips you can give
to the neighborhood garageperson?
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah, it's definitely getting harder and harder to do
yourself.
With all the electronics andeverything.
It's easy to mess stuff up.
So make sure you takeprecautions, use those jack
stands you know.
Consult somebody beforetackling a project and make sure
you know what you're gettingyourself into.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Great words of advice , and how long do you typically
like to keep certain vehicles onhand?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
for how long do those last of service, just because
of failure rates and the usage.
Those, like I said, aretypically around three years for
(12:31):
a police car, a fire truck,just because the amount of cost
involved and the amount thereare less mileage but more hours
than mileage To spread that costout.
For it to make sense, we keepthose for about 30 years, okay.
And then a DPW truck.
We're shooting for that 15 to20 year range, okay.
(12:52):
We had a long cycle where wekept them 25 to 30 years.
We actually still have a truckthat's 30 years old, oh wow, and
it just it doesn't.
There's been enough change inthe city where it doesn't fit
our need as well anymore and Ithink you're going to find that
that 15 to 20 year range isgoing to be.
(13:12):
It's a, like you said earlier,the it's a rough life for a plow
truck.
You know it's, it's doing atough job and it takes its toll
over time.
So, it's expensive in the end,but no, it all.
It all varies just a makingsense cost per um age of the
vehicle.
So um and and use is a bigthing.
(13:33):
Yeah, idle time on a police carversus a dpw truck, that's you
know, in and out every day makesa big difference.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah I can see how it would yeah and you also are
able to.
Not only are you workingunderneath the vehicles, you
actually hop in the driver'sseat because I see you doing
some plowing and such.
So you get that kind of needcrisis.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
We're obviously part of the team, we will be out
there.
If you could see one of us witha chainsaw in our hand or, like
(14:12):
you said, I'm in the loaderplowing the complex, that way
I'm close.
If something does break In timeof crisis, dpw is there to do
whatever is needed.
So we definitely have that teamatmosphere where we can help
each other out Awesome.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
And you're looking toward the future.
Where do you see you know asfar as like maintenance or the
city's direction of theirvehicles?
Where do you kind of see thatgoing?
Speaker 3 (14:36):
So the city is growing at a rapid rate and I
think with added staff you'regoing to see that the fleet will
grow, grow more as timecontinues, just because of the
amount of people that are justgoing to need more vehicles
moving around the city.
And I think the other thing isyou know, as far as not only
(14:59):
being more vehicles.
I think they're also going tocontinue to get more complex.
I think you're going to see,you know you're starting to see
in agriculture the autonomoustractors and things like that.
I think we're not far off inthe future of seeing, you know,
autonomous mower mowing a soccerfield, you know, in a park
maybe, who knows?
But then I think in my lifetimewe'll also be dealing with
(15:21):
alternative fuels and thingslike that too, not saying any
particular type at this moment,but I think that's definitely in
the future.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yes, well, ben, we appreciate your insight.
It's really cool to kind of gobehind the scenes, into the
garage and know what it's allabout.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, I really appreciate you highlighting us.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Of course.
Well, thank you so much andkeep up the awesome work that
you do for our city, ben Awesome, thank you.
All right, and thank you.
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