A SALUTE TO AN CUSTOMER

DES MOINES PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT

  Iowa’s capital city is in good hands with experienced and well-trained team
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Bill Stowe might have picked a better time to begin his tenure as head of the Des Moines Public Works Department. Stowe started his term as public works director in January, 2001, which was the middle of one of the toughest winters Iowa has experienced in recent years.

“Last winter was a rough one for us,” admitted Stowe, who leads Des Moines’ 550-employee Public Works Department. Stowe and his team of managers — Deputy Public Works Director Pat Kozitza, Street Maintenance Administrator Bruce Braun, Sanitation Administrator Lee Boisen, Sewer Operations Manager Jay Bennett and Fleet Services Administrator Dave Bair — are responsible for Iowa’s capital city’s streets, sanitation and sewer services, as well as the huge fleet of equipment needed to maintain those services.

“It took a lot of good coordination and hard work,” Stowe continued. “That was a very difficult emergency response under record days of snow cover here. And Bruce and Jay and Lee and others pulled us through.”

Public Works CrewCity of Des Moines Public Works Director Bill Stowe (middle) is flanked by (from left) Deputy Public Works Director Pat Kozitza, Fleet Services Administrator Dave Bair, Sanitation Administrator Lee Boisen, Street Maintenance Administrator Bruce Braun and Sewer Operations Manager Jay Bennett.

But Stowe did find something good about taking on a new job in the middle of a snow emergency. “It tested us and we’re now more ready for a hard winter than we have been in previous years.”

Team effort

Stowe was appointed head of the Public Works Department after working there for 18 months. “I reported to the city manager with responsibilities for our waste water treatment plant,” he said. “At the same time I was learning from the department managers about what they did concurrent with former public works director John (Bellizz)’s tenure as public works director.” Stowe succeeded Bellizz, for whom the public works building is now named.

Stowe’s deputy director is Pat Kozitza, who helps the division administrators and managers coordinate their efforts. “Pat is a crucial person in getting these guys together at the beginning and end of each week to talk about what the major projects are and what coordination is necessary,” Stowe stated.

“Bruce’s guys are paving a street, so Lee’s folks need to know about it so they can collect trash hopefully in front of the paving process,” he explained. “Or if Jay is going to be out working on an intake, he wants to know where Bruce is paving streets. There are just a lot of pieces to be coordinated on a day-to-day basis.”

In addition to coordinating projects so they don’t interfere with each other, the divisions also make efforts to share resources. “If one manager has a piece of equipment or personnel that someone else needs, we all work together and share those resources to accomplish our objectives for that day or that week,” said Stowe.

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