The end of October will bring about two more retirements at the Road Commission; Charles Rush, Jr., Group Leader II-Signs, will retire on October 24; and Frank Del Vecchio, Right-of-Way Supervisor, will retire on October 31, 2007.
During
their October 16 meeting, the Board of County Road Commissioners,
Wesley Prater (Chair), Fred Veigel (Vice-Chair), and
David Rutledge (Member), presented a
Resolution of Public Service to Del Vecchio and Rush
for their many years of dedicated service to the road agency and
the citizens of Washtenaw County. Del Vecchio is retiring after 15
years of service, and Rush has 28 years.
Frank Del Vecchio began his full time employment with the Road Commission on September 10, 1992, as the Right-of-Way Supervisor, the position in which he has remained throughout his career.
“Frank has been a valuable source of knowledge and experience in all aspects of right-of-way procurement, and he has contributed to the completion of countless major road improvement projects. His service has proven indispensable to the Road Commission, and he will be greatly missed by the Board and staff,” stated Steve Puuri, Managing Director.
Charlie Rush started his career with the Road Commission as a Heavy Truck Driver on February 20, 1979. In 1985, he transferred to the Sign Shop as an Assistant Sign Erector, and in 1991 was promoted to Sign Erector. In 2000, Charlie was promoted to his current position as Sign Group Leader II.
“Throughout his supervisory career, Charlie demonstrated effective leadership to our Sign Crew and he has been a valuable asset to our Traffic & Safety Section as well. It is always difficult to have a veteran employee, with as many years of experience as Charlie, retire from the agency because all of their knowledge and expertise goes with him; he will be equally missed by us all,” Puuri said.
“Unfortunately, there are no plans at this time to replace either of these valuable employees when they leave the Road Commission,” Puuri explained. “We currently have a hiring freeze in effect, which our Board imposed last November in an effort to curtail some of our administrative costs. Since that time, we have had 10 positions vacated either through retirements or termination and have not filled them. While this is an effective cost-saving measure, it is becoming increasing difficult to continue to provide the same high level of service to which our constituents have become accustomed. Unless our funding challenges improve in the near future, we will continue to reduce our workforce through attrition and perhaps even layoffs; and we will do our best to maintain our core services as we deal with a decreasing budget,” concluded Puuri.
Over the next few weeks, the Board will be evaluating other cost-saving actions the agency may need to implement in order to balance our 2007 and 2008 budgets. It is anticipated that these budgets will be adopted by the Board at their December 4, meeting.