Welcome to the Grovecast, a municipal podcast hosted by the city of Cottage Grove. We're here to demystify city government, make it more accessible, while also showcasing the real human beings who work every day providing services to residents. I am your co-host, Phil Jentz, the city's communications manager. >> And I am Emily Schmidz. I'm the community development director here at the city. >> Emily, hello. >> Hi. >> Welcome. I think this is like the seventh episode. >> Yeah. [gasps] And I didn't even figure out what my title was there for a minute. >> You know what? Here there are no titles. We're just talking. >> We're all doing the same thing. >> Except that we all tell our titles and it's all about our jobs. And it turns out I'm completely wrong. >> Correct. Either [laughter] way. Either way. And I've been doing something different than I was supposed to be doing, but that's okay. Anyhow, >> well, Emily, our our our topics to kind of break the ice have always been like food superpowers. I think we've talked about like traveling. Do you have any let's traveling? Like are you do you have any like vacation goals, bucket list places to go see? >> A superpower you can snap your finger and you're just there. >> You want to know what I want my superpower to be? The ability to stop eating the Reese's pumpkins. >> Oh, when it's that time of year. >> When it's that time of year, you just want to like enough. Well, and the Reese's come out, you know, every season or whatever. But >> literally, as we speak, I have a bag of the white chocolate Reese's ghosts in my freezer. Good luck to you, Phil. >> So, every time I walk through the kitchen, which is too often is known on those things. >> So, that's my wishful superpower, Phil. >> I'll take that. Can I ditto that? >> Absolutely. >> To put the Reese's down. >> Yes. Make better choices. [laughter] >> Well, with us today is none other than the public works and utilities director, Ryan Burfind. Ryan, welcome. >> Thanks, Phil. Thanks, Emily. Thanks for having me. >> How you doing today? >> Doing good. >> What's your guilty pleasure? I mean, ours apparently are Reese's. So, what [laughter] do you got? >> You got to be guilty pleasure. It would be the Reese's. Especially when it's like the special Reese's. They're different. >> I know. >> The Christmas trees trees. >> Better ratio. Oh, yeah. >> It is a better ratio. More more peanut butter. I feel like white chocolate ones. >> My gosh, they're so good. >> So good. >> I'm so >> Can we stop recording? I would like to go get some. >> We got to take pause. Please hold. [laughter] >> Phil, we waited a long time to have Ryan here. >> We did, you know, and and we I think it's good. I do. Well, yeah, >> cuz it's fall. >> Yeah. And I'm excited for the people to hear what Ryan does. >> True. >> It's It's fall. We're getting into, for better or worse, that transition season where like the snow is around the corner. >> Can we even say that? Look at Ryan. Just >> You totally can. We just had our snowplow meeting today. >> We'll see if they can bleep out the word snow. [laughter] >> He got a little antsy. But if there's one thing, if there's something I do know about Ryan, I think he actually gets excited about the change, you know, the next thing. Summer, you know, has its pros and cons, >> but you get to the next thing. >> I love the seasons. Yep. I love the change. I love winter. >> Ryan loves lots of snow. He likes the heat, too. >> I like the heat in the summer. He likes it all. You're in the right state. >> I love Minnesota. [laughter] Yep. I love Minnesota >> through and through. Well, Ryan, beyond the seasons that you love and the changes that you love as a public works director, I think a lot of people maybe generally know what that is, you know, streets and plowing and what have you, but what is it that you do? What is it that you do as director of public works? >> So, director of public works, that's a great question. >> Big question. >> Some of it's easy and maybe talking about what the department does. Um, obvious one, the streets, right? Making sure our streets are safe for everyone. Summer, winter, plowing, and that's the plowing is the entire department and our parks department. So that's not just a one division kind of deal. That's the entire department working together um for that. It's probably one of the most important things we do. Some of the other obvious ones, but very important utilities. So safe drinking water, water treatment, water distribution, sanitary sewer, um street lighting, traffic signals. Um so really the basic the real basic things that you need at a city, right? But if you don't have those, you don't have a good functioning city. Even public safety can't do their job if they can't get around on the roads. So Right. >> Um some other pressure. Exactly. >> Everything falls in line behind public works. >> Yeah. But not just maintaining it, but building it as well. So, engineering division is in uh public works. So, they do all the planning, all the construction, reconstruction. When you see roads torn up around town, you can thank our engineering department. Um I know they do a [laughter] great job. We take we take a lot of pride in it. You know, you want to do it in the best way you can. Do it the right way and have those little impact as you can as possible. Um and a couple other ones that maybe people don't think about is the buildings and and all our entire fleet, all the vehicles, right? So, we maintain all the vehicles, all of our equipment from chainsaws all the way up to fire trucks and then maintain all the buildings as well. >> And then finally, we've got our public works admin team last but not least, just kind of bringing it all together, making it all happen and keeping everyone in line, >> the glue. >> Yes, exactly. >> Fascinating. Uh, and I shouldn't admit this, but so your team does do the maintenance on ambulances and the fire trucks. >> So, we will do like the vehicle maintenance. So, we won't get into like the medical equipment, things like that. That's a special venue, [clears throat] right? Yep. But all the Yep. If you're doing more the vehicle maintenance, >> change the headlight on the fire truck today. >> Fascinating. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Those mechanics, they are not they're not bored. They get to do a little of everything. >> They're the jack of all trades. For sure. >> They really are. And I think I've talked to you about this before where like those folks are fixing anything from, like you said, chainsaws >> all the way up to skid steers and front end loaders and everyday SUVs. Like, it's wild. That's a wild skill set to have. >> Yep, for sure. >> And impressive. >> Barely figure out Microsoft Word, Phil. >> I'm shocked that I remembered the phrase steer. [laughter] >> That was pretty good. You did a good job. >> Um, Ryan, so you just listed a lot of I'm going to call it responsibility, I think, is the word. So, I'm curious, and I mean, I kind of know, but how in the world did you end up where you are? who wakes up one day or, you know, is 18 years old and they're like, I'm going to be a public works director. How does one navigate to that position? >> It's a great question. >> Yeah, great question. So, going way back, just real briefly, my my mom worked for the city of Redwing and she had me job shadow back in high school, a city engineer, and that's my background initially was went to school for civil engineering. Um, went to work for a little while at the US Forest Service up in northern Minnesota in their engineering department, but something very different. and then uh wanted to get back home closer to family and uh this job opened up and not this job specifically, but a job with the city and in the engineering department and applied for it and got it and kind of work my way along. But I grew up on a farm and I really like to see stuff done every day as well. I love the big projects. I love engineering. Um but it's really fun to see just work happen every day and seeing the the the crew get stuff done kind of like I did back in in the farming days. So, um it was a great transition to become public works director and uh be more involved with all the different maintenance and everything happening in the city. >> That's awesome. And I was going to ask you earlier like there you mentioned like seeing things getting done. There must be a really great sense of pride >> seeing roads being worked on and people's >> like literal lives being improved in front of their homes >> on a constant basis. Like that's got to be pretty cool. >> Yep. No, it is for sure. I kind of joke we're like the offensive line of the city. you think the football like if you don't if we do our jobs really well >> people almost don't really notice which is kind of too bad right because I think I think the whole team yeah they do great work and they should get credit for it >> when things don't go well people notice >> I think in Minnesota people do pay attention to offensive lines >> yeah [laughter] exactly that's true maybe for the Vikings it's a little bit more obvious so um but no >> they're like no we're watching it we know >> exactly but take a lot of pride in what we do and I know our whole team takes a lot of pride in what they do and want to do a great job of it for sure Yeah. >> So you mentioned well a lot of things. I mean streets, utilities, street lights, fleet maintenance, all that stuff, engineering, planning. That's a lot. So in addition to that, and maybe there isn't anything more, but what's something about your role? Maybe something specific to the director of public works. What's something about your role that people might not know about? >> One thing they may not know about that is a that's a great question. >> Besides that you love Reese's, which they just learned. >> Yep. Yeah, exactly. Personally, this >> it's important [laughter] just the same. No. [clears throat] >> Yeah. Uh maybe one thing that I've had a really big part in and it's been probably one of my biggest points of pride is our water treatment. Um so that obviously that's part of public works, but the whole 3M settlement, right? Um the state getting the money to uh provide uh drinking water treatment for the East Metro. Um I I've [clears throat] had a I guess the the opportunity and a great opportunity to be a part of that all the way since 2017 all the way through doing temporary treatment plants um when I was more in the engineering group and then being on what's called 3M settlement working groups. Right. So they made a working group of all the different um directors, engineers, administrators in the east metro and how's the money going to get spent and how's that going to get divvied up and then now we're actually building the projects and I've been very involved in those water treatment plants and that's been a huge point of pride for me. Um we just opened up our first permanent treatment plant and we're working hard on our second. So >> and congratulations. >> And truly congratulations. I was just going to say, I mean, that's almost a decade, Ryan, right, of work. And sometimes in our line of work, it takes that long to bring something to fruition. And so, there's certainly pride as part of. >> Yeah. Yeah. Our second treatment plant will be fully done in 2029. So, it'll be 12 years from when we built our first temporary treatment plant. So, >> that's impressive. >> Big chunk of a career. For sure. >> Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. >> So, you've got the low zone water treatment plant. That's what just opened. Yep. the intermediate zone water treatment plant which is under construction. >> Correct. Yep. >> Ryan, with all due respect, is the communications guy. We got to brand those differently. >> I know. Actually, someone was just trying to say the name this morning in a meeting and intermediate zone water treatment plant. They're >> technical, right? So, [laughter] maybe we'll have to get some >> name. [laughter] >> You can count on engineers to be difficult. A really, really long name. >> That sounds like a very engineering appro. It's water treatment A, water treatment facility B. >> So black and white, I can't even stand it. >> Yeah, let's take it the other direction. Make it as basic as possible. >> I know. I know. But so he hit on one of the things I was going to ask Phil was, you know, a project or or something you've worked on, you know, that you're particularly proud of or fond of. But Ryan, you've been involved, like you had mentioned, um, you know, in your engineering role on a lot of development and growth in this community. Is there another project or something that you worked on, you know, where you can say I and to your point, you watched it happen. It grew in the community and and you get to drive by every day. >> I think being part of a city like Cottage Grove, that's another reason I I've been here 12 years and I'm still here and hopefully not going anywhere, is I like the growth as well. I mean, I take a lot of pride in maintaining what we have, but it's really fun to see the growth. I kind of joke like it's a big version of Sim City, right? [laughter] Yeah, as you slowly when I was a kid, one of my favorite games growing up. >> Yeah. When I was a kid, I played Sim City and and and >> I wonder what it would be like to play it now with the perspective of city and that's like the whole city, right? Everyone's involved in growth, the planning department, the building division, everyone has their role. So, by no means is it just us and public works, but um being a part of that is is is so great to see. And then and maintaining what we have. I mean, I take a lot of pride in, you know, we had big issues down at East Point in Jamaica and uh we spent two years a long project and that came out much better and and once again, I can't take credit for any of this, it's always a team effort, right? Um it's a big team to deliver these projects and make them go well, >> which makes it fun, you know, in my opinion and I just for the folks listening, you know, community development and engineering work together. >> I was going to say you two must you two literally you two must work a lot together. Yeah. >> Yeah. you know, and so those teams have to work together. And there are multiple other teams, too. I shouldn't just say it's just the two of us, but you know, that collaborative effort, you know, in my opinion, is the most exciting part. It's the coolest thing to watch happen when everybody comes together and it works. >> So, what issues do you not like, Ryan? >> What issues do I tricky [laughter] question? Tricky question. >> One thing. >> How about the two most common things? Trees and street lights. So, we we run our own street lighting system and that's maybe one thing that's kind of unique to us. It certainly other cities do it, but most cities Excel Energy runs a street lighting system. >> Um, we do and that that is a lot of work. So, we have around 4,000 street lights and >> when a light is out, you got to get that light fixed, right? I mean, it's staring there in the face. >> You can't miss it. >> Super important and very obvious to that point. Yeah. Everyone sees it. >> Yep. And come fall, this is the time of year where people are going to start seeing it, right? In the in the summer, it's light out till 10 at night. you don't really notice and then you get to the fall >> all of a sudden >> and people start to notice and with that many street lights we can't proactively go in search of them right I mean we have we have a a daytime shift you know we don't have 24 hours operations so we rely on the public to report a lot of that and uh this is a time of year where we're going to start getting a lot of calls and >> um my street light staff are going to be extra busy [laughter] >> all over it >> just a constant maintenance uh headache probably I would imagine >> exactly >> yeah um One big thing we've been very curious about um we've talked about with other directors. Um I mean truly just your favorite food, Ryan. Like here's it's your birthday and and your family's like we're going to take you wherever you want to go. Eat whatever you want to eat. What does Ryan choose? I think Pete chose cereal. I'm kidding. He didn't. It was pizza. [laughter] >> He did talk about cereal. Remember if it was a favorite food or what? >> Pete thinks that starting a day with cereal is the best way. I think Ryan >> I do start my day with cereal every day. >> What kind of cereal? >> Cereal. Whatever is in the cupboard. [laughter] >> Truly. >> I don't even I don't even look at what the flavor is. >> You know, if we run out of it and it's just the kids Lucky Charms left, so be it. It's Lucky Charms for whatever. It'll [laughter] still I'll still eat it. >> Yep. But I got to have my cereal. So, no. My favorite thing, I think Phil's heard this maybe on a previous one, is tacos. >> Oh, we did talk about this. >> Yep. Yep. >> In a video. >> Definitely tacos. >> Beef, chicken, doesn't matter. Any kind. You go to one of those places where they just have like 30 different kinds of tacos. That's Ryan's place. >> I can eat there every day. >> Have you ever been to like a like pretty authentic Takaria? >> Yes. >> Anything like that? Like that is some next level >> taco stuff. >> Can't beat it. Yeah. Okay. >> Can't beat it. >> Okay, that's good to know. Okay, >> so maybe public works and community development team up on a Takaria local taco place in Cottage Grove. >> Listen, we could bring one in town. >> We [laughter] could start a business venture. I don't I don't know how successful we'd be, Phil, [laughter] but it'd be planned and engineered. >> Really well planned, really well engineered. >> How it operates, but [laughter] >> taco restaurant A. >> Yeah. >> Curious, you your best uh uh trip or adventure that you appreciate going on the most. >> So, our our favorite thing to do as a family is see National Park. So, we've got a thing up on the wall, a map where we're going to you scratch them off when you get there. And uh our goal is to see every national park with uh me and my wife and my two daughters. >> That's awesome. >> Um as a group, we've seen 18 now. So, we have a long ways to go. >> How many are there? Do you know? >> There's over 60. I believe it's like Yeah, we So, >> um but uh yeah, that's our number one favorite thing. Um and my favorite area, but my kids haven't been to, but we're going to take them there in two years, is like that Utah area. M >> Moab and Arches National Park and fun and um really getting out there and doing some really fun hiking >> off the beaten path. So >> see see the things you don't get in Minnesota. It's beautiful here, but you got to go out to see all the other >> Exactly. >> You bring your bikes out there cuz you like to cycle too, right? >> We do. Yep. So like there we would. And obviously you can't go mountain biking national parks, but you go to Moab. It's like the mountain biking capital of the United States. And Yep. My whole family. Um it's been pretty nice. They're all getting into it with me now. So that's awesome. Yep. Yeah, >> for sure. >> Favorite national park so far? >> Favorite national park individual is Yuseite for sure. Me and my brother went there back in >> 2012 and we hiked up to the top of Halfto, did the cables all the way to the top and uh it was like a >> 12-hour hike. It was just the most like amazing thing I'd ever done. So >> memorable. >> And it's it's quite like I love a good thrill. I love heights. I just want to scare myself. It's my favorite thing to do. I want to go up there with my daughters. My wife's like, "Well, maybe, >> you know, can [laughter] we just wait a couple of years?" >> It's a pretty It's a pretty intense hike and you get to the top and you are way up there and very exposed. So, >> but what an awesome experience. >> That's like my bucket list. I did that before I had kids and like Yeah, when they get a little older and a little more capable, we're going to go to the top of Half Dome together for sure. So, >> I love that. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. >> We'll have to have you back on after you do that. >> Yeah. It'll just be a second Ryan show. You [laughter] can tell us about his crazyventure. Exactly. >> Well, Ryan, that is it. It's all the time that we have. Goes by fast, but we do really appreciate it. Clearly, as we've discussed, you have a heck of a lot that you're responsible for that you do, and so we appreciate uh the time that you've given us to to learn a little bit about that. So, thank you. >> Thank you guys. >> Thanks, Ryan. >> Thanks for having me. >> Yeah. >> Well, thank you all for listening. This has been the Grovecast, a city of Cottage Grove municipal podcast. You can catch episodes monthly and to listen or download, find us [music] at cottaggrovemn.gov/thegrowcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you to True Lens Community Media for producing the Grocast and stay tuned for our next episodes where we'll move on to other departments, [music] city services, or other topics. Thanks for listening.