As you know, we advertised for a Town Engineer on the Buzz a couple weeks ago. Our goal was to decrease our payments to outside engineering firms by bringing more expertise in house.
We are thrilled to report Kent O’Donohue will serve as our first Town Engineer, and he will start work on October 11. He is licensed as a landscape architect, but that field is broad enough to include all the core elements of the job: managing our MS4/TMDL matters, building our GIS system, and doing some straightforward utility design. By 8:45 a.m. on October 11, for example, he will be working on some persistent drainage issues at the tennis center.
More so than with any other hire we have made, Kent is the personification of our employment ad. The ad mentioned that the new hire would “serve as all-around engineering sage (See Gilligan’s Island—Professor).” Lots of people asked what that meant, and we told them that the Town Engineer should be ready to build a radio from coconuts, if necessary. So, this week, we asked Kent what kind of computer we should purchase for him, and he said, “Well, I’d prefer to build my own, if you don’t mind.” If he builds it out of coconuts, we’ll let you know.
Kent is currently employed at Balzer and Associates, where he has served as a Civil Engineering Project Manager and a Design Technology Manager. He holds a degree in landscape architecture from Virginia Tech and an MBA from JMU. He lives in Dayton with his wife and children.