Most of the guests at Rotary Club of San Lorenzo Valley’s first Wednesday meeting on November 4, 2015 came into the Birch Room wearing CalTrans’ customary canary yellow or orange jackets. The ten men and their supervisor, Tom Barnett, Maintenance Superintendent for the San Lorenzo Valley, were invited by the RCSLV to be the recipients of their first “Vocation Appreciation Award.”
Following breakfast, the pledge of allegiance, and the regular meeting, Mike Holton, President of RCSLV, called Barnett to the podium to introduce his crew and talk about their work. Barnett described the Saratoga Gap project which consisted of 105 lane miles of roadway and more than 900 drainage systems in the area of Felton to Highways 35 and 9 and Highways 236, 35 to the junction of Highway 17.
His eleven-person crew performed maintenance of ditches, fence, guardrail, shoulders, brush, trees, litter, safety devices, signs, pavement, traffic control, accidents, graffiti and dealt with homeless encampments. Two of his crew were dedicated to holding signs. One crew member remarked, “We got thumbs up, thumbs down, and sometimes other finger signs.”
Barnett explained that this work is “old-fashioned maintenance due to the mountainous area and tight working areas. This creates a lot of the work to be done by hand. We work all year long in many types of weather conditions, sun, rain, and even snow, at times.”
The workers in his crew are almost all long-term employees. He spoke of the importance and danger of this type of work, especially when the weather is bad. Rain, wind and snow complicate any roadwork and the workers can be called out at any time of the day or night.
The men in the crew present at the meeting are Supervisor Juan Suarez (18.5 years service); Lead Worker Mark Cortez (10 years service), Equipment Operators Isnardo Velasco (nine years service), Steve Casteneda (eight and a half years service), Robert Osban (four years of service); and Maintenance Workers John Jones (nine years of service), Fred Casillas (six years of service) and Pedro Velez (three weeks on the job). Two members of the crew, Cindy Coccoli and Jesus Cendejas, were not able to be at the ceremony.
Maintenance Worker John Jones and his wife have lived in the San LorenzoValley for many years. Their kids attended San LorenzoValleyHigh School. He commented that most people understand about the delays but occasionally they do come across an angry driver.
The “Vocation Appreciation Award” idea was brought to the RCSLV by Executive Secretary and Club Trainer Janet Coit. She and her husband had been members in a Florida chapter which started the recognition award. She said that RCSLV hopes to have two more “Vocation Appreciation Awards” this year.
RCSLV’s motto is “Service above self.” They meet Wednesdays at 7:15 a.m. in the Mt.HermonConferenceCenter. For more information on their activities, please go to: slvrotaryclub.org.
