Published: March 27, 2009 10:03 pm      

PEOPLE PROFILE: Camilleri calling it quits after 38 years

When June rolls around, the spring won’t be the only thing on its way out. After a 38-year career with the town, Director of Water Resources John Camilleri will bid his job a fond farewell.

After coming off active duty with the Marines in 1971, Camilleri took a part-time job with the town while he was going to school to become a chemistry teacher. He was also working as a projectionist for theaters, which paid a lot more than what he was making with the town, but town work provided a guaranteed paycheck.

“Originally this was supposed to be a temporary job,” Camilleri said with a laugh. “You don’t grow up wanting to be a sewage treatment operator. I mean I wasn’t laying awake nights thinking about that.”

But after a year on the job, at the encouragement of some fellow employees who thought Camilleri was a good fit, he decided there were some good opportunities and stuck around. Even so, the job has a lot to do with chemical interactions, so his training wasn’t wasted. The job also provided opportunities to take an active role in getting things done and interact with the community, which Camilleri said he liked.

“I really enjoyed the hands-on part of the job, because it was a lot more hands on than the teacher thing,” Camilleri said.

Much has changed in the 38 years since he was hired, including the creation of the town’s Water Treatment Plant, where Camilleri spends much of his time.

“I can say I saw how that plant was put together,” Camilleri said. “Then I came over to the new plant in ’78 and I’ve been there ever since.”

He was the chief operator at the plant before the town consolidated three departments in 1995 and put him in charge of the whole shebang. Shortly after that a couple freak occurrences put Camilleri in some tough spots.

“There’s been a lot of interesting things that have happened in my career, but most notably the flood in 1996,” Camilleri said. “We got six inches of water in one weekend and it caused a lot of problems for the town. And around that same time when I took over there was the collapse of the Mud Flats sewer line.”

But through it all, Camilleri said he’s been lucky to have a great staff of professionals to work with, providing the town’s residents largely uninterrupted service at a low cost. If that meant being called in the middle of the night for what could be a relatively minor problem, that’s all right, Camilleri said. Better to hear about it early, because some of those little issues turned out to be the tip of icebergs. Encouragement for employees to call someone if there’s a problem that they can’t understand is something Camilleri said rubbed off and led his people to be creative thinkers he’s proud to have supervised.

“I’ve worked with a lot of great people over the years. More than I can count,” Camilleri said.

One of those is Ken Maving, who Camilleri said has always been one step behind him in the chain of command and the likely replacement when he leaves the director’s spot at the end of May. Camilleri said Maving knows everything a person can know about doing the job — although he qualifies it with a “without having had the job yet.”

With his newfound spare time, Camilleri said he plans to work on hobby cars and do some traveling he’s put off. He might even end up combining the two.

“I’ve always wanted to drive at least part of Route 66,” Camilleri said. “That’s a car guy’s dream.”

Contact reporter Daniel Pye at 693-1000, ext. 158.