New borough public works director a familiar face

MAT-SU -- He helped set up a wastewater runoff treatment system into Wasilla's Iditapark, was integral in expanding the city's water and sewer service to its eastern and western boundaries, and worked on numerous paving projects in the city. Now, Don Shiesl is taking on the borough.

Shiesl is the borough's new public works director -- a position he accepted in October. It's a job filled with challenges he said he's looking forward to, and one he hopes will carry him through to retirement.

Shiesl isn't new to the challenges of working within the framework of the government. He spent five years as the city of Wasilla's public works director, a job he said he enjoyed. Prior to that, he spent 24 years with the Municipality of Anchorage, where he worked mostly in street maintenance and, later, as the assistant to the public works director. He's held a number of jobs along the way, including five years in Anchorage's then-cultural and recreation office, where he dealt with parks and recreational facilities.

He's no stranger to the workings of the borough's public works department either, having worked with former public works director Jim Swing on Wasilla projects. But the borough director workload, Shiesl said, is considerably different from that of a city public works director.

"There's a lot of stuff going on over here," Shiesl said. "It's just bigger -- I'm going from 13 square miles to 22,000 square miles."

That's about 1,000 miles of borough-owned roads in the borough, spread across an area the size of West Virginia, Shiesl said. And there's the added difficulty of dealing with a team of employees relatively new to the area that may slow the process, at least initially.

"There's been a lot of change in borough personnel," Shiesl said. "A lot of the corporate memory went out the door. It's a big challenge -- that's a lot of why I came here."

This is the second time the public works director position has come open in recent months. After longtime director Jim Swing announced his plans to retire last year, borough manager John Duffy initiated the hiring process and gave Dan Graham, the successful applicant, a few weeks to work side-by-side with Swing. A couple months into the job, Graham got a hard-to-turn-down offer from a mining company and the position came open again. Shiesl said he had considered applying the first time around, but knew Graham was applying and believed he'd be chosen for the position. When it came open a second time, Shiesl said he felt the timing was right. He said he's looking forward to getting on his feet in the new setting.

Nearing 30 years in the public sector, Shiesl said he's been lucky. Committed to making work fun, Shiesl said he's never dreaded going in to work in the morning, and has had the chance to work on a lot of interesting projects. His favorite, he said, would have to be Wasilla's Iditapark. In addition to community-favored projects such as the Veterans Honor Garden, skate park and the BMX track, the park incorporates ponds that filter runoff before feeding into Lake Lucille, bettering the quality of the lake.

"That was a fun 28 acres to build on," Shiesl said.

At the borough, he's looking forward to the projects sparked by the recent voter-approved bonds -- the nutrition center, the voc-tech school, an elementary school and especially the new dock at Port MacKenzie.

"That's really a key and crown jewel here of what the borough is going to grow into," Shiesl said. "It could be a major transportation hub for raw materials."

Shiesl said he's not worried by controversy in his new job and believes the strong manager form of government will insulate him more from the political nature some projects can take on. At the city of Wasilla, he said, he answered directly to the mayor, leaving the potential open for politics swaying city projects. The mayors he worked under, Shiesl said, were conscientious about not letting that happen, but he's looking forward to the new arrangement.

"I think it's going to be a real challenge -- but I think it's going to be fun," Shiesl said of the job. "There's a lot of good people here, and hopefully, when I get some more people hired around here, we're going to have a good run."