Valley man cleans up

October 27, 2006

By MARY AMES

Frontiersman

MAT-SU - Many residents of the Valley have driven the miles and miles of miles and miles called the Alaska Highway, but not many drove those miles in a garbage truck.

Jim Dirks has, and not just once.

Dirks has been working in waste management since he came to Alaska with the U.S. Air Force in 1983. The South Dakota native couldn't remember his first choice for duty stations, but it wasn't Alaska.

&#8220I got 13 days notice, and thought, ‘I'm going where?' he said. &#8220Once I got here, I loved it. I was used to flat, wide-open prairie.”

Dirks was at Elmendorf Air Force Base only a couple months when he figured Alaska was home, he said.

He was single and lived in the barracks, and only came out

to the Valley once during the time he was stationed there, he said.

Dirks continued working in waste management when he got out of the service, living in Anchorage for six months before moving to the Kenai Peninsula to work for Peninsula Sanitation.

&#8220They sent me to Girdwood and Soldotna,” he said. &#8220In 1996, they sent me to Elmendorf as operations manager.”

Dirks and his wife of 10 years bought a house in the Valley then, and continued working for the same company until 2000, when he hired on with another company and transferred to work in the Valley.

Dirks switched companies, and companies were bought out until he landed with Alaska Waste in Mat-Su, where he has been since 2005.

It just may be that one of those garbage trucks you see loading Dumpster trash, or a truck that hauls the great big construction boxes contractors use, or even a rear-loading garbage truck came up to Alaska with Dirks behind the wheel.

In a span of about three or four years, he drove somewhere between 15 and 20 of them up to Alaska, Dirks said.

&#8220When Waste Management owned all the trucks, I got picked to fly down and drive them up,” he said. &#8220I picked them up empty in Georgia, Tennessee or Oklahoma from different manufacturers and some front-end loaders from Canada.”

Dirks couldn't say for certain whether getting picked for garbage-truck long-haul driving duty four to six times a year was lucky or unlucky.

&#8220When you go that slow, it's frustrating to go that far,” he said. &#8220It was nice to drive, but after a while, it gets old.”

Amenities in the truck were few, they got about 4 to 5 mpg, and averaged about 45 mph, he said. The trucks did have radios, though, and Dirks has clear memories of listening to the CBC.

&#8220Little stories and God-awful music,” he said. &#8220It was a few trips before I brought a Walkman.”

The excitement wore off in a hurry, he said, and the drives became &#82204,500 miles of sheer boredom, just plugging along.”

Married since about 1986 with two kids, Dirks is interested in faster rides, like NASCAR.

&#8220I'm a big Jeff Gordon fan,” he said. &#8220He used to win a lot. He's well-spoken and well-groomed and a lot of people just hate his guts.”

In April, Dirks signed on for a Richard Petty ride-along going three laps at 160 mph, &#8220just to see what it was like to go that fast.” But he didn't get to meet Petty or any famous drivers, he said.

I'm &#8220just some poor slug working 40 hours a week,” he said.

His other form of entertainment is playing squash at his neighbor's house.

&#8220I go to work, and I play squash,” he said. &#8220I'm the most boring person there is.”

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.