Loudonville street superintendent's job takes him down many roads as head of maintenance
LOUDONVILLE − When he started working with the village’s maintenance department nine years ago, Jarred Heffelfinger was already armed with an extensive set of maintenance related skills.
From vehicle maintenance to welding, and plumbing to vehicle operation, he could do it all — except maybe one thing, which didn't stand in his way for long.
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“The only thing I do on the job here that I hadn’t done before was run a backhoe,” Heffelfinger said in a recent interview,“ and I picked that up in a hurry.”
Heffelfinger’s formal title with the village is street superintendent, but his job involves much more than streets.
Loudonville Street Superintendent Jarred Heffelfinger on the job as head of maintenance
“We also do a lot of building maintenance, and we maintain all village vehicles, including the police and fire departments, except for major mechanical repairs,” he explained.
“Fortunately, since I took over this position two years ago, we haven’t had any major disasters, no big snowstorms, and no floods,” he continued. “Our most complicated cases have involved waterline breaks. We were very fortunate with the Christmas Eve storm recently that we had no waterline breaks, and the snow didn’t turn out to be that deep, so dealing with drifting in the tremendous winds was our biggest challenge.
Heffelfinger heads a four-man crew, consisting of himself with Scott Weirick, Butch Trapp and Mike Stake, and he reports to Village Administrator Garret DeWitt.
“Garret is a great guy to work for, and our work crew consists of a good bunch of guys who get the job done, in doing so, making the town run smoothly,” Heffelfinger continued.
Heffelfinger joined the maintenance department nearly a decade ago when he answered an ad in the local newspaper.
'This is my kind of job'
“I was hired under John Burkhart, and I took over when he retired two years ago,” he said. Now 42, Heffelfinger, a Loudonville native, son of Sandy and the late Fred Heffelfinger, previously worked for his dad at Heffelfinger Marathon, where he honed his auto mechanic skills; for his cousin, Brandon Heffelfinger, as a plumber; and for Henry Caudill of Perrysville, who ran a welding shop in Mansfield.
“What I like most about this job is that it involves a variety of different things, and I enjoy doing different things,” he said. “This is my kind of job.”
He and wife Mindy have four children, Alexis Griffin, 22; Braden, 16; Cameron, 15; and Landon, 10; and two grandchildren.
In his free time, he enjoys working a herd of a dozen beef cattle on his small farm just outside the village, and hunting. And he enjoys spending time with his grandkids.
This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Loudonville street superintendent's job takes him down many roads
