morning morning how you doing all right uh well we're ready to go thank you all for being here um this is one of my favorite events it's such a wonderful opportunity to thank all of you for your amazing service to miami-dade county one of the things that i try to remind my colleagues whenever we're on this dais is that while we talk a lot about miami-dade county government it is an entity made up of people and you are those people and we couldn't do what we do every day without your dedication and your support and it's always wonderful um to do this event because we get to meet your family members who got to deal with the late phone calls and the horrible hours that we um enforce upon our miami-dade county family so to all the family members that are here thank you uh for putting up with us no es fácil um we know that this is a very demanding job i always tell people if if you want to make people happy uh sell ice cream don't work for government um because all we do is disappoint people at a rate that they can absorb uh it's challenging but it's wonderful work uh and many of you are multi-generational victims uh to this government so i i appreciate that i appreciate that um we couldn't do it without you um this is a wonderful miami-dade county family i thank you for your dedication to public service it really is such a seldom appreciated thing but i appreciate it i love government i love this government in particular nothing against our wonderful cities but i think we do it um and i'm here to to serve you and and to ensure that the leadership here always understands that our ability to serve really is based on your commitment so with that we are going to start with corrections and rehabilitation and our first honoree is christopher moreno division chief 30 years all right here we go congratulations all right 30 years we'll take our picture and then you have your family here want everybody you want to bring up of course you can bring up the corrections family 100 come on down come on down my pleasure pleasure it's so weird to see you guys in plain clothes come on down all right come on squeeze in well we'll get the ladder at the end so you don't have to worry about the height issues all right good okay i like to take the picture first because if people start crying and stuff and then you know picture first with me yeah we don't we don't pull you out so you're good okay the rule is if you can see the back of someone's head he can't see you this is the rule yes yeah of course yes so um so now that we took the picture you can stay you can stay now we're going to speak we're going to speak i just did it to be efficient but obviously this is the part where we get to embarrass you in front of your loved ones so it's off to your supervisor thank you so so good morning everyone i have had the pleasure of knowing chris since i started in the department in 2011 and worked with him closely for like five or six or seven years now so what i want to say about chris is chris has spent the majority of his career in the county serving mammy day corrections he has had several roles in the department he's been a correctional officer a counselor a supervisor he's worked for facilities management he was a bureau commander and now he's the chief of it and if i remember the story correctly when he was promoted he asked he asked to be the it division chief no one does that and no one does that when you're under under resourced and understaffed but he had a vision he knew where the department was and he knew where the department needed to be and he knew that as a metropolitan correctional agency the largest in the state of florida that rit had to match that and so he has taken on along with his team major projects from the forthcoming jms to the newly approved rounds tracker to successfully implementing the inmate tablet program and it wasn't just a successful implementation he developed a program along with his team that's innovative that gives the county the ability at no cost to the county to have an inmate incentive program to promote positive behavior which is important because it keeps the inmates safer but it also keeps our staff safer safer so chris you know what i feel about to look at the team everybody's here to support you you are a global thinker you think outside the box there's not a problem that chris doesn't identify or bring forward that he does not have a viable solution or a workaround he's always like vero i have a problem but i got it always and so thank you so much i know director green wanted to be here she wanted to give her sentiments and i know she joins me along with the whole department to saying we are so proud of you we appreciate that you gave the 30 years of service to miami-dade corrections and to this county and you have really propelled our department and when you leave here hopefully in eight more years when you finish your drop um the legacy you're going to leave the legacy that you're going to leave is going to be felt every time somebody signs into their jms every time an officer does a wellness check for their inmates or does a security checks or delivers a meal and every single time somebody picks up our new radios and every it advancement you have propelled your team in this department to the 21st century and i along with everybody here thank you so much thank you i love you too so i i was my role is to ask you to stay for the next mayor so as she already committed you to eight more so so i'm good i was going to tell you we have a 35 and a 40 so i was going to push i push the boundaries as much as i can and we try to get you to commit here in front of your family so that you can't back out and no one says that yeah we lock you in we lock you in uh but with that i will say you know we've talked so much about the the ipad program right um and it was a very contentious thing when we dealt with it um up here on the dais but um you know we've been following it and i was talking to palmer about it like the one time that it didn't work like everybody lost their minds a little bit um so it's really proven to be um such a successful program um and i want to thank you for that because one of the things that has happened historically here at the county at corrections is that it's been a little bit of a forgotten department um so i know it's not under this administration uh we really have tried uh to provide you all with as much support as possible especially during the the transition with the constitutional officers so i want to thank you for that because we don't talk about it enough uh but it's one of those departments where um if we don't hear from you it's a good thing um so it's a little it's a little different than the rest of the departments but with that i want to give um your other co-workers the opportunity to speak is there anybody else that wants to speak yes oh yeah yeah he has a speech yeah we had co-workers and we do family and then he goes last yes yes so all right so with that family do you guys want to say anything all right there you go there's always something how you doing my name is lieutenant or dehi um i started working at 18 years old and i'm 48 today so that's 30 years work experience in that time i've worked for a lot of people and i've been working for chief moreno now for four and a half years and the best boss i've ever had hands down sorry deputy he is somebody that allows his team to voice our opinions even if he doesn't agree with them he allows us to have a voice and he's been amazing the vision it's second to none so i appreciate you for allowing me to do what i do and thank you for having me in your team okay if you don't want to i'm good i just i just want to say thank you to to his team he adores you all um he's an amazing father an amazing husband and i'm just so proud of him and thanks for making me cry that's why we take the picture first thank you well um thank you everybody for for being here it's very nostalgic a little over 30 years ago i actually had my correction academy graduation in the bcc we were one of the few classes that graduated from here and it's been 30 years and uh coming in here as a 22 year old um with my family at graduation some of which are no longer here my mother and my grandmother um but i come back 30 years later with my family and a corrections family i'm very touched and honored that everybody came out it means a lot i know it's not easy just physically to get here early in the morning and uh taking that effort means a lot to me i appreciate you guys thank you for the support and uh everything i do is for our betterment and our wellness and making corrections number one and making our staff safe as possible um yeah thank you wonderful all right thank you thank you all thank you all thank you all so much so that is all we have for our corrections folks today is a heavy water and sewer day that that might that might have something to do with my presence here um our next um our next honoree is housing and community development where's nathan nathan nathan um this is a 35 year award for our maintenance repair phyllis richberg phyllis 35 years come on down all right phyllis you got to get your family to come we can get somebody to hold the phone you're not going to miss out i promise if you stay there taking pictures you'll get fomo and then we'll get someone to help with the pictures come on down yes co-workers too join us come on housing peeps oh and flowers that's amazing yeah all right so we're going to take the picture first and then we'll do our little piece you want to come up here so you're not back there good all right you look adorable you got it okay you got it you got it so here we go we got our pictures everybody good okay all right carl denise here you go awesome good morning everyone i'm chief edwards the chief administrative officer and i get the pleasure of serving with commissioner regalato this morning to honor all of the wonderful employees and what i'd like to say is that the work that you do is similar to what you said commissioner about the corrections it's the unsung heroes i don't know if you guys remember during uh uh covet we would clap and we would applaud and we would play music for the unsung heroes we shouldn't stop today is that day where we get to say thank you thank you for the 30 years of service that you've given to the county thank you 35 oh my goodness 35 in everything that you do and i'm so honored to be here with you and your family so honored is there anybody here i think i think we were waiting for i don't know if nathan's coming i will say one thing since nathan's not here um you know we talk about our county departments that get absolutely no credit as someone who deals a lot with housing that's 35 years a lot of broken windows a lot of mold and a lot of complaining people a lot of complaints um you know we you know we we try our best with the infrastructure that we have in housing but obviously the maintenance of a lot of these buildings has been very very difficult so you've actually seen the birth of rad and a lot of redevelopment but i'm sure before we got there you were dealing with a lot of old buildings uh and a lot of complaints and a lot of the people that live in those buildings are our most frail and our most needy residents throughout miami-day county so they simply don't have the resources um to help themselves so thank you for your patience uh i'm sure it's been uh you've seen a lot of things um and i want to give your co-workers the opportunity to speak and then your family and then you go last so um i don't see any well you're filming you want to come up here and say something he can film for you you're good all right just giving you an opportunity with that then here you go my name is phil edgecombe and i'm phil's older brother uh she followed my steps i worked for hud uh a while back and um i retired about 15 years ago from the county i worked for corrections i worked for many agencies uh in the county and i'm very proud of her for the staying power in doing the work that she do and her tireless work that she effort that she's put in good morning ladies and gentlemen this is my lovely wife for 36 years i have to take my hat off to her because she wear a lot of hats in our family and i'm very proud of her we got 11 grandchildren her dad was here five years ago when she got a 30-year pin but god called them homes so just have to be thankful that all of us are still here and we're running toward that finish line ourselves to hear that word well done good and faithful amen amen all right hi i'm her oldest daughter i just want to tell my mama congratulations you do a wonderful job you're doing a lot of teaching me about her working i know how to do a couple of things donors and everything so i appreciate you you welcome say something hi everyone my name is kenny stirrup and i'm philis younger brother and i have my older brother beat by in a few years but um i also have you beat keith because you've been married for 36 but she's been my my sister for 58 and i'm proud of her how she looked after me when i was i'm uh when i was younger she made sure i have everything i needed and things i didn't know i needed but i'm proud of her and i'm wishing her um a very prosperous um future and i'm also a former county employee i worked department of correction for 25 years i retired back in 2019 so all those guys of the gold badges i saw earlier yeah i worked with them a lot of times i was some of their supervisors all right wonderful so you're staying right you're gonna you're gonna stick it out for the 40 yeah all right all right 40 is a big commitment 35 is amazing but thank you thank you for staying we need you um so with that i will hold this for you so that you can speak here you go good evening everyone first i would like to thank god for giving me the opportunity to bring me this far from burton to where i'm at now because without him giving me the strength and energy to be able to serve the public i love being a public servant i love to be able to help people my the residents my co-workers and everything i thank god for giving me this opportunity to be able to work for public housing because i always tell people i didn't choose this job this job choose me because i apply for many jobs in public housing and when they hired me as a custodian the first thing i said to my oldest brother right there i ain't been working be cleaning up behind nobody well what i look like doing he said you better take this job and you better you can always move yourself up i took the job and 35 years later i'm still here yes it's dark work so i would like to thank that they may or may not be here all my former supervisors all my former managers and all the um the directors and stuff that i've been through i would like to thank them for their support and understanding i would like to thank cc if she's here and all the union rep for being there with me when i need you the most um believe me i love all my co-workers and i'm there when they need me i tries to be there my job is to serve the public the best way i can and if i could go in and out those houses and put a smile on somebody's face and do my job i've done my work and i thank god for allowing me to serve and be that public server that i am thank you congratulations you're amazing thank you congratulations thank you it's wonderful all right our next got like two different mics going here it's very confusing um our our next honoree is 30 years our department is libraries this is youth service specialist nancy matos come on down congratulations all right library peeps got two library awards today and i'll come down so madam director good to see you likewise okay i good morning so i wrote my stuff down so i wouldn't forget forget anything are you okay nancy okay yeah there's okay all right anybody got any yellow stickers take your yellow stickers off you can eat them later all right so i love that the library's on this time but i need you to space out the children godfrey the children were running it oh lord big smiles everyone one two let's say library is great one two three library is great thank you for indulging me that's wonderful all right so now i get to hear all about your work yes you're on so it is my honor to recognize nancy matos as she celebrates 30 years of service with miami-dade public library system nancy joined the library in 1994 as a library page and has advanced through several positions across the organization currently serving as youth services specialist throughout her career she has built a reputation for creating engaging and meaningful experiences for young people while serving in multiple branches across departments throughout the system for more than a decade nancy has played a leading role in teen services inspiring young people through programs mentorship outreach and leadership opportunities her work has contributed to innovation and award-winning initiatives and has helped strengthen connections between the library and the communities it serves nancy also continues to share her expertise with library the library profession through presentations and professional engagement helping advance innovative approaches to youth services and teen engagement nancy's creative passion and commitment to serving others to continue continues to make a lasting impact on both patrons and staff nancy on behalf of the miami-dade county and its public library system thank you for your 30 years of dedication and service congratulations all right all right so we got we had a lot of co-workers here anyone any takers no yes all right always in the back come on around come on around nancy um you're the best you put up with me back in 2007 when i was just a librarian intern starting out and you had to kind of help me with my energy level because i was like a jackrabbit you know running around and the environment you create for those kids whether they're children whether they're teens is such a loving environment and it's exciting and you're enriching people and you embody everything that a youth services specialist is and i'm not going to keep talking for too long except to say if you know anyone who's a great person like nancy the library still needs good people and so you could be very happy here because she has the same amount of energy as she had 19 years ago when i started working with her and she's amazing and that's all i've got to say so i'm the administrator over the northwest region and over young adult services and i have the pleasure of supervising nancy as an employee at palm springs north and formerly miami lakes but also she's one of the lead people in the committee that runs young adult services and when i tell you this woman builds trust with teens to the point where they're clamoring to come to her events and her workshops and her teen advisory boards and she teaches other staff through workshops people listen to her every meeting i have she's a leader in the meeting um giving advice inspiring people i lean on her quite a bit and she knows that but i think she knows when to push back as well so i just want to say how much i appreciate you and uh keep up the good work don't retire that was gonna be my ass you're staying right um oh good she's staying she's committed she's committed all right so you're she's in for the 35 i made the decision for her um so i so i will say this about libraries and now we have another library award coming up you know libraries have changed so much over the years but i'll just take the opportunity to say i think now more than ever people are searching for community and finding it in our libraries and it really does like touch our hearts you know when we go and we see that once again you have a level of engagement similar to what we had a few decades ago and the fact that you dedicate yourself to engaging teenagers is so important because that's the group that we see more and more often that is so needing in that engagement and in that community building so i just want to thank you for getting them off their phones as a parent of two young adults i appreciate it and so does their neurology um so i i think that if we keep doing this work you know we'll create a new generation that values libraries as much as we do because it is really um i think libraries similar to our environment it really is stewardship so thank you all right um anyone else are up there we go hello everyone i'm probably the one who has worked with nancy the least amount of years um but either way her impact has been felt um i walked into miami lakes randomly one day with a group of my friends and i saw a lady on the front desk with amazing blue hair and it was like a beacon of light um and she kind of got me on the whole library board um and she gave me so much great information um and it actually got me into looking for a library job so i am here because of nancy um and having the opportunity to get to work with her was so like amazing and it was a full circle moment and i know she has like spearheaded a whole new like generation of library employees and she has been someone who i've gone to when i didn't know what to do and i was like please help me and she is so kind and sweet um and just willing to like learn with you and teach you and also learn from you um and that is something that passion can't be taught and it's something that comes from within and that i love so much about you um so thank you for helping to guide a whole new generation of library employees and telling us to be true to ourselves so yeah all right that that was wonderful the intergenerational work is so important any family members would like to speak or did you want to say something sir yes please yes um good morning my name's dorian postale wow i started with nancy i started 1993 at north dade and nancy started 1994 so we went we go back to where we had card catalogs and all that stuff there was a lot of paper stuff we went through and we were there through the wrenches and and it's just she was there for my kids when they were babies so i was there for her grandkids we went to parties together now she has a son now and it's like wow it's my kids and graduated from college and he's about to graduate soon so i said wow this is just just to be here right now to see this and we both got our 30 years that she was like from we started way back in the beginning and we were went through a lot with stuff we had to do stuff we had to figure out together remember those reports and be like oh man this is this but i just want to say congratulations nancy i'm proud of you and the library system is glad that we have you in our system you made a big difference with the library i'm really proud of all right thank you anybody yeah okay thank you thank you all right thank you i'm i will try to keep this brief um for me when i was younger uh the library was a sanctuary for me it's like someplace because i was that weird kid so i guess that's why i wear the blue hair so i can kind of a visual representation that i'm still that weird kid but i found myself in the library and as much as they say they appreciate me i appreciate them because i was able to serve my community and they helped shape me as much as i shaped them it was about listening and and just getting to know them and i served in very a lot of like i did i started off at north dade with dorian and i ended up at miami lakes which is closed now for renovation but we're we're excited about reopening afterwards um library and just this family i mean i see all these wonderful faces some that don't want to talk and i i appreciate that some people that have inspired me as much as they say i've inspired them um everybody left the stamp on my heart and i appreciate it so thank you well on behalf of the mayor and the chairman of the board uh commissioner regalato and i are just honored to be here with you and congratulations yes yeah library folks day library peeps day all right so we are also um celebrating another amazing employee of our library system 30 years of service uh library assistant one pamela hall williams congratulations hi how are you congratulations there you go oh so there you are here we go so today i have the pleasure of recognizing pamela hall for 30 years of dedicated service to the miami day public library system and the community pamela began her career in june 1995 as a library page at northeast branch and within her first year was promoted to library assistant one over the past three decades she has served residents at multiple locations throughout our system including model city fairlawn miami springs and edison center branches while also supporting operations at several other locations pam is widely known for her infectious smile positive attitude and commitment to service when asked what she enjoys most about working at the library her answer is simple everything she genuinely enjoys helping others meeting new people and working alongside her colleagues qualities that make her a valued and respected member of the library family her professionalism dedication and enthusiasm for public service have positively impacted countless residents co-workers and visitors throughout her career pamela thank you for your 30 years of service and commitment to the residents of miami day county today's her coronation she's our princess her royal highness pamela hall williams i know pam i've known her for a decade now i'm her branch manager but we all follow her lead because she's one of the wisest kindest people i have ever known and we love you pam thank you i want to give you a big thank you this is she's been a pleasure to work with this is not only a valued employee for miami day county but she's a valued friend of mine co-worker who's become a sister to me she's really really sweet a hard worker she's intuitive she just knows how to pick up on your energy she knows how to be there for you not only as again a co-worker but definitely as a friend who's now my sister and i do want to say congratulations on a job well done thanks for the laughs thanks for all the laughs all the pleasantries she i think a lot of us here can um her oh yes definitely heard her detective work her her nickname is colombo okay but that has come in quite handy working with her and i i love you i love you and i thank you thank you for being my friend i know pam for about 55 years we were cousins and friends and 30 years ago i asked her why don't you come work for the library and she took up on it and she's been here here 30 years i love you pam and i am so proud of you oh pam i want to thank pam for her 30 years uh pam is very special to me um as library assistant one she's very very special when i became a branch manager at the fairlawn branch i did not know exactly where my career was going but there was pam with me at fairlawn and doing what she does best making me laugh and uh encouraging when those days needing encouraging so pam i love you we've been through a lot but thank you for the 30 and hopefully 10 more no hi pam so i took annual leave to be here with you today i know my hr family from solid waste probably well should be i still love you guys but pam you are like family when i say it's somebody that like knows when you're feeling down and it's a friend and also like she looks out for the patrons all the time she's like i think that girl's going through something maybe we should help her that's the kind of staff pam is pam has taught me so much even though she thinks that i taught her you taught me friendship you taught me loyalty and i just appreciate you and thank you for being there when i needed you the most and i i wanted to be here because i think it's important to show up for people especially i just lost my mom and i know that showing up for you wouldn't end the world to her i love you good morning good morning everyone my name is michelle styles i'm the library operations administrator over the northeast uh section of the county and i work with pam she's at our edison branch however when i first met pam i was the branch manager of model city branch in the caleb center and i received a phone call from someone with the soft voice who was on the phone saying pam michelle michelle take me back take me back and i was like who is this and so i asked the other staff and they said that's pam so pam uh had transitioned to a different branch and she wanted to come back and i see why she wanted to come back it's because she is so attached to the communities that she serves she's so attached to the people that she works with and vice versa so i quickly got to know pam and i can say that she is always positive always loving has a beautiful smile at all times i can attest that i've never received a patron communication that wasn't glowing concerning pam and it's because she is that way each and every day so i thank you for your 30 years of service i thank you for that beautiful smile i thank you for how you serve our communities day in and day out and you know i love you your turn yeah well hold on i'll give you the microphone if you give me five years my name is pamela hall williams and i as you know been in the system for 30 years and it was a great journey those 30 years that i was here and i love all you guys and thank you i can't say but thank thank everybody congratulations we're not pam it appears unanimously you can't retire sorry you know i'll see you back here for 35 month at least 10 maybe one more all right one more one more congratulations wonderful thank you all so much thank you thank you thank you all right now we have seaport um 35 years manager seaport construction contracts ivan andres come on down support people yeah be careful as it gets stuck in your hair and take it off the picture hi how are you good to see you all right we got everyone how are you good good all right good to see you all right so we're going to take the picture first because i i give people the opportunity to cry i don't want you to not cry because you're worried about the picture no no you can't hide behind him you can't all right so we'll take the picture first we got some people hiding here all right congratulations um so we're going to start with you thank you thank you very much commissioner good morning everyone my name is fred wong i'm the deputy port director here at your port miami yvonne let me just say 35 years commissioner i think you said it well you know being a civil servant is never easy but it is a calling um and in april 1990 you started in humble beginnings 1990 wow that's tough to even say out loud right so you know you started as a yes she does she does that's right she started at that's right so you know humble beginnings you started off as a secretary and you moved your way up up the ranks you know um executive secretary four different departments administrative officer three you know training honing in your skills and now you have been with the seaport for the past two years and let me just tell you being uh our contracts construction manager you keep us in line every single day and i thank you for 35 years of dedicated service to this miami-dade county i've only known yvonne for two years working with her but i've heard about her for many years okay and when she interviewed at the seaport department to be my manager i really had to do a lot of begging for her to come to the seaport i know her knowledge and she she knows her job inside and out she stepped in and she was ready to go she she taught staff from scratch from the beginning ground up solicitations design build projects psas consultant service agreements you name it she knows it okay i'm very fortunate to have her finish her career at the seaport department and i thank you yvonne i truly thank you thank you hi good morning everyone george fernandez um i've only known yvonne for 31 years hard to believe but yes when i first started in transit when she was there i mean she was always great to work with always friendly always helpful and one thing i always remember her saying it's it's nice to be important but it's more important to be nice so yvonne thank you very much and and that absolutely rings true and i think we always need to remember that no matter where we are we're brothers and sisters we're neighbors and it's important to be nice to everyone thank you for your 35 years of service and i hope you stick around for a few more well time flies when you're having fun that's all i can say um i've been extremely extremely blessed with uh 35 almost 36 years of service of um service with miami-dade county um i've had the privilege of working with so many wonderful mentors and leaders and um in my personal life as well it has um it has been incredible my journey and i'm full of gratitude today as i am every day when i'm driving into work and that's just in a nutshell thank you thank you so much thank you for your service and we're glad that you're staying so a little bit more a little bit 35 is tough it's hard to get people to commit to like the 40 if you get like a year or two out of them that's like huge so all right right well we'll talk to you again in a year or two and we'll try to convince you a little bit more but but thank you so much for your service and thank all of you uh for your service support miami it really does mean the world to us thank you all right our next department is transportation and public works 30 years yay lenard b davis facilities supervisor come on down our transit peeps congratulations all right okay so we take the picture first although i don't think you're gonna cry but so rules are rule all right good you guys come up a little bit wonderful well mr davis well who's gonna work up there you are okay i was like where'd you go good morning everyone on behalf of our awesome director stacy miller um my name is renessa gordon i'm the chief of facilities maintenance for the department of transportation and public works i would just like to give a little journey um of mr leonard davis leonard is a dedicated public servant and seasoned transit professional with 30 years of experience with miami jay transit now the department of transportation and public works his career reflects a remarkable journey of growth perseverance and commitment rising through the ranks from an entry-level part-time employee to a respected supervisor within the department leonard began his career with miami day county in 1995 at the central administration building at bus where he served as a part-time phone operator eager to expand the knowledge of transit operations and contribute in a greater capacity he transitioned into field operations and gained experience across several critical roles within the department throughout his years leonard has served as general helper and bus hostler at bus maintenance supporting daily operations and helping maintain a clean safe and productive work environment for employees as a track repair and track equipment operator in the track and guideway division developing extensive expertise in transit infrastructure track systems and the safety mechanisms essential to rail operations as a transit facilities mechanic in facilities maintenance diagnosing and resolving complex mechanical mechanical structural and facilities related issues throughout the transit system today leonard leonard leonard serves as a dtpw facility supervisor as lead in the facilities maintenance division now this division supports all maintenance activities for the metro rail and metro mover stations yes we keep it running where he applies his extensive institutional knowledge and hands-on experience to lead maintenance teams oversee station renovations and you know we have a lot of that going on and repairs and ensure the safety reliability and operational readiness of miami day transit facilities from as a proud member of miami of the community he serves leonard attended miami central high school yes go rockets i am a rocket performing continuing his education at alapama state university and following his time he came to miami day county transit i just want to say on a personal level as chief of facilities maintenance when i say a dedicated employee we call him mr dtvw because where there's maintenance that needs to be done you see leonard i don't know when he have time to sleep but he is there to assist everyone throughout the way throughout the years you have demonstrated unwavering commitment exceptional professionalism strong work ethic and genuine passion for public service your reliability leadership and dedication have made a lasting impact on both colleagues and the community we serve thank you for 30 remarkable years of excellence service and commitment congratulations leonard on this well-deserved milestone thank you thank you here you go thank you here you go first okay good morning everybody congratulations it's been a pleasure man knowing you man okay um he's a good guy i met leonard i believe in 1997 and we've been rolling together ever since uh never fell out with each other we've never we didn't agree on everything but i'm gonna tell you anytime i needed help anytime it was advice help on a job he was there for me i called him on my days off he called me on his days off and trust me he was there for me always i appreciate you man it's been nice knowing you congratulations brother all right well i mean well we got more to go together but you know like i said for those since 1997 man he's always been all right with me you know always you know i mean no matter what it was this is my gotta go to you know what i mean so hey man it's been a pleasure working with you always man many more years to go okay all right here you go awesome well we're not killing you you're not leaving but thank you yeah yeah we're good anyone else yes here you go hello my name is talisa ruin i came into facility maintenance about two years ago i must say you are the best supervisor i ever had sorry john and dedicated that is true this man heard yesterday he did six years straight without calling out from work so that's a dedicated man i wouldn't do it but you know he is but thank you um well i didn't spend 30 years with you so but congratulations thank you thank you hello everyone uh my name is john simpson we share the same position as a facilities league um i've been knowing mr davis for how long you been in 30 years 30 years so um we've moved throughout the ranks together and we've been in some tight spots and we've always been able to make it out alive and i want to say congratulations hey glad that we've made it and uh hey we're gonna probably see 35 so together all right so i i will i will say my district has a lot of the metro rail stations so thank you uh yeah and we learned a lot when we did 37 uh when we did uh grove we asked them not to do anything until the elevators arrived because we learned to listen right uh yes exactly um i live right by there so everything that happens at grove central my kids come and complain about it they literally like call me from the station they have a direct line to the complaint um but uh it's a thankless job a lot of people don't know how old our stations are um so they're 30 years old i mean 44 actually 40 because it was in the 80s right almost 40 so you know we've done um 37th we've done grove i'm working on south miami obviously dadeland is a monumentous um you know change and we have so many humans that go through these stations um and everything from the elevators to the stairs to the bathrooms to the door i mean just if if we would have known how many humans would use it and how around the clock it would have been i think we would have designed them differently so i i really appreciate because i know it's thankless um and we're constantly calling you so thank you mr davis um and we're going to keep working on our transit system and facilities is such a large part of that um and i know stacy's dedicated to it and we really try to educate people on how important it is for us to maintain the system because we talk about the customer experience in transit and if the facility is not at its best we know that there's nothing that anybody can do uh we'll just get complaints about that so thank you for your service you're staying because i have a lot more work to do okay yeah see it through fantastic fantastic as we continue future proofing our transit system so thank you all very much you know and now it's your turn sir i'm looking around to see if there's any other more takers but now it's your turn oh man it's been a great 30 years it's been i mean i've never in a million years could imagine that i'd be working with such great people my co-workers i mean i i even hate to call them co-workers because these are friends we have established we knew when kids were born birthdays and everything we've seen each other kids grow up to be adults it's been a it's been a long long i mean adventurous but pleasant ride with these guys and the new people coming on i mean my new staff my new crew and everything i just really love being a county employee a transit employee and i i love what i do it's like not even work no more it's just showing up doing something you love and i get to spend a good bit of time with people i really care for so uh you will see me the eight years so i'll be here the eight years and i really appreciate everything from everyone all the support everything i mean it's just been great thank you so much wonderful thank you wonderful thank you thank you i love it when i don't have to talk them into the extra eight years it's great all right um all right all right good then all right all right everyone and now to my favorite department yay all right yes that's now it's just water and sewer all right so we got wazdy in the house yes all right wazdy peeps um we're starting with uh 30 years water and sewer department oscar bula uh semi-skilled laborer come on down oscar and all all right there you go hello jay how are you great good good to see you good morning congratulations sir thank you thank you congratulations on behalf of the chairman all right water and sewer peeps come on down we're gonna be standing here for a while get yeah get comfortable i don't know if you want to come down in waves you can and you got a lot of honorees yeah i know we got a lot of honorees you can you can come in ships if that's what you prefer all right they're out coming i love it yes back again how you doing wonderful all right yes all right here we go we had to start the water off i was about to say we should do that one day just just to make a point i love it i love it i love it how are you doing i didn't see you yeah good to see you all right we got to pack in our wazdy peeps all right you gotta pack them in that's that's amazing that's amazing i was asking the director who's running the system so um that's that's amazing that's amazing all right so director i'll just start and it's it's directed to all the fine people behind me oh yeah well we're waiting until we get up the ladder it's going to be a bit we don't want to rush them hr might be watching and and as and commissioner regulato i want to thank you for your support you you've always been a a friend to water and sewer really appreciate that to all the folks that today are going to receive you know recognition for being here for 30 years and 35 years it's truly amazing i finished one year and i feel extremely blessed at that i've come i think i've come a long way in one year and i can't imagine the stories the trials the tribulations that all of these folks that have been here this long have endured and gone through and not only for them but their families you don't become a water and sewer employee and last 30 35 years without affecting your the folks at home because when your phone goes off it's not it's not your phone it's the phone that's in the house you know you look to your loved one hey when are you coming back don't know maybe wednesday um and that's the truth you'd never really know and it's it's a service that they provide you know living through it for the men and women residents businesses of miami-dade county that you know does go unnoticed and it goes unnoticed until something goes drastically wrong but then when that happens the first one's out of bed first ones to respond first ones to be there so i've said enough when when the time comes you'll hear the microphone go around i've asked supervisors hopefully friends will be here to you know tell the stories if you will poke a little fun uh hopefully not too many tears but we'll see what happens so before we do that we'll get to the get to the photo thank you all right perfect here we go wonderful all right folks we're going to start with oscar but i would just say i mentioned you're my favorite department uh but what the director said is true i don't think people in miami-dade county or um our residents or even the folks up here on the day is really appreciate the amazing work that you do as far as i'm concerned you are the heartbeat of this government so i thank you i'm always here uh to speak up for you you do amazing work if people only knew how much your work impacts their quality of life um i think it would be a different conversation but it is a thankless job i've joked in the past that it's like being a firefighter without the love um but you know we all love shit and trash so i'm here for you um it's so important um and i what this department has such an amazing culture and time and time again other departments ask me why water and sewer is my favorite and i i tell them that water and sewer is more religion than it is department it really is um this is a vocation and i know how you all feel about it and i know how dedicated you are to it so i'm always here to support you and always grateful for those of you have given us so much of your time and your talent like the director said i know your families try to talk you out of this gig all the time but i appreciate that you push back um it really is so important to all of us to our environment um to the things that we take for granted unfortunately infrastructure is something that you don't appreciate until it breaks so thank you for not making people appreciate it more and with that so with that we're now now we got a roast i mean we got to celebrate oscar you know here we go so i guess i'm gonna speak um i have my speech prepared because i don't want to fill it up with fillers so and i have to do it in english uh good afternoon everyone today we're here to recognize oscar bula for an incredible 30 years of service with miami-dade water and sewer department i've had the privilege of knowing oscar since i started with wasd in 2003 and over those 23 years there are a few things that have always stood out about him oscar is one of the most patient helpful and easygoing people that you will ever meet no matter what was going on he always had a smile on his face and was willing to help anyone who needed it one of the things that i will remember most about oscar is his sense of humor over the years we've shared countless laughs and he always had a way of making the work day a little bit better for everyone around him whether he was at hialeah or preston oscar brought a positive attitude that was contagious what makes oscar special isn't just the 30 years of service it's the way that he treated people throughout those 30 years he never complained he was he always showed up ready for work and hearing the respect and friendship of everyone who had the opportunity to work alongside of him oscar thank you for your dedication your friendship and the many laughs you've given us over the years on behalf of everyone here congratulations on this well-deserved recognition and we wish you all the best as you look forward to your retirement in october 31st and the exciting new chapter that awaits you thank you anyone else anyone else i don't know you want well i think this is absolutely fantastic one of the things if you all are looking at your program we have quite a few folks who have hit this significant milestone and the commissioner and the director spoke to the culture that just speaks volumes to the culture that people come and they stay and they engage and for the service that you've given to our community i am incredibly grateful and so i would like to say to you and i'll say to all on behalf of the mayor and the chairman congratulations on your milestone you all can't see the plaque but the plaque congratulates each person and it has the mayor and the chairman's signature on it and so i hope you're able to treasure that and share that with your family so congratulations so we have quite a few of you here so let's see let's we need a strategy commissioner what's our strategy let's get the list yes yes okay yes you sure you want no you want to talk about it looks like it's quiet no no no well thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you all right get up here carlos i can't have paper good morning everybody my name is carlos castro division director for pump station division graciella is one of our secretaries she's an institution she's been 30 years with us she knows by heart all our stations she's in charge of getting all the the outdoor to all the department on all the stations she's highly professional she's part of our family and as i mentioned to everybody pump station division and water is not about as the commissioner mentioned it it's not about pipes pumps it's not about the plants it's about the people and that's why we're here and that's what we're congratulate you graciella your institution and thank you this is this this caught me it's caught me off guard but i just want to say i've known grace for over 30 years she's been amazing she's been the one that keeps us going and she keeps us actually in line so she doesn't play she's she's an amazing individual and as an employee she's see solid so i really am glad and grateful that i'm here to with grace and say um congratulations no no no you're not they're not done with you you're not done we're not done we're gonna go around the horn we're going around the horn grace i want to say thank you grace thank you for you know all the good laughs that you give us i've enjoyed working with you and congratulations i love you graciella 20 years ago we met i had the pleasure of uh serving as a planner scheduler over a pump station maintenance division uh i was there during the crazy days the ray rukiola the charlie suddens the eddie lucas and we created a work environment in that place that all we did was laugh all day despite the insanity despite the opps the fight everything that was going on i want to thank you it is so great to see you reach this milestone knowing everything and and and and all the all the work that you've put in and all the incredible people that you've affected throughout your careers everyone you touched myself included congratulations god bless you god bless your family thank you thank you for all uh kind words um um good morning lady and gentlemen thank you for being here i really appreciate it uh i thank you god first for let me get uh to this 30 years and some people don't make it and i want to thank my father who was the one who encouraged me to apply for this position he's in heaven with my mom my mom used to be the secretary for the water and sewer department in cuba and i used to be working with her in the office when i was 15 years old and gladly i'm here with all these people i'm being engaged with um several people in different divisions everybody was very kind to me from former manager uh former um division chief and i'm glad that i'm here uh with carlo ready pacheco all of them the one that couldn't be here today and my co-workers that may be watching me and thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to uh to be here and say the word from my heart thank you guys and god bless you all and thank you for my heart congratulations congratulations wonderful mr castro hi me how are you yo voy a hablar espanol porque a mí no me pueden decir nada bueno muchas felicidades 30 años 30 años and and now we'll talk we'll do a little english thing here you go yeah let me pull up my speech all right señor he's uh we laugh it's probably from him it's more of a nervous laughter but we laugh because uh between these two there are there are two jokesters and they love and this is not part of the speech this is me uh freebottling it uh but a they have a very dark sense of humor they love probably everyone if not everyone from the plants that's here has a nickname that between both of them they came up with i'm sure we know some but i can't say them uh but yeah it's been uh it's been a nice ride with these two it's been a lot of fun so let me start um good afternoon everyone today we have the honor of recognizing jaime castro for his 30 years same as bula um i've known him since i started in 2003 um i have come to up to appreciate jaime for his uh strong work ethic but also the kind of person that he is jaime is the type of employee that every organization hopes to have he's hard-working detail-oriented and committed to getting the job done and right the first time he's very uh yeah he he lets me know um throughout his career primarily a preston plant he earned a a reputation as someone who could who could always be counted on to do quality work often with little to no supervision i know he wanted that but beyond work performance jaime has been a valuable source of knowledge and experience for those around him over the years he has helped train and mentor many new employees sharing his expertise with patients and professionalism many of the operators and employees who are part of our team today benefited directly from jaime's guidance and that legacy will continue long after his recognition ceremony on a personal level jaime has always been someone that i could count on for advice assistance or simply a second opinion over the years we have shared countless conversations plenty of laughs uh many memorable moments those friendships and connections are what make a long career truly meaningful 30 years of service represent much more than time they represent commitment dedication sacrifice and a lasting contribution to our department and the community that we serve while much of the work we do happens behind the scenes employees like jaime are one of the reasons our residents can depend on safe and reliable water service every day jaime on behalf of everyone who has had the privilege of working with you myself included thank you for your dedication professionalism friendship and for the example you have set throughout your career congrats on this on this milestone i don't know how many more years you have ahead of you you haven't told me but uh but congrats and like and like i told bula i hope you have you have a very very long time after uh miami day water and sewer okay senor oh no no are you sure no no all right i had to i think we got yeah we got we did pictures we get frank lozano francisco lozano francisco come on francisco come on over we're skipping around we're skipping around we're skipping around we're skipping around we're skipping around skipping around didn't you gotta get more towards the middle we got to take the picture first you're in the middle you're in the middle center of attention there yeah you want me to move i'm sorry in the wrong spot all right big smile everyone big smile one two yeah wonderful all right okay big frank so i'm gonna read something here first and then i'm gonna go off the top of the dome frank so francisco lozano began his career with miami-dade county in february 1993 as a temporary employee with the miami-dade water and sewer department in june 1996 he joined the wastewater central district as a structural maintenance worker and carpenter contributing to essential maintenance and repair operations across the system in september 2005 francisco was promoted to maintenance supervisor up on the north end at the hialeah preston water treatment plant where he oversaw maintenance activities and supported improvements to plan operations since may 30 of 2016 francisco has served as operations manager and section head for the structural maintenance section within was these water production and maintenance division in this leadership role he directs daily operations supervises staff and ensures the reliability of critical water infrastructure throughout the county on a personal note uh outside of work francisco enjoys spending quality time with his family and riding motorcycles now frank okay i've known frank for 20 years now since i came uh to the county from city of north miami i came to the alexander ore plant he was at the time the supervisor up at a at a hialeah preston um and to put it mildly frank can be frank all right since why which is why i think we get we get along so well i'm a very direct person straightforward no bs and this is this is who frank is uh but frank is the consummate professional at the water plants as a supervisor uh when i was a supervisor he helped tremendously even though he was on the north end whenever we needed his assistance with anything structural related frank uh was always there to assist no questions asked um more forward once i got promoted to the chief operator position and frank became the operations manager he's helped uh in that leadership role uh with everything from our reservoir tanks as far as uh developing uh advanced cleaning uh maintenance system for that where prior to what a few years ago maybe four years ago we used to have to clean that manually have to take out a reservoir tank some of these tanks are four million some of them are 20 million gallons of water we'd have to take them down in order to clean them manually drain them uh i mentioned the frank at the time listen there's some uh robotic technology out there where we can clean these tanks without having to uh take them out of service frank did the research and today we did you and i both you and i but you you you you led the way and today we can clean all these tanks and i think cora will attest on the north end as well we can clean these tanks without any impact to the water quality or having to take them down again some of these tanks or 20 million gallons of water a day besides that uh when you need frank for anything carpentry painting uh even something as small as a a picture frame or plaque for an employee he's always there to assist and help no questions asked so frank on behalf of everyone thank you for your service and i hope you don't retire anytime soon but uh samuel calvallo division director for water production and maintenance i got the privilege of being the the head of the division that frank's bull and jaime works for so we take care of water production so already to making sure that you got water and lazaro is able to pump the to to transmit that water to all the customers is happens because these guys are behind the the walls and the doors making what they need to do on a daily basis frank not only does his work for the plants whenever there is a need or a customer that has a driveway impacted by by something they call frank and say hey send me your guys so they can do the their magic and make this customer happy again so we love to serve the people love and they're proud to what they do and they make my life easier because they are excellent workers so the less them i just have to be there and make sure that they they're able to do their work so i've been lucky i've been here only eight years but i've been lucky to be blessed with see some professionals that i know that their work and make my life much easier thank you frank thank you guys we really appreciate it thank you thank you frank i've got to talk about is this thing on okay so i've been at the county for just over three years and um in the brief time we've worked you're the epitome of what i'm looking for in a leader and i'm going to talk about three different things i've called you 24 7 and said hey we got a problem i need you to fix it and he said let my guys get on it and we got this and that servant leadership is what we do as county employees and you never give me the problems you're going to have with it you're always going to give me the solutions and i thank you for that the second part is we had a very very um unfortunate accident um with one of our employees and we were worried about that employee he was okay but uh when he went home at night we didn't know if he was going to be okay and frank said don't worry i'm going to go visit him a couple times this week and i've grown up with him i know him i know his wife i'm going to make sure he's okay you take care of your employees and um as leaders that's what we ask for and it's not natural but you do it naturally majority of of them have been with me either working together for 30 years or working for me uh over 20 years so you know we're family we're family we spend more time here than i you know than we do at home with our own families so we're family and then the um the third thing that's the epitome of what i like about your leadership style is you know how many times have we all heard you can't hire good help anymore you know people kids are kids are behind video games all day and we work with our hands and we've had a lot of debates about who we're going to hire and he said give me the right character and i can make him the best technical person in the world and um we're hiring culture here and that's why we have you here today and hopefully you're growing the next generation of people to be here for 30 to 35 more years so thank you thank you i'm gonna i'm gonna preface what i have to say with three things my father rest in peace was a union carpenter and we grew up getting dragged out to the uh construction site whenever we stepped out of line in school for the summer so i can tell you how much i like construction that prior to me coming here i used to work walk past a construction site and see the reinforcing steel rods sticking up and i'd shoot a bird at it and say you're never going to get me but back in 1993 uh being burnt out on my previous career path i had a chance to start as a temporary employee at central district uh water treatment plant um and i i got hired and i remember my wife is sitting in the audience god bless her um i used to sport a lot of us used to sport long hair back in those days and i take a bath with soap twice and once with germicide head to toe and come home and open the door said man you smell like you know so so so um anyway 1996 i got hired permanent and it wasn't easy to move up there was already an established line of succession you couldn't be a supervisor unless you were a lead man first and so on and so on there were many people in front of me so i decided to go to school and become a state certified general contractor i went and i signed up and i paid the money and everything and i walked into to the class and in the overhead projector they had a bunch of algebra and i looked at it i says oh my god no and i walked out and i called her on the phone and i says you know i've been out of school for 20 some odd years i can't do this she said don't be stupid stay there so needless to say i was the last guy in 30 people in the class there was engineers from other countries freshly graduated architecture students this and that and they get to me and i say i'm so and so and i'm a poop plant carpenter and everybody laughed well i was the only guy that passed the test on the first job so 2005 i got the opportunity to become a supervisor at on the north end at the hialeah water treatment plant which i'm a hialeah boy through and through in more ways than one so i remember as a kid driving past that natural stone building and just being fascinated by it i graduated from miami spring senior high school which across the street is where we dump our byproduct of clean potable water and i remember seeing the kids going in there playing and coming out covered in white mud and i always wondered what in the heck is that up in here what are they doing if anybody would have told me that i would spend 30 years associated with that i just said you're lying and here we are today so i'm proud i've worked with many good people uh there's many here with me today we've worked side by side some have worked for me and it's just been a wonderful journey and i've appreciated every minute of it thank you for everything thank you frank frank just two things frank number one everybody poops i tell people that all the time right and number two i represent central and uh when i take a deep breath there it just smells like hard work work exactly but congratulations and thank you thank you for for your dedication and and to the three of you thank you for also safeguarding our antiques um at the org facility we love them very much so yeah i know i know that it's a labor of love to keep those going all right congratulations yes all right three at least oh oh pictures all right heine come over here and edward trainers start coming up right here yep wait heine oh for the picture oh i was like am i going to do the speech again you don't have to sorry billy yes i do yes yes um frank's wife frank's wife yeah maggie maggie come down i'm gonna take one more picture while we're you're you're hiding and i stabbed myself like a scorpion wolf show me your stars show me your stars all right let's go right here big smiles big smiles and let's go right here edward trainer 35 years that's amazing well madam commissioner i know why we're your favorite department uh all the unsung heroes that we've talked to about today nobody can start their day without water and sewer right nobody can flush their toilet nobody can take a bath nobody can brew their coffee nobody can cook their breakfast if it wasn't for water and sewer and these two gentlemen who have 35 and 30 years have been a large part of that so i'm going to talk first about eddie trainer eddie trainer in november of 1989 started monitoring park entrances and landscaping maintenance maintenance at parks and recreation then he started in 1991 as a semi-skilled laborer at miami-dade water and sewer in march of 93 he went up to sewer maintenance repair june of 95 a television tech with sewer october 20 or october 20 or october 2002 he became a project inspector mr trainer has received uh aaron award as the employee of the year for sewer collection and his hobbies are healthy lifestyle which we can tell weight lifting and healthy eating all right juan ocampo june 1996 started as a semi-skilled laborer march of 98 maintenance repair october 2000 meter man installing meters and meter services november of 2002 a pipe fitter february of 2006 he became a project inspector um while at the meter shop he received the employee of the year award in june of 2022 he got promoted to inspector two uh in the utility developments division our division and he performs quality control of the hospital reviews and assist and he leads and he mentors the project inspectors one of which he was one of his hobbies are traveling sharing with others the importance of being grateful for life lessons and opportunities so when commissioner when you call about a project or the director calls about a project these are the two gentlemen that are usually behind those projects so the utility development division is the part of water and sewer that connects new customers to the system right exactly exactly exactly so whenever you call or when um uh my bosses back here call sandy and and everybody here um and i call these gentlemen and i can call them after hour i can call them on the weekends i can come on saturdays i can call them at night i can come in the morning these two gentlemen have never said no to me they've always answered my questions they've always given me a full report and we've always been able to report back to sandy our chief which then reports to the director so if you live in miami-dade county these two gentlemen probably had a part in inspecting the water and sewer work that you all uh enjoy and and depend on so i want to congratulate you too i've been your supervisor for 10 years it's been an absolute honor and privilege and uh congratulations on your 35 and your 30 years of service so anybody else lazar coberra division director water transmission and distribution i have had the pleasure of working uh with both these gentlemen for the last 20 years in different capacities uh it has been an absolute pleasure uh eddie love working with eddie what's going on less you know love working with eddie every time i i show up to a job site where he's at he's an absolute delight very extremely professionals everything that's going on he reminds you two things uh number one you're not working out hard enough no matter how much you think you are and uh number two uh the level of professionalism it takes to uh operate and to manage a system as big as ours ocampo mi rey a ultimate professional one of the guys he's always and pedro correct me if i'm wrong the hardest donation jobs that's who you put on it and there's a reason why why he's the guy everything from 48 42 the 30 inch out of watson island uh whatever the difficult jobs are uh ocampo is going to be on it i hate when he calls me but i love seeing him every day i love you brother love you eddie congratulations to both of you guys uh i thought i knew a little bit about something about the water department but you guys have taught me plenty uh juan you took me under your wing as soon as i got to the department i really appreciate that if it wasn't for you i'd still be lost you've taken me you mentored me and i appreciate everything you've done eddie thank you for helping me out as well you want to say something yeah i would just like to say uh i would uh thank mommy d for giving me the opportunity back in 1989 to start here and for all my supervisors past and present for their support and guidance and all my co-workers who i've dealt with throughout the years for all their support and guidance as well thank you thank you for the opportunity um i love my job and i love miami day water and short thank you thank you yeah thank you thank you um the one thing i will say really quick since we're all a bunch of water nerds um you know we we you know we we talk about how important water is but one of the things that i tell people is number one um since the dawn of time when you look at government and the effectiveness of government where government locates and what it does begins with water and when government fails it begins with water um and every every single government you know throughout history when you track what happened to them down to the roman empire people knew that it was over when the water system wasn't working um so it really is such a large part of everyday life and you know thank you for mentioning that because i don't think people understand historically and um since you guys are here to get rid of all the septic tanks i hate i have a lot of work for you um working on a lot of pump stations um and and one of the reasons is you can't protect the environment without this system and i don't think people understand the depth of that and i'm so excited about our new meters um so stay tuned you know because one of the things that we're going to do is go from from billing every three months to a month it's going to be amazing it's going to be amazing um but there's a lot of changes to come and and i know that whenever we have to go in and fix infrastructure that 30 40 50 60 years old you know we get so much heartache uh but then you know we're the only ones that know um that we future-proofed it so we get a lot of backlash but you know next time you go by there you know that at least that neighborhood is safe you know from a calamity so so thank you for all your problem solving and for your dedication yes all right all right we got to get this photo direct on one side commissioner okay we're gonna flank him we're gonna flank him all right here we go all right congratulations thank you all right next barack barack chumo congratulations sir 35 years 35 years that's amazing i i just want to mention also our water and sewer employees do not age so there's that and congratulations sir the mayor and the chairman we're so proud of you you're 35 years wonderful who's gonna speak okay hi um i'm stephanie i'm the supervisor of record center at lejeune um i just i'm so happy to be here to uh barack chino serving 35 years of dedication with water and sewer um he takes his job very serious he works with a lot of these people behind us uh from the engineers um from the plants when we have a broken main uh they rely on us for the asbelts and um barack is one of the people that ensures that we provide the asbelts or make sure that they have the proper um contracts or whatever they need to to do at that time um barack chino we call him chris so everybody knows him as chris with water and sewer he's a record center uh clerk too um he began chris began on february 1991 as he started his career with the county um as a temporary worker as a clerk one position his responsibilities at that time was answering the phone retrieving boxes asbelts and documents and providing great customer service in july of 1981 barack chino started working at water and sewer as a permanent worker at the record center as a record center clerk one position and then in 1987 he was promoted to position uh to the position of record center clerk two his primary duties included asbelts delivering boxes various locations responsibilities um responding to emails customer service answering the phone data entry uh relying in in in dealing with the engineers barack chino has received numerous awards for providing good customer service and receiving the pebbles awards in in 2016. barack chino hobbies include cricket fishing and traveling and he's a dedicated father and husband barack chino has a great ask has been a great asset to miami-dade water and sewer for the past 35 years he takes great pride in his work every day and constantly demonstrated dedication and commitment throughout his career and we also um at the record center call him the historian because he is he is he his memory is like an elephant because he can remember things when the engineers the plants they call on him he can go off of memory before he goes into the computer before he goes into the record center and start doing his due diligence and records uh his recordings and his uh research so as a supervisor when i came in um as supervisor in 2011 um he was my right hand he still is he he's he's dedicated he's always there he's always on time i can always count on him and i'm just thankful that i got to be his supervisor so congratulations good morning uh my name is frank batista i'm the support service manager for support services and i've known barack uh chris for the past 20 years and he's always been an excellent employee loyal um always on task service oriented i've had the privilege of reviewing his performance evaluations and they all support what we're saying here about him so um thank you so much for being such a valued employee in our team you've made a difference in all our special projects uh when we did the roof project and you had to do all the the 12 containers and duplicate the floor plan for the whole record center that was tough and you handled that so well and everything else that you've touched it's always made a difference so i want to congratulate for your great effort and uh we're very proud to have you on our team hi everyone my name is rovin chris is my dad and um i just want to say i'm really proud of you for showing me everything that you've done and um 35 years is a long time that's older than me so i'm really proud of you good job dad all right sir your turn thank you thank you everyone uh for believing me and and supporting me uh when i started and people saying oh i got 30 years i said when i will get there no i got 30 i got 35 i'm going for the 40. oh thank you that's what i love to hear yes we're gonna take your photo all right over here by your dad all right congratulations that's amazing so julio congratulations thank you i've only had the pleasure to work with you about six months or so um but it became very clear to me very fast what a professional you are and what kind of person you are you are an outstanding engineer you are the best project manager always responsive i know i can count on emails of you keeping people on task of holding our consultants accountable um and the attitude that you bring i know i've tasked you with peer reviews and negotiations and you've always done it with a smile on your face and a yes ma'am and you do it so well so i thank you for your attitude and for your hard work and dedication and the whole and department and the county thanks you for your service thank you good morning victor delegado i'm the senior program manager alongside johnny salvagos here at the engineering division and it's my honor to recognize julio for 30 years of dedicated service to the miami day water and sewer department julio is our in-house expert on air conditioning hvac ventilation uh design so i would say that uh for the vast majority of uh installations throughout the water and sewer department either he designed those systems or at least he reviewed those plans and and drawings so yeah it's a significant uh achievement and um julio began his career at the water and sewer department in december of 1995 as an engineer too responsible for designing mechanical uh systems in buildings and equipment rooms and then in 2004 he was promoted to professional engineer also responsible for continuing those uh critical projects for the for the department in 2008 he was uh transitioning to project management role leading multiple projects for the capital improvement plan and on the personal level i've known julio for 20 years um i worked alongside him he did his mechanical design and then i based my lexical design on his on his draw the drawings on his design so i had a first-hand appreciation for his uh attention to detail the technical knowledge that he has on on this uh discipline and it's been a privilege to to work with him he worked on some major projects uh multiple um administration building labs the generator rehab at the south district uh key pumps pump station projects so he has his hand on his hand is on many projects throughout the throughout the county and um outside of of work he enjoys cars as a mechanical engineer i think that's uh something to be expected and also he supports uh his sons and attends the the college baseball game so that's something that he also looks forward to and enjoys a lot so julio thank you for for 30 years and it's been a privilege and i know that uh many people here can also speak and and we are really uh grateful for working with you for this many years good morning my name is franklin jarman i work with um julio um presently we work together on many different projects project management the good thing about it i have known earlier not just for the few years that we worked together but many years before that because i was on the other side um i'm taking care of facilities and that's the person i would go to to get my design done my my uh modification they mentioned air condition but he does way more than that so believe me uh this guy when it comes to project management is a top thank you thank you good morning julio just i would like to repeat what amanda said definitely your attitude always have been very important for us always uh ready to take any project doesn't matter if you're an expert or not you are able to take it uh and ready and ready to work with that one um i don't know how it works in other in other departments but here in water source we have to do a little a little bit of everything we have to someday we do a design the next day with the project manager the other day we are in the department running department and always you have been willing to do it i'm very positive we really appreciate that congratulations yes first of all uh hello everybody i want to thank uh my lord and savior jesus christ for putting me in this job 30 years ago uh it's been an amazing journey and it's made a huge difference in my life and my family's life i want to thank all everybody that's worked with me uh they made this job very very easy and that's the reason i've stayed in the same department for 30 years almost in the same cubicle only been relocated only been relocated a couple times and i loved it it's been great and uh it's a pleasure to come to work every day with all these guys and you know they think very very highly of me so thank you for the kind words all the way thank you for the waking congratulations yes alexis oh i guess he has two names alexis valdez one i start moving when people start walking it's like a weird thing should be forward please take a smile take a smile i'm sorry thank you uh good morning everybody my name is juan curiel i'm the assistant director of utility construction at the water and sewer department and today we're here to congratulate alexis and everybody else that's received these awards alexis it's been a quite a ride um heavy equipment operator two 1997 sort of the time when i started as well if you recall we used to see each other in lejeune whether the first floor second floor they worked for donations quite the rowdy group so i was a lot younger back then so i kind of you know like that area um but nonetheless i mean you've progressed to project inspector construction manager now construction manager three um you're one of the senior people that we have in our staff you've done it all seen it all built it all and we've had a tremendous ride with the water and sewer it's been great um that career progression knowing all the responsibility you have is incredible that you've been able to undertake each and every other projects a lot of the emergency projects he's handled we've seen each other at the field one two or three o'clock in the morning a little bit of cuban coffee here and there and then come in the next day you know bushy-eyed and and lack of sleep but congratulations on this tremendous career progression we've been very very lucky to have you on this team i know i have i know every now and then you know we're both hotheads let's admit this um and construction brings that out even more but at the end of the day i can tell you that his heart is to ensure that the infrastructure is built right and that all of our citizens and stakeholders are making sure that we get the right equipment in and that the infrastructure is built as it needs to be so again thank you very much i appreciate all the assistance you've provided and today's your day congratulations thank you good morning everyone my name is carlos barrow i'm the senior program manager for pipeline and pump stations uh i met alexis in uh 2003 i think on northwest 170th and 87th avenue and he was an inspector at the time working on this massive pipeline i was just impressed by his knowledge and he actually got me excited into uh that industry and i realized that i wanted to come to work uh at water and sewer fast forward 10 years later uh he actually mentors me and teaches me everything he knows uh and i thank you for that uh your father has been an inspiration for all of us he has really uh carried the department in emergencies when we thought it was impossible we had times where uh we felt that we would have to give the director very bad news that something was not going to be able to function but alexis with his knowledge was able to put together a plan coordinate contractors personnel inspectors everything and make these projects happen so your father is i always think of him as mr 305 but in my mind he's mr water and sewer to me and to a lot of us here and we really seek his expertise and his knowledge so congratulations and i hope you enjoy many more years here with us to you know um add to what juan and carlos said i just think back to maybe a month two months ago when we were in juan's office during an emergency and i was so impressed with your calm and your confidence and juan might call you a hothead but i say that's passion that calm and that calm and confidence is so key for an emergency because i like to say the analogy of the duck right you can be pedaling under the surface and going and giving in your all but if you're cool and calm above the team will follow you and that leadership is so important and so we thank you for that wow thank you very much um it's been a ride i can tell you that much right um my first thing you know that i'm proud of is just work waking up every day and doing something that you like right right now it's a little bit harder to get up but it is you know it has been it has been quite all right my whole thing here is uh legacy right uh we have built a legacy right now i i have lived to do mandy where are you at mandy that when i first started here that used to be my supervisor when i first started here as a laborer right after work we used to hang out together i used to go to his house his son right now ariel was this my son's age right and and now he works with me so i can only hope right that the legacy continues and you can be my son's supervisor sometime right that you continue the whole legacy so i'm hoping that you know that i really do hope that that you know us as a family i had accomplished so much and i i just very proud of of being next to everybody here uh this is not just my accomplishments everybody's here because everybody has put work together so i i thank you very much for the recognition and thank you thank you guys hey camacho last month you were up here now all your peeps are coming so get on up here all right daniel fernandez no no no no no yeah daniel fernandez waldo herrera we're doing all 84 so if you're 84 come on up waldo juan pico frank labaut am i right am i right on that alejandro mendoza pedro matia that's who i am where's frank leighton leighton trowers and lisa chester so commissioner and chiefs these are the folks that make sure the sewer stays in the pipe all day every day raul are we uh where's raul here you go sir thank you yeah for the first oh yeah switch switch switch switch switch there you go let's take one step forward all right there you go yes please hate them later please step forward step forward please one two good luck awesome everybody come on all right do all of you right all right let's start with lisa uh ladies first lisa uh we're here to celebrate your 30 years of uh service thank you for all the hard work thank you and your family for the commitment uh i know all the things you do in cattle city without you we would be in trouble i know nash will appreciate you and nash will agree with with us uh thank you for all the hard work and and for all what you do at cattle city thank you uh next would be frank oh sorry i just want to say lisa i really appreciate you you know when i first came there seven years ago you showed me the ropes told me about the people and i couldn't have did what i did without you you're the glue of carrot city i mean the things that you do sometimes people don't see it but i want to let you know that i really appreciate all that you do you mean a lot to me thank you yes hi lisa we met july 1994 yeah two years as a temp and when i got there there was a bunch of guys and there were only two ladies you and i and you showed me everything how to by the time we use uh payroll remember those big uh big books and i i not even had a photocopy machine in my in my office and you helped me a lot and i wanted to take this moment to thank you from the bottom of my heart i will never forget you thank you hello everybody and hi to everyone here for miami day water and sewer i am lisa's baby sister and hear me clearly i am sure that throughout all these years she is proud to work at miami day water and sewer she truly truly is dedicated to her work and she enjoys it when i hear her speak of miami day water and sewer i don't hear her i know you all are co-workers but but it doesn't sound like your co-workers to her you really do sound like family and friends you guys cook for each other you guys spend a lot of time together um apparently you know we are african american but i swear she cuban okay okay i swear she speaks spanish too so you know we have a lot of cuban american friends through my sister and you know she has housed and fed three kids because of miami day sewer and um i'm just truly truly proud of her and i love her greatly and thank you for being good to my sister i really do mean it yeah she speaks a lot she speaks a lot of good things about you as well and i appreciate you really being good to my sister okay i have to read mine i'm not gonna remember everything so i just want to thank god for blessing me with my sister i thank god for the woman she is for the kindness she carries for the strength she has shown for her endurance her loyalty and her heart to serve some people are blessed some people are are blessings because of what they do but my sister is a blessing because who she is her life her love her sacrifice and her presence have meant more than um words can fully explain my sister is dependable strong hard-working and protective of her family she has she has a big heart she makes sacrifices people may not always see she gives love support and strength without always asking to be recognized today i want her to to know that we see you we appreciate you and we honor you she is a woman of endurance through heavy seasons hard moments and times when life requires strength she continues to stand she continued to serve and she continued to show up that kind of strength comes from her heart she has care responsibility with grace it's one it's one of the things i truly honor about her as you're being honored for 30 years of service i want to celebrate not only the years you work but the life you have lived while you serve and i want you to know that you are loved appreciated respected and honored and i thank god for your life your heart and the woman you are may this day remind you that your labor has not been forgotten your sacrifices have not been wasted and your love has made a difference we celebrate you and we love you i am sister number two i'm not going to compete with all of that but i just want to say congratulations job well done i just want to say that it is truly a blessing to be a part of the wasi family and i am so thankful to work with such wonderful beautiful people and grateful and i have an amazing boss so thank you everyone thank you all right raul who's next uh next uh on the list would be frank frank my friend uh 30 years of service uh thank you for all your hard work and commitment what can i say uh frank whenever we see that you are on call and we have a break we have a manhole overflow we can be sure that you're going to take care of the the job and you're going to clean and we're going to keep you're going to keep the the street clean and and you're going to do a hard work you've been doing this for 30 years and we really appreciate what you have done and we we we really are happy for your um award i just want to say congratulations frank for your 30 years i know when when you go on call i can sleep at night because i know it's going to be done right and i just want to appreciate and just say thank you for everything that you've done and everything that you're doing in the carol city yard the things that you do is it's not unnoticed and i just want you to say just say keep up the good work and continue to do what you're doing thank you hey frank and and you know to all of our folks that work out in the field i know every time raul says hey we've got a uh we got a force main failure contractor dug in all we want to know is how much flow when's it going to be fixed what happened what's going to be the traffic impact and how quick can we get the roads close roads back open we got a baseball game basketball game shakira concert whatever it is and you're like i haven't even got there yet and the next thing you know it's like flow is stopped this is going to be one lane of traffic we're going to work under the contractor's mot and the next thing you know it's fixed that doesn't go unnoticed even though a lot of times we don't get to recognize you so thank you very much for 30 years of that anyone else uh next uh leighton uh sir um oh i'm sorry no no no it's okay it's okay it's okay are you sure yeah i'm sure i'm sorry frank uh okay next uh okay leighton um just started in 1998 1996 with the county um and got promoted in 2013 as a pie fighting supervisor right now you are in charge of a cleaning crew in the central area the business area in in our county uh we we thank you for all your hard work and your commitment uh for um making sure that you dispatch all the crews no matter the time it is if it's in the late night or early in the morning we're sure that you making the things happen and and cleaning the streets and keeping everything everybody safe thank you for your hard work and commitment and we're so happy for your 30 years of work i just want to thank everyone here that had had a part of me developing as a county employee and getting this 30 years but i started really started 1992 as a temporary labor and i was temp for four years before uh became permanent probably i just want to thank everyone that had a part of me thank you like you want to say something uh alex mendoza oh alex uh one of my favorite um water distribution supervisor when when i was in tv and grow we you guys did amazing you you are one of the best why can i say you you have a great uh leadership skill and the way you manage your your crew and your people is is is amazing you can tell everybody wants to work with you and loves working with you and and the way you you manage your your workload and everything is amazing uh i think you you have done a lot uh for the department and we're very proud for you and thank you for your hard work and and thank your family too for you know for letting you work saturday sundays night whatever and and that's that means a lot thank you for everything and and enjoy your your work thank you thank you well thank you raul i really appreciate that um you know i met you maybe like seven years ago um you were my first supervisor um and uh it was an honor that you know you were to work with you i also want to thank everybody um that's here i know most of you guys some of you guys i've known for 30 years like lisa she was my first secretary and uh what a pleasure man what a pleasure seeing your smile when i came in the morning um you know it was great it was great um and some a lot of my other co-workers thank you so much thank you for so much i learned so much from you guys and i'm truly blessed truly blessed and grateful for the for the you know for the opportunity for working for wasd for 30 years thank you okay next okay will be waldo oh well thanks waldo um waldo i'm so happy for you for this award 30 years of service this is huge um when i first met you what you were in the flow meter tech lead worker and i was amazed with your uh talent and i always encourage you to go to move forward to to apply to the next position to make you a supervisor i was very happy when you got promoted to sewer collection supervisor and now you're doing an excellent job i know that you have a lot of alex mendoza with all his tasks and and we really appreciate your work uh and you're very professional in what you do we miss you at the flow meter department but i know you're happy now with the with the tv true tv and crew uh thank you for your hard work and and keep going well i'd like to say i mean waldo uh what's there what's there to say i've known you for 30 years uh you're an excellent employee um you're somebody that can always count on um you treat your employees great you understand them you're a humble a very humble person and a family man and um i just want to congratulate you and i appreciate everything you do for us and especially my cafecito in the morning you know but thank you waldo next uh pedro matia pedro congratulations on on your 30 years uh award uh it's been a an honor for me to work with you uh when when you were in a construction crew uh you took a lot of uh work and and you did the the right thing uh you also received multiple uh pills war uh you're you were recognized by the community but with with your hard work and your professionalism and uh we really thank you for all your effort and your commitment um now that you're on the cleaning crew the vector crew um you're doing an excellent job and we thank you for that uh thank you for um dispatching the the crews on time and cleaning the streets and making the you know the manhole overflows or forceman break easier for for us to clean it and disinfect thank you for the hard work and and keep going thank you pedro congratulations on your 30 years of service i want to thank you um in the entire division over here you all done good okay and i'm very proud of you guys hopefully you continue doing your service here with dade county um i hope no one here with 30 years is gonna stop or we're gonna keep going i'm sure this is uh what the department would like to have anyway dedicated people like you guys they're hard to come by and once again congratulations on your service thank you i just want to say uh i remember when you first got supervisor and um wherever camacho put you at you was always shining doing the best that you can do and um you know it didn't matter what the job was and what you was doing you always put your best foot forward that's the same thing with you trowers uh cheese pico i mean you guys are class acts and i just want to say thank you thank you next uh juan pico well pico um congratulations on your 30 years award uh thank you for your uh hard work and commitment with the county uh what can i say uh when you got promoted last year 2025 september uh to water distribution supervisor i was so happy for you you deserve it you earn it you were so hard for so many years to to get that position uh the only bad part was that i i lost a a very good uh pipe feeder supervisor on the ground you went to tv and grow i'm still hoping that you can come back to underground again but i'm i'm sure that you're you're not happy with the tv and grow i really miss you on underground you shown a lot of uh hard work and professionalism when you were in underground uh you completed a lot of challenging work for us and we thank you for that uh thank you and your family for the support for supporting you all these 30 years and and and thank you for everything you have done thank you i'm not good at talking but uh thank you for the kind words uh i started 93 as a temp and tried to learn as quick as possible every different machinery we had out there so i can excel and move on i always saw people working uh with higher classifications i was like man you know i'm gonna get there one day i'm gonna get there and i instilled that into myself my parents taught me discipline my late father my late mom and my late brother so a lot of this goes to them and without them you know i born and raised in miami in the city of alapata you know where alapata city is miami so me and uh alex mendoza back here come up here alex this this is my brother here in water and sure we he's also from alapata we we made the right choices and we didn't get in trouble although where we grew up i was you know a little tough but thanks to our parents and our upbringings you know we we made the right choices and today we share this uh award together and uh he's been an inspiration to me i'm sure i've been an inspiration to him we hold the same position now came up together didn't go to school together might have done other things together but uh we can't talk about that now but you know it's it's this is my brother and uh raul camacho nash carlos castro everyone that has worked uh with me or worked alongside me appreciate it you know you guys are the best as a family so thank you very much and uh yeah i'm gonna do another eight years i'm not i'm not i'm not in the drop i'm not in the drop i'm in the investment plan but i'm gonna do another eight years next one daniel fernandez danny um congratulations thank you congratulations on your 30 years of work uh you started with us in 1996 as a mr and uh you you got promoted in 2007 to sewer inspection technician one since then you've been uh with us you know working hard every day to make sure that uh we clean our lines and make the the videos to to inspect and make the the right call for repairs we we appreciate your job and and we know that you take your job very serious and you're uh such a great professional and we really appreciate your your commitment with the county thank you for your hard work and all these 30 years and i hope we can continue working together guys thank you thank you well thank you for uh danny i remember you uh you work with me a couple of times uh i know i remember sometimes when uh we had to go into the manholes and roaches you you didn't want to deal with those it uh you know but you was always willing to put forth effort to do the job and get the job done and um it's a pleasure to be here to witness your 30 years i wish you the best like i say you're a hell of a guy continue to do what you do man thank you thank you well thank you for giving me the opportunity 30 years ago and i'm still here and i hope i have to stay here a little longer with you all thank you thank you thank you mr del rio fleets in the house all right where's mr walker and mr uh lopez all right so i guess we'll get right into it so orlando told me to keep it brief and why are you speaking about lunch the one thing the one thing that i want to highlight is that apparently 92 93 was a great year for water and sewer um orlando service credit says he started in 96 but he actually started in 93 in that temp program that i'm hearing everybody talk about and it's amazing that the majority of all of you that started that temp program are here for this 30 year or 35 year award so i've uh had the pleasure of being orlando's supervisor now for two years of his 30 and i'm going to tell you coming into this department with all the challenges we've had in fleet orlando has been instrumental and he's the ideal supervisor he spent 20 years as a uet technician he progressed through the succession planning of the department that believed in him and he became a supervisor and now he runs uh the black point division uh in the two years i'll tell one story that i know i've seen him jump right into action we had equipment break down inside the sediment tank he didn't send a technician in him the lead worker and the technician got down in that muck and they got that equipment back up that's a testimony to the type of supervisor we have in orlando so with that so i gotta say about him he has been a wonderful asset to this department and he's very passionate about what he does and he has taken on some of the challenges i've challenged him with in terms of doing things that he was uncomfortable with that he kind of never had to do and he's embraced it and it's been one of the key reasons we've been so successful in the achievements we have made so thank you mr del rio for your work appreciate you as a citizen and as a former i mean a co-employee no former and i'm trying to get him to do 10 more uh thank you i want to thank god my wife she just went to the bathroom and um all my friends and family and everyone that's here thank you familiar faces and i'm blessed to be in this department beautiful people beautiful employees thank you right there she is there she is there she is thank you center oh my point mr del rio when i got here i harassed you guys so much because we needed more uptime on our fleet and you guys have done an amazing job reduced our dependence on outside support you're calling vendors every day to make sure equipment gets on the road and i know you're personally behind a lot of that so thank you babe i'm very proud of you on behalf of our family our kids everyone we love you and we're very proud of you thank you for being a rock love you all right kevin gibson meters in the house this is where the cash register is brandon um kevin i just want to say congratulations to you and kevin is one of those guys that you hear about works the night shift uh been doing that for 16 years now uh those emergencies that come in at night while everybody's in bed or everybody's home having dinner he's the one that's out there taking care of that so uh for that uh i want to say thank you thank you for your 30 years i want to hand it off to his immediate supervisor to say a few words as well uh my name is james white uh i have the pleasure of working with kevin for my 22 years here at miami-dade water and sewer uh meter section uh kevin started his journey here with miami-dade water and sewer 1998 as a semi-skilled worker and he did that for two years and then he also he promoted he got promoted to our maintenance repair uh tech and he did that for two years and then he was promoted to meter technician a meter repairman uh in 2000 and he worked that for two years and then we were reclassified to meter technicians and kevin has been working with the meter sections from 2000 well yeah 2000 to present so that's and 16 years of that he's been working on the night shift to where there's uh turn-ons uh turn-offs uh emergency calls in the middle of the night and kevin never once said no to working overtime when the load was heavy uh he just an outstanding employee uh i haven't had really no issues with him because kevin doesn't say no kevin says yes and when the uh other workers are down when he comes in in the afternoon if someone's down because he had a hard day or whatever kevin has a smile on his face and says cheer up at least we got the job done and he has a great spirit to uh more uh great uh spirit to the unit i know i'm a little nervous right now but i wouldn't trade kevin in for any other employee i don't know what i'm gonna have to do once he retires but i just want to thank kevin for his outstanding work and his attitudes with water and sewer in the meter unit thank you well then uh well then james i know what you can do just don't let me go just just keep me on okay okay well and and also to what i like is when i tell you a james we have this problem and then you say okay put it down on paper and hey i'll see what see and hey i'll call up call all the numbers and see kim can get parts or or hey no that's hey i just can't do it so hey thank you for all those days and again to get those tools that we need it okay thank you i haven't said much because there's so much to say but what i do want to say is that um there's some real jewels and lessons here and i attribute that to each of your character and to your leadership but this dedication and just not saying no is what i think makes miami-day county so great and i've had the privilege of working with your leadership team over the past couple weeks collaborating with the union leadership and what i can say is that you all are very well represented not only by the union leadership but also by the miami-day county administration the work you do is highly regarded highly respected and i just feel an honor to be standing here right now for as long as i can stand i can't stand as long as y'all can i i'm like i have a desk job so i think we have two more rock stars to honor and then um i want to make sure we get a picture of all the honorees just the honorees okay so don't make ghosts right did we do his before or after we could do his first okay luis escalona you know it's it's funny the chief edward says anything about standing this long these guys are dying being stuck in an office for this long so i appreciate it guys thank you morning my name is uh lazio cabrera division director of water transmission and distribution here for miami-day water and sewer uh firstly uh the commissioner started off this by saying something that really touched me and it could not have been more truthful this department is not a department it's a religion okay and i and i believe that uh i'm going to steal that and it's going to be said from here on forward because one thing is certain as we look at everyone here every award ceremony every one of these award ceremonies miami-day water and sewer overwhelmingly has employees reaching this milestone within the department there's a reason for that because a bond is created here that i think no no offense to our beautiful police department no offense to our firefighters but when a 54 inch water main breaks when a sewer lateral breaks or you have this no one else is coming to help that's it all we have is the people here the police ain't helping the fire department ain't helping so that creates an incredibly strong bond and i think that's why we stay so long because this is a craft that beckons you it calls you and today i stand here to honor a true master of the craft mr louis escalona louis started with us in 1996 as a semi-scale labor he worked himself to the ranks the pipe for the supervisor he is someone who has been behind countless miles of system betterment projects water mains replacements throughout this department ranging from everything from eight inch to 24 inch and beyond he is an incredible uh a person who has not only been in the trenches but has mentored people that are in the trenches now since he is now as pipe uh an inspector uh overseeing our renovation and restoration projects throughout the county but what i personally and i and i'm going to speak to my favorite part about mr escalona i've known a mr escalona for 20 years he was an incredibly unique thinker an incredibly unique thinker with an incredibly um how would you say unique sense of humor okay but i always go to him in times where i feel myself getting a little big-headed and every leader should have someone like louis escalona in their ranks whenever you start getting a little big-headed whenever you start getting a little too tall for your bridges i go to south miami heights and i sit in that corner office and uh louis brings me back down to earth and reminds me that there's still much more to be done there's still much more work to be done there's still more that we need to do and that's the beauty of this as we all sit here celebrating today louis celebrating everybody else that there's always someone from the old guard standing there reminding you there's more to be done thank you my friend you're a professional okay you're a true servant to this county you're a true servant to this department your dedication to excellence and professionalism brings great credit upon yourself this department and the county as a whole god bless you god bless your family thank you for everything you do good morning still good morning almost good afternoon we're left for the last but last not least i've been supervising louis in the last seven years in the paving program for wasdi was the more than those seven years is truly a career builder and a family that we get no matter what you want it or not louis started with wasdi more than 30 years ago as a temp he started in the hall like shoveling dirt and fixing pipes he went all the way to supervisor and then came to me as a project inspector one there are things that are not in the resume and are not in the interview and that you get it after when you get an employee he has worked with most people here people known as louis louis felipe escalona felipe everybody depending who's talking have a different name for him but everybody have learned something when i got it as a pro inspector i thought i was having someone very organized very experienced that knew everything about the trade that have worked in every section in water distribution because he's very faithful for our division but also i go things that are not in the paper i got a counselor i got a mediator i got the guy that could come and tell you things as they are no matter what and i got a friend so i think the family is the one that suffered the most because you weren't called many years and even now when you thought you're gonna take it easy in paving you've been working nights i've been in the job site and i am sending you home because he's there sick and i say why are you here and said i'm not gonna call anybody i'll make my commitment and i say no you're going home and somebody has to stay here that's it even though i have to cover it doesn't matter and call someone else and come and call and that commitment is really really valuable but louis always says in his personal opinion that retirement is a human construct that is fake that we are supposed to be working all our life so i hope i'll be here with you when you're 35 and in your 40s and in your 50s maybe because you're a john spring chicken so put the money where your mouth is and stay in the county that many years more okay so i'm louis's wife i also work with the county um only nine years so don't remind me how much i have to go um i just wanted to say something really small and i was thinking about it when we were on our way over here my husband came on a raft from cuba that he built in 93 and that was november 93 and october 94th he got into the county as a temp and today he stands here with 30 years of experience and that and when we were on our way over here that was the reason we were thanking god because of such a blessing such an opportunity we know that no workplace is perfect we all know that but we have to be thankful for this opportunity for this blessing to have a job like the one that we have that many people that have lived here for so long have never had that door open and he had it in less than a year than he when he came here so we thank god mostly because he's the one that gave him this opportunity he's the one that opened the door and we thank you know water and sewer for this opportunity too and i love you uh and amando fernandez water operations managers from from the same division uh i met louis the first day that he started here with us uh it reminded me of me 10 years before uh i was already a supervisor then louis uh never permanently worked for me but he was always willing to work on calls uh work overtime get involved with projects and and back then uh i was still uh getting my language uh to where i am today and louis barely could speak any word in english uh i saw louis develop going to school learning what we do and made a career uh and now today we're here uh his 30 years celebrating and proud of uh his accomplishments uh louis i just hope you have hang around another five years so we can live together okay before i forgot something my division director didn't mention is that we only have one guy from water distribution today because uh sewer uh they have a thing that they like to take our employees but most of the employees are recognized from sewer today they all started with us especially pedro matia i met pedro matia 30 years ago he just left he was just ending on his professional career baseball he got the pleasure to catch for roger clements and he got hurt unfortunately and i was able to help him get hired here and he has his 30 years today as well uh i didn't speak for them because a lot of people that were commending him but a lot of these guys started with us and they went to sewer i mentioned that enough um like my wife says thank god uh without god decent wouldn't be possible and thank you all the people that work with me we are like you say a family and thank you thank you thank you louis and last but not least and the only reason you wanted to be last because all the rain we had everyone's having to work long hours at pump stations and he just wanted to come hang out here for a bit who's gonna take it away so last but not least as uh the boss said when the rain's coming we have to work non-stop and one of the example is david is very humble uh super uh professional he's not loud but his actions and his works matter the most when we have big problems in in in the stations when we have to rehabilitate wells when we have to assist sewer collections when we have to to run because we have a heavy rain events like now that we require assistance from the structural personnel he's there for us and he's always eager to help nobody the division that we have to get involved so for that david and professionalism and mostly because you're always with the smile and you're always trying to make people uh despite of the rain and the the difficulties sometimes sorry my friends to the shit up to our half of the pants because of the station is in bad shape he's always come with a smile just to continue working and trying to make things done and that's why we're here and thank you yeah you can you need to speak with him he's your partner hey good afternoon everyone it's already yeah it's already 12 good afternoon um i would like to uh congratulate mr david kushman for his career in water and sewer department he started on the 90s right yeah 90s yes and uh he worked for the water department like they said so he worked for the water department for his first 15 years in the water and sewer uh career and then he switched to our side which is the best so to end his career here so he made his 30 years he has 10 more to go right no eight eight is the maximum so he got eight more to go so i hope he made the eight here so i can't retire with him uh so yeah together yes so it's a special day you know no no everyone made the 30 years you know so congratulations thank you very much i just want to congratulate dave and add a little something we we both started uh we were attempts together we got hired on the same day we were just reminiscing today when we walked in about the day we came in here to do our physical together um dave uh we worked together he worked for me for a few years he was a lead man on one of my crews um very good man very good person pump stations you stole a good man from me congratulations i've been with david for 38 years we've been married for a little over 31 and i've been telling him how wonderful he is for all these years and for me this is wonderful to hear everybody saying this about my husband i hope you finally believe it and i thank dade county i was born and raised in miami so thank dade county for giving david the opportunity to support our family to take care of me for 38 or for 30 years hopefully we've helped take care of the county as well thank you thank you i love you congratulations and congratulations to everybody else thank you very much um it's been an honor working with the frank and like i said i worked at hialeah which is just had its 100 year birthday so it's a lot of maintenance um i want to thank uh elvis and working with him and moving on to the pump stations like i said it's all across dade county from all the way down at the end of homestead all the way up north so it's a vast it's a big group and from the poorest of poor to the riches of rich we uh help all everybody and treat everybody the same here uh for everybody else uh i didn't i had a my big brother worked 35 years as a plant mechanic at hialeah and he was my mentor and i had many more mentors and seeing people getting their 30 and 15 years and stuff was a big accomplishment and i strive to see those people and they were my mentors and i believe i finally we all became mentors today 30 years and i think uh when i was a young man coming in here baby face like you said there was mentors that carried me or helped me get to where i am now and i think we're all mentors now and i've seen these young kids that are coming in today and they need our help and i think we all need to carry them so someday they'll get their 30 years thank you all very much and so did you get this last individual picture and then we'll do the individual and then you're going to get the group with all of the awardees okay so let's squeeze in to get this last picture we can do it guys you can do it you can do it yeah we're it we need some cubans shuffle hustle music right hot one pop awardees and the commissioner and the director you stay put yeah all the awardees if you have a plaque in your hand jump in the photo anybody with a plaque anybody with a plaque all right come on come on over come on in okay anybody with a plaque all right godfrey you're gonna have to help me out here okay where's uh the director did we lose him doc uh director fink did i lose you i don't see him all right oh okay he's here okay okay we didn't lose you okay you're there well yeah come on in you're in how are we doing god back over just step back all right anyone standing in mind oh this way two steps i'm sorry two steps two baby steps perfect let's go right here all right hold one second for the cell phones thank you thank you to everyone congratulations have a great day congratulations congratulations are you behaving