I composed a week long series last year for my blog that I called Excellence Behind The Scenes to highlight some of the truly excellent people who work for the City of Eden Prairie that our residents will probably never meet. These employees work behind the scenes to support the work of our more visible employees that residents see on television, in the newspapers, at the service counter, or at public meetings. We have excellence among our visible employees too, but they often their excellence recognized by the public too. More often that you might think. Our Behind The Scenes employees, however, don’t get much in the way of public recognition. This short posting in my blog is my way of recognizing the folks that support the folks that provide exceptional public services here in Eden Prairie.
My first Excellence Behind The Scenes example this week is Scott Demko. Scott is a Mechanic in our Fleet Services Division in our Public Works Department. Scott has worked for the City for five years. He is a motorcyclist, hunter and NASCAR fan. Scott has a wife, Stephanie, and two kids: Logan (8) and Lexie (6).
Scott is an exceptionally skilled mechanic. He works on the City’s fleet of over 200+ police cars, dump trucks, large commercial mowers, and pickup work trucks. He must be able to prioritize his work, diagnose problems and fix problems in order to keep our Police on patrol, our Firefighters ready to move on a moment’s notice, our Water Division employees able to unplug the snarled sewer line, and our Parks Maintenance guys mowing the soccer fields. All these employees depend on Scott, and his co-workers in the Fleet Services Division, to do excellent work; to do it on short order; and to do it under budget.
One aspect of Scott’s job that he gets particular satisfaction from is setting up new Police patrol cars. Our City staff adds thousands of dollars of added-value to our Police patrol vehicles by installing the light bars, computers and other post-production equipment to our cars. Scott told me that the thing he likes most about his job is the look on a Police officer’s face when the officer gets behind the wheel of a newly decked out Police patrol vehicle. I think that says a lot about Scott Demko right there. He does great work for the City of Eden Prairie, and that’s why he is part of my Excellence Behind The Scenes series this year.
