Dean Schiller Named New Street Superintendent
At Tuesday’s meeting, the City’s Finance, Budget, and Personnel Committee discussed hirings and promotions at Marshfield Street Division.
The City is in process of finalizing a replacement for Mike Winch, who retired as Street Superintendent on February 2. In Closed Session at Tuesday’s meeting, external candidate Dean Schiller was approved for the position, and Common Council is expected to approve the appointment at next Tuesday’s meeting.
“Council has to put the final stamp on it and pre-employment testing has not wrapped up yet,” said City Administrator Steve Barg. “Apart from that, he has given notice to his current employer. Thursday, March 1 would be his first day working here.”
Schiller currently works as Public Works Supervisor for the Village of Bellevue (near Green Bay). He previously worked for the City of Ripon as an Engineering Technician and the Town of Greenville as Public Works Supervisor.
Current Street Division staff Kurt Bornbach, Tim Rasmussen, Kris Hawley were the other three finalists for the Street Superintendent position.
“There was no intent intentionally to choose an external candidate for this position,” said Barg. “All four candidates were evaluated equally by the search team. Mr Schiller was the best of the candidates, in their opinion, for this position.”
“It’s definitely not a slap in the face or a negative towards the current operations. We’ve seen several examples in recent years when we’ve chosen from outside,” he added, citing Parks & Recreation Director Justin Casperson and Wastewater Superintendent Sam Warp as recent examples of this. “We always look at the external candidates as fairly as possible.”
Schiller has family ties to nearby Loyal, Wisconsin, but this will be his first experience with Marshfield.
“With his technical and engineering background, I think the hope is that he is going to be able to help us to get more life out of our streets,” said Barg. “We can’t afford to reconstruct as much. We need to be more creative on the maintenance side. He’s been in this business. He has ideas.”
Barg added that Schiller’s experience as a Supervisor with the Town of Greenville (which is adjacent to the Appleton Metro Area) meant he was involved in city street maintenance and upkeep, however, there will be a necessary familiarization period when he begins working in Marshfield.
“I assume there will be some orientation,” said Barg. “I’m sure that the existing staff will spend a lot of time with him getting him familiar with the issues, problems, and concerns we’ll be dealing with in the years to come. He is the kind of person who will challenge the status quo. While he would want to get an understanding of what we do here and why we do it, he would want to improve processes whenever possible.”
Until Schiller assumes his role on March 1, the City has approved that Bornbach, Assistant Street Superintendent, be assigned the Acting Street Superintendent position, and Rasmussen be assigned Bornbach’s Acting Assistant Street Superintendent position.
