I totally enjoyed the ITD family article. It is amazing how many families work for ITD. I’m an ITD old-timer, and there are only a few of us left that remember my dad, Joe Couch; we were/are also an ITD family. Years ago during the dinosaur days of hard copy Transporter, we were written up as an ITD family, and the trend continues.

• My dad, Joe, retired with over 35 years of service, all in the ITD Traffic Section (which was originally the Idaho Highway Department); my mom, of course, was married to him, an ITD employee! He worked years with Terry McAdams, who is still working in the Traffic Section, and his wife, Evey is in ITD Purchasing.
• One sister was married to Guy Prouty, who worked in DMV - Driver Services for several years; his dad, Gordon Prouty, also retired from the ITD Traffic Section with 35+ years of service. He was my dad’s and Terry’s supervisor for years.
  
• One sister’s husband (Scot Kump) worked out of the ITD District 3 New Meadows shed for years; his brother, Greg Prouty, is currently working out at D3 SE Boise POE.
  
• Both of my sisters now work in county (WICAP) and federal (USFS) government positions.
  
• My brother, Dave Couch, is just retiring from being an ITD District 2 Engineer in Lewiston. 
  
• My other brother, Ken Couch, is a TT Maintenance Supervisor at the ITD Caldwell shed.  (He still has about 20 years to go to reach his 90…you know, baby of the family and all!) 
  
• Both brothers’ significant others work(ed) in state/federal positions, one at BSU and one at U of I.  Our family has fun ribbing each other during the football and basketball seasons! 
  
• I reach my rule of 90 next July, with over 35 years of state service, the last 21+ years in ETS, and several all but three of those other years working for DMV in Driver Services/Drivers License.  I was part of the last ‘PIT’ crew, as we referred to ourselves, which really stands for Programmer In Training, an ITD-sponsored 4-month Mon-Fri 8AM-5PM class to learn how to be a developer, with a ‘graduation present’ of a position as a programmer in ETS (back then it was Data Processing and then Information Services.)  
  
• My husband retired from the Army National Guard, where he was a safety office, and was in charge of traffic during the Gowen Field Air Shows a couple of times.  He is now Security Supervisor at the Idaho Center’s Horse Park.

So, I am sure you can tell that our dad instilled a great sense of pride in us for working in public service!  Back before traffic lights timing was automated/computerized, I recall many times all of us kids and mom sat in the car while dad set the timing on the traffic light on the corner of Garden and Main (back then it was a single light each direction, and sometimes we sat there for hours just waiting for cars to come from each direction so he could make sure he had the whole intersection timed right!)

And I remember the first time dad pulled up behind the HQ building to show us where he was going to start working … I was about 7 or 8, and remember thinking, “I’m going to work in that pretty blue building some day” (wasn’t so faded back then) … Guess it was karma!
 
Anyway, thanks for the good read!  You do great work!
 
Mary Moren
Enterprise Technology Services

Published 9-9-2011