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Changing of the Guard
New wave replaces four long-term D-1 foremen

'As with any great team, District 1 is fortunate to have a lot of depth in its ranks'

It isn’t often that a district loses nearly 130 years of experience in one fell swoop, but that’s what happened recently in District 1 when four maintenance foremen headed into retirement. In the past two months, Jim Stam (32 years), Judd Reed (37 years), Greg Munden (33 years) and Mike Hutchinson (26 years) said good-bye to their ITD family and set out to enjoy some well-deserved fun time.

As with any great team, District 1 is fortunate to have a lot of depth in its ranks, especially in Maintenance. And though they have just a “mere” 60 years between them, four maintenance crews will continue to have experienced leadership at the helm, all of them moving up from lead worker positions.

Mike Rearden will take over the Signing and Striping crew from Hutchinson. The former first signed on as an hourly employee in 1987, working on the sign crew. He was hired full time in 1989 as part of the Bonners Ferry maintenance crew. He transferred back to the sign shop in 1990. He had served as a lead worker since 1998 before being promoted to foreman.

Dave Palmer has inherited the 170 crew from Stam. He started in 1993 in the welding shop and transferred to Maintenance in 1995. Palmer has been on the 170 crew ever since, advancing to lead worker in 2000.

Marc Johnson began his career with ITD as an hourly employee in 1993, working on the Signing & Striping crew. He has also worked on the vegetation crew under Judd Reed, and in the Coeur d’Alene Residency before moving back to Maintenance under Greg Munden. Johnson took a short hiatus from state employment to work for his dad’s excavating business, but he returned to ITD full time in 2008. He was a lead worker on the 160 crew before being promoted to foreman.

The “newbie” in the group, Keith Viebrock joined ITD in the Coeur d’Alene Residency in 2002. He was promoted to Roadside Vegetation lead worker in 2005 and was instrumental in the development of the district’s salt brine pilot program that began in 2006. Following in his predecessor’s (Judd Reed) footsteps, Keith was promoted to foreman last month.