Norm Mack retires from the City of Estevan after 36-year career

ESTEVAN — One of the longest-serving employees for the City of Estevan is retiring.

Norm Mack, who has been working in the city's public works division for 36 years, announced his departure earlier this month. His final day is June 30.

"I think I've put my service in for long enough," Mack told the Mercury. "It's not a bad thing to have a fresh person in there and some fresh ideas, and I'm at the age where I just want to slow down a bit. That is a very demanding job."

Mack became the manager of the public works' roads and drainage division on Jan. 1, 2016, and said he is on call around the clock.

"This particular job, you're dealing with snowstorms, floods, dust storms and hailstorms," said Mack. "So you're dealing with problems all of the time. You're always troubleshooting."

The decision to retire wasn't a difficult one. When he asked retired people how they knew it was time to move on, they told him he would just know.

"I've achieved all that I wanted to do when I started. We had a new management team when I started in the new position, with me and Jeff [city manager Jeff Ward]," said Mack, who also noted Rod March had been hired as the city's parks manager the previous year.

Mack always worked in public works. He worked in stores for nearly a decade, and then he was an equipment operator for 10 years, a roads and drainage foreman for a few years and finally the manager of roads and drainage.

"Since I became a manager, we have upgraded our equipment. We have come up with some later-model equipment. We added another snowblower to our fleet that speeds up snow removal from, in the past, two to three weeks. In a week, we can do a complete city [snow-removal] job," he said.

Technology has changed. Now their phones are loaded with apps that help them with their jobs.

"The bottom line is there's still a lot of physical work and laborious work, and we just made sure that it got done. Our main focus in public works, roads and drainage, is if there was a problem or a complaint, we dealt with it that day, not the next day."

With the advent of social media, a lot of the city jobs are under the microscope, but Mack said as long as staff members do their job, they don't have problems.

"The public's been really supportive. We've always had compliments. It's been a good journey, but it's a job that's demanding. Very demanding," Mack said.

When he started, he didn't know how long he would last, but he found the city to be a good place to work. They treated Mack well, both as an employee and a manager.

"I started at the bottom of the city 36 years ago and it was a place where they allowed me to rise to top in management," he said. "What else can a person ask for than to work from the bottom up?"

Mack credited Mayor Roy Ludwig and the previous mayors he worked for, as well as the previous councils and city managers, for allowing him to do what he thought was best.

Mack said the city is in good hands. He called Ward a "strong leader" and in public works, there are a lot of good employees. 

Now that he is retiring, Mack will focus on his other business ventures. He has the Mack Auction Company and Mack Realty, a relatively new company that started last year. It has commercial and agricultural real estate. Brad Wilson is the broker and realtor for the company.

He's also looking forward to travelling and camping a little bit, and dedicating time to his other passion: yard work.

"I'm a grass and flower guy, and I want to spend time on a bit of that," said Mack.