Not everyone balks at idea of working as garbage man

Hardly anyone grows up planning to become a garbage man. And yet, it happens.

Every day across the country, thousands of men and women drive trucks that haul away our refuse.

But even more rare are those who grow up to be the head garbage men.

Oh, they go by different names — waste district director, landfill manager, section manager, and in some cases, CEO — but these are the guys who are in charge of the trash.

Dwayne Woolley is a civil engineer with a master's degree. The top garbage man at the Trans-Jordan Landfill didn't plan to end up at a dump, but he found a unique opportunity there to use his skills in a nuanced, thoughtful way.

"The age-old adage is, 'Go to college so you don't become a garbage man,' but there's a lot more to garbage than people realize," Woolley said.

His family never understood his job until they came on a reunion tour, Woolley said. The out-of-state family didn't want to come, but when they got to the landfill on the Salt Lake Valley's far west side, they wanted to stay.

"Their comment was, 'I didn't realize,' " Woolley said.

Ralph Bohn remembers the day he came home and told his wife, "I'm the state garbage man."

The Solid Waste Section manager for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality is a former geologist who worked in the oil industry until it cratered in the 1980s. That's when Bohn went back to BYU, earned an MBA and began working for the state of Utah in the Division of Water Quality.

Then his current job became available in the Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste, and suddenly he was announcing his new title to his wife.

Bohn oversees permitting for new landfills, compliance for current ones and manages information on the state's inventory of solid-waste facilities.

He also participates nationally in conferences for solid-waste managers. In November, he helped with the planning for June's conference, which will deal with recycling mandates, greenhouse gases and composting, among other topics.

E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com, rpalmer@desnews.com