As a Bellarmine student, the future Berkeley civil engineer would bike to the California Avenue train station and catch the train to school. On family outings in the car, however, it was Joe who his father counted on to read the maps and navigate.
Well known today as the Czar of Palo Alto Storm Drains and a 21 year member of the Public Works Department, Joe spent a brief stint with CalTrans before coming to the city as a multipurpose engineer. He initially worked on creating Greer Park.
Besides the Matadero Creek frogs, Joe has a vivid memory of the swimming pool at Chuck Thompson's where he almost drowned when he went too close to the uncovered grate in the deep end. His arm was sucked in up to the elbow, creating a vacuum from which the lifeguard couldn't release him. Luckily, a manager was on hand and threw the pump switch in time. The following week, Joe was back swimming at the pool. Many years later, when the City took over Chuck Thompson's and the pool was being demolished in the 1990s, he got to swing the first sledge hammer as his parents, his colleagues and the press cheered.
Now a resident of Millbrae, Joe is President of the Music Boosters at Millbrae High with his wife Shari, a substitute teacher, and his son Chris, a saxophonist and future animator. Daughter Karen, who followed her dad to Berkeley, is studying to be a history teacher.
Much cheered himself by the recent passage of the Storm Drains Measure in Palo Alto; Joe said of his fellow Public Works colleagues, "We all try to do a good job. I wish people would appreciate us."
