Mundelein public works chief recalls career

It’s rather poetic for Ken Miller’s tenure with Mundelein’s public works department to end with a horrendous snowstorm.

Thirty-two years ago, his career began with one.

“That was the winter of 1979, you don’t forget those,” recalled Miller, the department’s longtime director, referring to the blizzard that hit the Chicago area that January. “(It was a) baptism by fire.”

Miller, 54, is set to retire at the end of this month. He joined the department as a sewer laborer making $3.45 an hour and worked his way up to director in 1989.

Since then, Miller has been instrumental in helping Mundelein grow from a rural community to a modern suburb by overseeing the construction of a wastewater treatment plant, the installation of a Lake Michigan water system and the implementation of vital flood-relief efforts.

“Ken has been a fantastic public works director,” Mayor Kenneth H. Kessler said. “He has years of accumulated knowledge. He has done it all and seen it all.”

Miller and his employees also have removed countless tons of snow through the decades. And thanks to the Blizzard of 2011, there will still be many more tons to remove before he’s done.

“I came into work (in 1979) fighting Nother Nature and we always won, and this is one more time she’s going to try to kick my butt and send me out the door,” Miller said, laughing. “But I think we won, and we’re going to win.”

During this week’s storm, Miller worked for 38 consecutive hours. He spent 26 of those hours on a plow, clearing the village’s streets of snow with the workers in his department.

It may not have been the Chicago area’s biggest snowfall, but Miller said the storm was the worst he’s ever battled because of the brutal wind.

“We had sustained winds of 50 mph for 10 to 12 hours,” he said. “We’ve never had that.”

In typical fashion, Miller didn’t whine about the snow as the storm approached, and he didn’t complain as it came down. He had a job to do, and he did it.

“It was the time of my life,” Miller said afterward.

“This is what we do,” he added. “If you don’t like what you’re doing, you need to find something else. Because life is too short, and you spend too much time doing what you’re doing professionally.”