09/13/2007: "New Solid Waste Program Manager"

Public Works has hired a new manager for their solid waste division. Steve Alexander was introduced to the County Council on Tuesday by, with over sixteen years of experience as a manager with several state’s regulatory agencies and deep family roots in Washington, has joined San Juan County as Solid Waste Program Manager effective August 30.

Looking forward to the challenges of his new job, he says, “I’ll need to be a sponge, to listen a lot and understand the culture in San Juan County and the unique “personality” of each island.” He says he is used to listening, having years of experience in designing and participating in public involvement processes.

San Juan County Public Works Director Jon Shannon calls Alexander, “extremely well qualified” and notes that he will face some immediate challenges including: updating the County’s solid waste management plan, dealing with the solid waste funding structure and – certainly not least – completing the process of selecting the location for the San Juan Island solid waste management facility.

Alexander has nearly 18 years experience as a manager on public works and environmental cleanup projects, beginning as a Storm Water Manager for the City of Colorado Springs shortly after his graduation from Colorado State University in 1989.

He served as Program Manager for the state Environment Department in New Mexico for three years, then Joined the Washington Department of Ecology as Section Manager of the group overseeing the investigation and cleanup of contaminated soil and groundwater at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hanford site, an area the Washington DOE calls, “the most contaminated site in North America.”

Most recently, Alexander served as the Ecology Department’s regional manager for contaminated site cleanups, headquartered in Bellevue, overseeing the department’s operations in a seven county area. He has one daughter and a new nine-week-old grandson, living in Newcastle. His wife, Susan, will join him in March, moving to the home they’ve rented on San Juan Island. Susan has been a manager in worker health and safety for a decade and a half, having worked at the Hanford site, the Department of Energy’s National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico and the University of Washington.

Steve Alexander recalls vacationing in the San Juan Islands as a child and in recent years he and Susan have traveled with friends to stay on Orcas almost every November. He said that he and Susan had discussed moving away from the hustle and bustle and traffic of the Seattle area, but hadn’t thought living here was possible until he saw the job opening posted.

Alexander traces his family’s arrival in Washington back to 1850, when his great-great-great Uncle was a soldier stationed at Fort Walla Walla . Later, in the 1870’s, several other members of his family settled in central Washington.. The old family property now lies beneath Banks Lake, an irrigation reservoir created as part of the Grand Coulee Dam project. Currently, he has numerous relatives living up and down the west side of the Cascades in Washington and Oregon.