ORANGE PARK – The town has said goodbye to its public works director of nine years last week.

Chuck Pavlos served as the town of Orange Park’s public works director, leading the charge on some of the town’s biggest projects and wading through its largest hurdles. His final day was two weeks ago. Now retired, he said he will move back to Cape Coral.

“It’s tough saying goodbye,” Pavlos said. “There are so many good memories and Orange Park really is a great place. I’ll miss the people the most.”

Pavlos was working as a public director in Cape Coral when he decided it was time to retire. His retirement didn’t last long though because in 2011, he became the public works director at Orange Park.

Little did Pavlos know that he’d be in that position for nearly a decade, wading through some of its largest construction projects to date and quite literally, wading through the town’s problematic waters.

When he thinks back on his work, the most major of projects that comes to mind is the Wells Road from U.S. Highway 17 to Plainfield Avenue road project.

“That was a brand-new water sewer and a new roadway,” Pavlos said. “I think most of our larger projects like Kingsley and River Road, and others, consisted of fixing or replacing water mains, new sidewalks, curbs and new roadways. The infrastructure of this town received a lot of work over the years.”

Pavlos was more than prepared for the position back in 2011. He had roughly 100 people working for him in Orange Park, which is much less than the 500 he had in Cape Coral. Things were quite different in the town in a number of ways, though.

“Orange Park is interesting because it’s full-service,” Pavlos said. “A city like Cape Coral might not necessarily do sewer and water on top of everything else whereas Orange Park does. We have a water plant, a sewer plant, we do the streets, we handle stormwater, we create a hurricane response – we do it all.”

He said in a lot of ways, though, Cape Coral and Orange Park were a like, at least in terms of public works. One stark difference comes from the difference in size. Because of Orange Park’s significantly smaller population and workforce, Pavlos said he really got to know not only the staff of the town, but its residents as well.

Orange Park is very close-knit, and a lot of its feeling of community is owed to its history.

“Orange Park has a long history,” Pavlos said. “People have been here a long time and you can feel that love of it. The council really considers what its residents say. We never did a project without council approval obviously and the council always wanted the input of residents. They really represent the people here.”

The town underwent extensive stormwater maintenance, and still is, under Pavlos’ public work direction and it should prevent another Hurricane Irma situation from occurring. Sure, Irma was a 100-year storm but Orange Park is better prepared for Florida’s annual hurricane season than it’s ever been before.

“I’d argue that the stormwater was one of the biggest, if not the biggest hurdles we’ve faced,” Pavlos said. “But we tackled it head on and I think the town is in a much better position [in regards to stormwater maintenance].”