Facilities Director Dominic Posca—

After 25 Years, The School System’s Ultimate Insider Is Ready To Retire

By Nancy K. Crevier

When Dominic Posca talks about the buildings that make up the Newtown school system, his voice softens and his face takes on a quiet glow. “They’re my babies. They are just like kids to me,” he says. And like children, he has nurtured the buildings and grounds through 25 years of growth that sometimes meant being tough, and sometimes meant using a gentle hand.

He has seen the birth of brand new schools and has watched buildings sprawl like ungainly teenagers. He has been the father figure behind building maintenance for a quarter of a century, but when the next school year rolls around, Mr Posca, the facilities director for the Newtown school system, will be watching his kids grow from a vantage point on Easy Street. Mr Posca, who celebrated his 65th birthday Tuesday, June 12, is retiring June 30.

 “I’m getting ready to pack it in,” said Mr Posca at a recent interview. “I’ve been in the trades for 52 years, but now I’ll be able to do things at my own pace. My family is happy I’m going to slow down.”

Sitting in his office in the lower level of the high school, he is surrounded by piles of papers. Family pictures are interspersed with silly newspaper clippings that have been photo-shopped to feature this head of maintenance. Posters and memorabilia of the movie character Shrek are part of the landscape. He holds up the Shrek poster closest to him.

“Look — do you see the resemblance?” he laughs. It is a sense of humor that has eased him through many long days that started at 4 am and went late into the evening.

When he was hired as facilities director 25 years ago, number 4 fuel oil cost 35 cents a gallon; number 2 fuel oil was 65 cents a gallon. “Now the cost is over $1 to $2 a gallon,” said Mr Posca. Skyrocketing fuels costs are just one of many changes he has witnessed as the man in charge of maintenance.

“A lot of other things have changed along the way,” he said. “There are different techniques in how thing go together, whether it is building or electricity. We always had to be learning.”

He learned much in undertaking the position of facilities director, he said. He has been actively involved since his first project, the addition to the front side of the high school, all the way through to the biggest undertaking, the Reed Intermediate School in 2002. In-between, he has overseen two more internal additions to the high school; directed the removal of all asbestos from the schools between 1984 and 1987; supervised the 1992 Sandy Hook and Middle Gate schools additions; and designed and erected a modular building at Hawley School and the subsequent addition there in 1997. The fall of 2006, Mr Posca was in charge of the placement and preparation of temporary units at the high school.

“The addition of computers was amazing. I’m not a computer guy, but they are great tools,” he said. Working off of computers in his office and in his home, he has been in charge of operations for the heating and air conditioning of each school building.

Fostering Communication

He has also worked to create a positive relationship between the town, parks and recreation, and the schools. “That’s something I had to bring together when I started here. Communication is important,” Mr Posca said.

When bad weather threatened or created chaos around town, like the recent tornado, Mr Posca was the one who conferred with the highway department, the superintendent, and the bus drivers to determine if the roads were safe. “You have to be prepared. It’s not the kind of a job you can put in a set number of hours a week. You never know what is going to come up,” he said.

“He has been a tireless worker who took complete ownership of all maintenance and custodial projects for the school system,” said Superintendent of Schools Evan Pitkoff. “He has tremendous knowledge of the facilities of our school system and loved the challenge of using that knowledge to solve all problems in a creative and cost-effective manner,” added Dr Pitkoff.

Mr Posca agreed that there had been challenges along the way. “The challenges here are unbelievable, but I’ve enjoyed them,” said Mr Posca. “I always look ahead. My first five years on the job I spent putting together a ‘shop’ down here, so you can get out there and fix whatever needs fixing. You don’t want to find out at 2 am that you don’t have a part you need.”

Mr Posca has made it a point to always be a hands-on manager. “I have only five other guys besides myself to provide maintenance of all of the schools, besides the custodians. When you have an emergency, you have to act quickly.”

And act quickly he did, when in 1989 a fire broke out in the print shop at the high school, one of the more memorable moments he recalls. “It was 1 pm in the afternoon, and I pulled around the corner of the building and saw flames shooting out the windows. There was some extensive damage, but everyone got out safely. We got to work and cleaned things up and the building was back up and running the next morning. When [former superintendent] John Reed hired me, he said, ‘Dom, I don’t ever want to see the buildings closed.’ I’ve tried to stick by that.”

It’s All In His Head

“There’s so much inside my head. I’ve trained a lot of men, but there’s a lot you can’t put down on paper,” Mr Posca said. It is as though he carries within a “blueprint” of every building. “I know my buildings. There are things buried here that no one else knows.”

He is confident that his men will be able to pass on to his successor the many, many unwritten bits of information that are crucial to keeping the schools up and running, “But it will take time,” he admitted.

There is a lot that he will miss about his position, from the steady, loud thrumming of the immense boilers to the sudden burst of alarms. “This last year I’ve been weaning myself away,” he said. “I’ll miss the people, of course, the kids and the staff. Karen Dugan, my office manager, has been my right arm for almost seven years.”

Likewise, staff and administration are sad to see Mr Posca leave. “His dependability and sense of humor will be missed by all,” Dr Pitkoff said.

Retirement will give Mr Posca more time to spend with his wife of 44 years, his children, and his grandchildren. “We have a summer home in Lebanon, Conn., and I’ll be spending a lot of time there,” he said.

He looks around his cluttered office and sighs. “I’ve had a lot of fun here. I’ve enjoyed my job.”