Marquette County Road Commission Manager to retire after more than 20 years

ISHPEMING, Mich. (WLUC) - For nearly 25 years, Jim Iwanicki has been the Engineer Manager at the Marquette County Road Commission. Over the years Iwanicki said he’s seen a lot of change and almost all of it has been positive.

“When I started out here I would say we were very archaic, we were very tried and true on what had worked in the past, but we were using very old ideas and equipment and over the last 20 years we have evolved,” Iwanicki said.

Iwanicki added that he’s proud of how the commission has improved as a place to work and of the projects it’s taken on.

“I’m very proud of the way the organization has changed and turned into a great place to work, project wise, I’m very proud of the county road 510 bridge over the Dead River, that was a great project and the other project I’m very pleased about is the improvements we made on county road 550, 510 and the Triple-A, that was a great project,” Iwanicki added.

Iwanicki will remain at the road commission for the next few months while his successor Peter Duex gets acclimated to the role.

“He took over January first as the Managing Director and I’m kind of sitting in the wings right now coaching and mentoring and I’ll be doing that here for the next five or six months,” Iwanicki said.

Duex is a Michigan Tech University grad who will be the ninth manager for the road commission since it was formed in the early 1900′s.

“I think from the standpoint of the traveling public there’s not going to be much difference, Jim Iwanicki and I are very like-minded and I think that’s the point, we’re both fiscally conservative, we believe in running a balanced budget, we also place a big value on the people, I’m most excited about continuing to work with the people here, the culture, embrace that culture, grow that culture, it’s just a great place to work,” Duex said.

Duex said he is also looking forward to embracing new technologies and moving to a more automated, digital workflow.

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