Northville Township DPW Superintendent Tim Swailes to Retire

After more than two decades of answering late-night emergency calls, repairing broken water mains on holidays and rescuing everything from cats to ducklings out of storm drains, Northville Township Public Works Superintendent Tim Swailes is retiring. His last day is Dec. 19.

Swailes is leaving Northville Township after 21 years of service to accept a new role as Superintendent of Operations with the City of Southfield’s Public Works Department. Though he’s moving on professionally, Township officials say his impact and the standard he set for public service will be felt for years to come.

“Public Works has allowed me to make a difference,” Swailes said. “You get that sense of purpose when someone calls with a problem no one else can solve and you figure it out together.”

From Summer Help to Superintendent

Swailes’ public works story started the way many great careers do – with a neighbor leaning over the fence.

His next-door neighbor, former longtime Northville Township Maintenance Supervisor Bob LaPlante, spent years telling a young Tim, “You’ve got to come work for me. We’re always looking for summer help.” Eventually, Swailes took him up on it, joining the Township in the early 2000s as a part-time maintenance worker while he studied elementary education at Ferris State University.

He almost turned the job down.

“It was a long drive from Commerce for 10 bucks an hour, and I already had another job,” Swailes remembered with a laugh. “My dad said, ‘It’s guaranteed every summer. You’ll always have a place to come back to.’ He was right. He always was.”

That summer job quickly became a full-time career. Swailes spent three years in the Facilities Maintenance Department, doing the unglamorous but essential work that keeps local government running. That included changing light bulbs, delivering copy paper, trimming landscaping and helping move Township Hall and Fire Headquarters into their current buildings.

From there, he transferred into the Water & Sewer Department, where he steadily rose through the ranks: laborer, technician, operator, crew leader, foreman and, ultimately, superintendent.

Along the way, he earned top-level state water distribution licenses, including the prestigious S-1 certification, and returned to school at Oakland Community College to complete an associate degree in business administration.

Today, nine of the 11 team members in the Water & Sewer Division hold an S-1 water distribution license, an unusually high concentration of expertise in one department. Some departments have zero and contract with a company that does.

“Bob Belair, our Director of Public Services, has a saying displayed in his office: We train our people so they can leave, and we treat them so they won’t,” Swailes said. “I never had a reason to leave. This opportunity just came along at the right time.”

The DPW: The People You Call When You Don’t Know Who to Call

While firefighters and police officers are often in the spotlight, Swailes is quick to point out that public works staff are the ones residents call when there isn’t an obvious number on the fridge.

“Furnace goes out, you call a heating and cooling company,” he said. “But if someone dumps a refrigerator in your front yard, or a deer gets stuck in your fence, or the end of your driveway washes out every time it rains, who do you call? A lot of times, it ends up being us.”

Over his 21-year career, Swailes and his crew have had some unusual experiences. They’ve:

• Rescued cats and newly born kittens stuck in a shed and found them homes.
• Scooped ducklings out of catch basins while their frantic mothers waited above.
• Saved and fed drowning racoons.
• Helped corral loose dogs and reunite them with their owners.
• Freed deer wedged in fences or stranded in yards.
• Hauled an illegally dumped refrigerator up a wooded slope with a backhoe for an elderly resident who had nowhere else to turn.
• Patched dangerous potholes on county roads during a polar vortex when Wayne County crews were overwhelmed and couldn’t respond quickly enough.
• Collected massive piles of storm debris and fallen limbs after severe ice storms.

“None of that is in a job description,” he said. “But when you’re standing in someone’s yard and there’s a fridge or a tree in the way, you don’t say, ‘That’s not my job.’ You figure it out.”

Available on Holidays When It Matters Most

Some of Swailes’ most powerful memories are from the days most people are off work.

He recalls one Fourth of July when he was out on a boat with friends when his phone rang: a serious water main break had left homes without water ahead of the holiday weekend. Swailes came in, called his crew, and seven of nine employees dropped their plans to help.

The repair took multiple excavations and fixes. As the crew finally tightened the last bolts and water began flowing again, the homeowner walked out, amazed they’d restored service the same day, much less on a holiday.

“He said, ‘I thought we’d be out of water all weekend. I can’t believe you came on the Fourth of July,’” Swailes said. “As he’s talking, it’s getting dark and fireworks are going off behind him. That’s public service. Nobody wants to give up their holiday, but once you’ve helped someone like that, it’s worth it.”

Those calls can come on Christmas, Thanksgiving or at 2 am on a Tuesday. Water main breaks, sewer backups, flooding – the Township relies on crews who will answer the phone, no matter the hour.

“Places don’t always do that anymore,” Swailes said. “But Northville Township still does.”

Building a Team That “Just Works”

What Swailes says he’ll miss most isn’t the equipment or the projects, but the people.

“We always say we spend more time with each other than we do with our own families,” he said. “With all the overtime in the winter, main breaks, sewer blockages, you’re together a lot. You have to like the people you work with. I’ve been really lucky.”

Under his leadership, the Water & Sewer Division has grown into a highly trained, tightly coordinated team that collaborates closely with Northville Township Fire, Police, Parks & Recreation, Elections and other departments.

DPW staff recently cross-trained with the Fire Department’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team so they can assist at complex scenes, using specialized equipment such as Vactor trucks, which are giant shop vacuums on wheels, to support rescues and investigations.

Brad Lear, Northville Township’s Deputy Public Services Director, said Swailes represents the best of public service.

“Tim’s commitment, professionalism and positive attitude have made a lasting impact on the Public Works team,” Lear said. “His Institutional knowledge and leadership abilities will be difficult to replace. Most residents may have never known his name, but they’ve benefitted from his work every time they turned on the tap, flushed a toilet or drove down a clear road after a storm. I congratulate and thank him for his years of service and dedication to Northville Township.”

His Future’s So Bright

At 42, Tim isn’t slowing down. After his last day, he plans to spend two weeks as “the best stay-at-home dad I can be.” He’ll find fun with his 13-year-old daughter, Camille, over winter break while his wife, Cora, works in her physical therapy position. Then he’ll begin his new role in Southfield in early January.

There, he’ll bring his Northville Township experience to a much larger operation that includes roads, streetlights, forestry, storm systems and an approximately 80-person staff to supervise. At Northville Township, he oversaw nine staff members.

“Here, we’ve had 21 years to build something that runs smoothly,” Swailes said. “I’m proud of that. In Southfield, I’m excited to learn, to share what I know and to help build that same kind of culture on a bigger scale.”

Northville Township leaders say they are equally proud and grateful.

“Tim’s departure is bittersweet,” Northville Township Manager Glenn Caldwell said. “We’re sad to see him go, but we’re thrilled to see him take this next step. He’s created opportunities for the next generation of public works professionals here, and he leaves behind a high-performing team that reflects his values of service, problem-solving and compassion.”

Two months ago, Swailes wasn’t expecting to leave, he said, so this is a surprise even to him.

“'While I’m really excited for a fresh start, I'm sad,” he said. “This is a great place. There’s a reason we’ve won best workplace for three years in a row. Yeah, it's definitely bittersweet.”

About the Northville Township Department of Public Works

The Northville Township Department of Public Works (DPW) is responsible for maintaining essential infrastructure that residents rely on every day, including water and sewer systems, municipal facilities and support for community events and emergency response. DPW crews work around the clock to keep water safe and reliable, protect public health and safety, and support fellow departments such as Police, Fire, Parks & Recreation and the Clerk’s Office.