Clearwater Solid Waste Drivers Shine In State Driving Competition

CLEARWATER, FL - From City of Clearwater: On March 21-23 in St. Petersburg, Fla., the city of Clearwater solid waste employees competed in the Solid Waste Association of North America, or SWANA, Florida Sunshine Chapter ROAD-E-O competition against other government and private collection workers.

Clearwater had three first-place winners, one second-place finisher, and one third-place winner. Congratulations go to:

Joe Marshall - first place Tractor/Trailer

Tim Jones - first place Automated Side-Loader

Rufus Whitting - first place Roll-Off Loader

John Mellor - second place Roll-Off Loader

John Garakop - third place Rear-End Loader

Please also congratulate Javan Thomas and Mike Helm who also competed. Bill Buzzell served as a judge and who served as a SWANA Road-e-o committee member. Mark Beery, Tony Hadley and Arnie Retzer also served as judges.

The competition consists of a written safety test, a CDL vehicle inspection and an obstacle course on which drivers have to perform an off-set driving maneuver, a right-hand turn through cones, parallel park their truck, back into an alley dock, drive through a serpentine forward and backward, put their passenger side tires through tennis balls set 30 inches apart (rear tandem tires are 24 inches), and finish on a stop line as close as possible without going over the line.

The Clearwater drivers' trophies are the latest of numerous state, national and international ROAD-E-O awards secured by Clearwater solid waste employees in past years. The team will compete internationally at the international road-e-o competition, which will be held concurrent with the SWANA WasteCon Convention scheduled for Oct. 21-24 in Phoenix, Ariz. (SWANA Florida pays for their airfare and hotel.)