Serving Together: Public Works at Home

0:00:00.6 Bailey Dickman: After years of service in the United States Army, Mike Duffy was eager to transition into a career that offered a similar sense of pride and camaraderie. He found that in public works. He currently serves as the assistant public works director for the city of Cedar Rapids in Iowa.

0:00:13.6 Mike Duffy: That job doesn’t end at the end of the day. Things continue outside of that work day. And so, trying to find a balance for that was something that we struggled on as a couple early on in our relationship.

0:00:26.1 Bailey Dickman: Serving something bigger than yourself, always comes at a cost. And for Mike, and countless other public workers, that cost extends to the home and family life.

0:00:35.0 Janis Duffy: People depended on me, people depended on him. And one of us had to be taking care of our daughters. Ultimately, that’s the priority. But it was a power struggle.

0:00:48.3 Bailey Dickman: That was Janis Duffy. She’s Mike’s spouse, and a dedicated public servant in her own right. She’s been working with the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services foster care unit for nearly three decades. It’s been far from easy, but Janis and Mike have found a way to balance the volatile demands of their careers with maintaining a healthy marriage and raising two amazing daughters. In a 2025 APWA Reporter article, Janis wrote powerfully about this experience, and the values that a career in service can instill in your kids. I mean, how many grade schoolers these days can appreciate the horsepower of a Bobcat?

0:01:18.2 Mike Duffy: My daughter, the youngest, was always, always pointing out pieces of equipment. She knew what a Bobcat was, and an excavator was, and what they were used for. And so we would drive down the road, and she’d be pointing those out.

0:01:32.7 Bailey Dickman: And of course, with the demands and sacrifice so ingrained in public works, there’s challenges, trade-offs, sleepless nights, especially in times of emergency response.

0:01:40.9 Janis Duffy: Mike has told me, when things are going well at home, we’re communicating, he can focus on the job at hand. He knows things are taken care of. He can keep his eyes and his focus on what needs to be done.

0:01:56.9 Bailey Dickman: Janis and Mike are going to outline several great ways to build support systems that promote healthier home lives for everyone touched by a career in public works.

0:02:04.0 Janis Duffy: Somebody, that you could go to and say, “What is this like? What am I gonna be dealing with? How can I better cope with things? What strategies can I do?” I think that would make families stronger, too, and be able to help support their person that is in public works.

0:02:20.2 Mike Duffy: Similar to the military. The military does a lot of that, when people are deployed, and they get together as a community. The bigger that support bubble that you have, the better off that the employee is gonna be.

0:02:31.8 Bailey Dickman: Welcome back to Public Works Radio, the official voice of the American Public Works Association. I’m your host, Bailey Dickman, and we’re back for the second half of season one. This episode is all about family. The public works industry could not work without the dedicated public servants within it, and we don’t talk about the impacts that it has on their families often enough. That’s why we’re doing this episode. We couldn’t have landed two better, more honest voices, to take us on this journey. Let’s jump in.

0:02:57.9 Bailey Dickman: Janis, in your Reporter article, I think you mentioned the negotiations between who would go to work, who would stay home with the kids. Can you tell us more about those early negotiations?

0:03:07.9 Janis Duffy: Those were difficult times at the beginning. I didn’t know that much about public works. I didn’t know what it all entailed. So when the girls were sick, or the daycare was closed, usually, it fell on me. Mike and I would talk about what should we do? And he was needed to be at work, and they expected him to be there. And if it was an emergency, like a snow emergency, he needed to be there to help run staff and the crews. And he couldn’t do that if he was at home. Trying to decide what was most important, who was best benefit to go to work, who was gonna be staying home with the kids that day… It was usually me. We had some really hard, not very good, conversations on handling that. But that’s what that’s…

0:04:00.3 Mike Duffy: Yeah. And I guess, from my perspective, it was… Janis works in a very critical field. I mean, the foster care is very important work. I mean, there’s people that rely on her as well. And so it became a really difficult balance for us. And so, where we would shake out those conversations a lot of the time, was just on… During a snow event, when traffic’s not advised, maybe, those are the better times for me to work my way into the office. But on the cleanup side of things, when I had a little bit more flexibility, that’s when I would try and get out of the office, and then she would go in. So we really tag teamed it in our careers to be able to still be successful, and get the work done that’s important. The people that are relying on her, the people that are relying on me. And I think that balance, once we found it, it really worked well.

0:04:50.4 Bailey Dickman: How long did it take you to find that balance?

0:04:53.9 Mike Duffy: It’s interesting. I think we started… When I met Janis… We actually met at the police academy. So we both had an interest in law enforcement, and went to the Cedar Rapids Police Academy. We met there. And so, we both were… Had a very similar mindset of this service to community, and where we really wanted to have a career. And so she ended up, ultimately, in foster care, and I ended up in operations within public works. So it was very easy for us both to understand. I think the struggle was really, well then, who has to wait on us that particular day? I’d changed jobs within my career. So when you’re not on the front line of a winter operations, it’s a little easier to have a lot more flexibility. And I think we both found that in our careers, but it probably took 10 to 15 years before we got to a place where we had the flexibility to be able to make some decisions about who went into work and who didn’t.

0:05:48.9 Janis Duffy: I would agree with that. I think it took us years to get there. People depended on me, people depended on him. And one of us had to be taking care of our daughters. Ultimately, that’s the priority. But it was a power struggle. Every time there was an event, the kids were sick… At one point, it seemed like they were sick every week. And I thought I was gonna lose my job. It’s like, I can’t be gone all the time. And so that created a lot of conflict with us.

0:06:24.2 Bailey Dickman: Has that balance changed, as your daughters have grown up and could drive themselves to school, or something like that?

0:06:31.4 Janis Duffy: Definitely. They became more independent. You could leave them at home for longer periods of time. There was more flexibility in our work schedules. I think… Early on, I don’t think employers were as sympathetic, especially in Mike’s work. He was expected to be there. Things got better as they got older and they were able to take care of themselves. And even when Mike’s dealing with emergencies and disasters, we have a better understanding of how things work now.

0:07:08.7 Mike Duffy: Yeah. I think the other shift was as they got older, the time shifted a little bit. So there’s a lot of activities in the evening, and things like that. So it wasn’t… If they could stay home by themselves during the day, that was one thing. But they still had that school event at night that I would miss. I think one of the things that when Janis was working on the article that she did, that was hard for me to hear, is when the kids start talking about Dad missing this or Dad missing that. There’s certainly some guilt associated with that. They’ve really let me off the hook, though. They understand it. They know there is no 9 to 5. The roads are still out there, people are still using them. There is no time clock for public works professionals. We leave, but we still have to be able to find that balance. And it always seems like those events, those emergencies, they always occur at night, or on a weekend, Christmas morning, that kind of thing. So they’ve really been good about it. And I think it’s really shaped them as they’ve grown up as well.

0:08:15.1 Bailey Dickman: Are there values from public works that have influenced you as a family, or have influenced your girls as they’ve grown up?

0:08:25.0 Mike Duffy: Yeah. I think so. They know what it takes to build a road. I think they get sick and tired of hearing me talk about those sort of things sometimes, but I’m not with them all the time. But when I do, I know they recognize construction zones, and slowing down, because they know those people that are working there have a family that they’re wanting to go home to. They value holidays and family time, because they know that they haven’t always had that. There’s times when we’ve had to do and rush through opening gifts so that somebody can go to work, one of us. And so I think it’s had a big influence on them and who they are today.

0:09:02.9 Bailey Dickman: Have you ever brought the kids to work with you? Brought them to a Touch-a-Truck, or a public works event? And what was their reaction, if they got to see what you did every day?

0:09:16.0 Mike Duffy: They would go into the office. My daughter, oldest actually, worked in public works for a while as a seasonal, in the traffic area, and gained further appreciation for it there. During flood events, we’d bring them in to sandbag stations. My daughter, the youngest, was always pointing out pieces of equipment. She knew what a Bobcat was, and an excavator was, and what they were used for. And so, we would drive down the road and she’d be pointing those out. But then they’ve also gotten into the situation where people know that Dad works in public works, and so they’ll bring home, sometimes, a list of areas that maybe need attention, things like that.

0:10:02.4 Janis Duffy: Yes. Our one daughter would say that… People would say to her, “Hey, can you tell your dad that this needs to be fixed?” Or I had… When people would ask me what I did, and then what my husband did, as soon as they found out he worked in public works, then they would start saying, “Hey, I’m having this problem with my road,” or “This happened to me.” It’s like public works just carried over into everything. And when they found somebody that they knew that worked in that line, they wanted to state their concerns.

0:10:39.4 Bailey Dickman: Despite the challenges, the Duffys look back fondly on their role as a pillar of the community, and what that meant to their family as their daughters grew up.

0:10:46.7 Janis Duffy: It was pretty neat, because during the wintertimes, the kids could see that truck going around town. And that built a sense of community, tied to the community, ownership. Just a real sense of…

0:11:00.3 Mike Duffy: Pride, I guess.

0:11:01.8 Janis Duffy: Pride.

0:11:02.8 Mike Duffy: That she had a part of that, because her… They actually put their hands in the paint, and then put it on the plow. So they actually had a hand in it. They’re actually on the plow.

0:11:12.0 Janis Duffy: And there were times… I really liked that Mike’s work did trick-or-treating down at public works. So he would bring our daughter down there with some of her friends, and they would go around the building and get to know the people that Mike worked with in the different areas. That gave a sense of where Dad goes, and who he’s with throughout the day, and a greater connection. And when he would bring them down to work, sometimes he would let them get into the equipment when they had open houses. Get in the equipment, see how big it is. And it just ties things more together, of what Mike does each day, and what public works does, and the people that work there do.

0:12:03.9 Bailey Dickman: Mike, you mentioned that your oldest worked in public works for a time, like, as a seasonal. Did your kids show an interest in following a similar career path to either of you? Are either of them following in your footsteps?

0:12:17.0 Mike Duffy: Yeah. That’s interesting, because I think they picked up the service component of it, absolutely. I think they were a little afraid of some of the impacts, I think, maybe on the family, because they went a different career path ultimately. My oldest became a teacher, because she really wanted to do that portion of working with kids and family, and there’s a lot of service in that as well. And then our youngest, really got into being an esthetician, so doing services and things like that for people, and being able to help people that have skin issues, and things like that. So I think it’s been ingrained in them. But neither one of them are sitting in a piece of equipment this morning, I could tell you that much. But in addition to that, though, my daughter has been married a couple years. Her husband has seen it. He’s actually got an interest, and has recently expressed an interest in going to work for public works. So it’s in our blood, for sure. So it’s a family thing.

0:13:25.8 Bailey Dickman: You also mentioned, your kids would point out pieces of equipment as you were going down the road. How did they react, when they were kids, when they saw a road, a park, a community project, like something that you helped make?

0:13:40.8 Janis Duffy: Well, our daughter told us that a lot of times Mike would take them out on projects. He would go check roads in the evenings, or on the weekends, and he would take them along. And she said she remembers getting out of the car, and Dad would be looking at the road, and explaining how the road was made, and what went into it. Or there was other times when it was snowing. We’ve got pictures of… The snow is… I don’t even know how… It’s above the car, and we’re standing in the middle of the road. And Mike would take us out to roads, and see what the road conditions were like, and what it takes to plow those, and the people that are doing that job, instead of just sitting at home and not really knowing what goes all into it.

0:14:39.3 Mike Duffy: And they’re not all good stories, though. I remember my… Janice had gotten a new vehicle at one point. And I was out driving with her, and we decided that we would, maybe, take a detour to one of our construction projects. And I was just showing her what it is that we were working on. As we’re driving down the road, a piece of debris, a rock, flew up in the air, hit the windshield, and cracked it. And I don’t know that I’ve ever heard the end of that one. So. That was one of those days where it’s like, “Do we have to come on a construction project on the weekend?” kind of thing. It happens. But yeah, they’ve always… I think the thing that was important for me to let them know, is that these are regular people working out on these roadways with families. And what they’re doing is really important work. I try and stress that with our staff as well. We never hear of somebody saying, “Thank you. You saved my life,” or “You saved me quite a bit of property damage,” but you certainly hear about the things that don’t go right. And so, I’m just confident, I just know that the work that they’re doing out there on the roadways within public works is saving people’s lives, it’s saving injury, property damage. And those are the things that just never really get brought out. Obviously, when we have flooding, when we respond to other types of weather events and snow… We had a derecho here, which is a knockdown event with a number of trees… People recognize the work you’re doing then. They don’t always see the day-to-day, and it’s just as important.

0:16:19.9 Bailey Dickman: What role does a family play in supporting public works pros, especially during storms, emergencies, special events?

0:16:31.0 Janis Duffy: I think we play a very vital role. Mike has told me, when things are going well at home, we’re communicating, he can focus on the job at hand. He knows things are taken care of. He can keep his eyes and his focus on what needs to be done. But if things aren’t going well with us, then they’re probably not going very well at work. And it creates a greater stress for him. So I think we play a very vital role in that. We typically will pick up the slack. I will try and give encouragement, ask him what he needs done.

0:17:20.6 Mike Duffy: Well, I hope it goes both ways, too. She’s right. I mean, I really rely on that. If things are, “happy wife, happy life,” I guess. I mean, I try and find a “happy husband” version to that, but it just never quite rolls off the tongue the same way. But it’s true. When I’m at work, and I know things are good with us and with our family, it really allows me to focus on that. But part of that is me sharing. And so, when I come home, I’m not always in the mood to talk about things. If I’ve been working on something that just is very stressful, or a response to an emergency and I’m worried about things, sometimes I need some time. Janice has been really, really, good about picking up on that. I do the same for her. I know when she’s got things that stress her out. She’s a little different, in the sense that she likes to talk about those things, and so I provide that ear. For me, sometimes it’s just… I just need to let it go. And that’s hard to do in public works. Those things, like I mentioned earlier, they don’t stop at the end of the day. I mean, people are still driving the roads, the snow’s still falling, and people expect us to respond. But relying on each other, being able to help each other out, and pick up the slack, having the kids be able to help out now that they’re a little bit older, has been very helpful as well. And they do that readily, because they understand the importance of both of our jobs in service to the community.

0:18:53.2 Janis Duffy: And I think if you know what’s going on by our communication, if I know he’s dealing with a lot, it makes it easier for me to understand when he’s quiet, to give him space, to not take it personally, and to know that this is just kind of a season, and we’ll get through this.

0:19:13.5 Bailey Dickman: Do you think there’s something that public works agencies, or a public works director, could do to help the public workers better support their families, or better make things easier for public works families?

0:19:26.7 Mike Duffy: Yeah. We try to do that. I mean, one of the things that we do, is we do nights at the ballpark, and things. Because the bigger that support bubble that you have, the better off that the employee is going to be. If they’ve got people that can help them out… We’ve got a lot of different situations, a lot of different looks to what family is, and what the stresses are that are placed on that. And if we get together within public works, and we’re at the ballpark, and somebody meets somebody else, and the next thing you know, it’s like, “Well, I could help out with letting the dogs out,” or whatever it is. Those sort of things strengthen the community, it strengthens our workplace, and then it strengthens the family as well. Just being able to have those relationships is very important. So in our organization, we stress that a lot. We really spend a lot of time during Public Works Week, with different things. It’s a week-long event. We’re doing everything from mini golf, to bags, to bringing families in to be able to spend time together. We do a Christmas in July, kind of thing, where we’re at the ballpark and the families are there, and able to spend time together, and get to know each other a little bit better. And building those relationships is great.

0:20:45.2 Janis Duffy: When we got into public works, I felt very alone. I didn’t have anybody to talk to. I didn’t realize what public works all would entail. I always thought that, maybe, public works should have some sort of mentorship, somebody that you could go to and say, “What is this like? What am I gonna be dealing with? How can I better cope with things? What strategies can I do?” I think that would make families stronger, too, and be able to help support their person that is in public works.

0:21:21.2 Mike Duffy: Similar to the military. The military does a lot of that, when families… People are deployed, and they get together as a community more, I think, than… It’s something we’re trying to develop in public works, but I think we’re a little bit behind on that. And a little bit of that is because a lot of it ends up being seasonal. I mean, it’s not every night that you’ve got a situation like this, or every weekend that you’re having a snow event. But when it happens… We’ve been in situations within Cedar Rapids, where… When we had a derecho knockdown event of trees back in August of 2020, we were recovered from that the entire summer. So our staff was working, sunup to sundown, and we did it every weekend until the trees were cleaned up. And that was a huge impact on families. I mean, there’s probably vacations that didn’t happen. And there’s just a lot of those impacts that a lot of the public didn’t see. They just wanted the trees cleaned up as fast as possible.

0:22:23.8 Bailey Dickman: If you could share one message to public works families, specifically, those who are supporting their family member, their loved one, their brother, their husband, their wife, their sister, in public works, what would that message be?

0:22:37.5 Janis Duffy: I think the biggest thing is communication; talking to each other. Asking how their day is, what’s been the positive, what’s been the negative, what you can do to help, just being able to support each other in everything that you do. I think also getting involved, getting to know your spouse’s coworkers, getting to know the people that he’s with every day. They’re a team; but the family is also a team, too. So I think it’s important to bridge both of those and also to find balance. Have a balance between work and your family life.

0:23:29.5 Mike Duffy: Yeah. I think I agree with both of those. I mean, I think she’s exactly right. The communication and getting involved. I mean, it’s easy to say, “I’m gonna leave work at work,” but it’s also… I think there’s a balance between that as well. And being able to include your family in that, being able to include other families in that, gain a better understanding of what the professionals within public works are experiencing and dealing with. But then I’d also really encourage… And I do with our staff… To encourage our public works professionals to really understand what it is that they’re doing, and what the impact is on their family. And so, being able to manage that better… If they don’t recognize that them being gone from the house is having an impact on their relationship and then their family, then they’re really missing the mark on that. So they need to know and find ways of dealing with that. And within public works, I think, one of the things that we do, is we encourage those behaviors. We encourage people to make good use of their time. Take vacations when you can, schedule things, spend the time that you have today while you have it. It’s very valuable. And then we also encourage people, within our staff, to really plan for what their future looks like. You’re making sacrifices now, but those should all… Having a plan for how that pays off in the future, and being able to develop real close family relationships are important.

0:25:01.5 Bailey Dickman: Any last thoughts you’d like to share about public works, the family, that sort of symbiotic relationship?

0:25:10.4 Janis Duffy: I think the other thing is… On both sides… Mike has encouraged me to come to conferences. I think coming to a conference really opened up my eyes. The first time I went was to North Carolina at PWX, and I really got a full grasp of what public works was like. I loved hearing the president up there, talking about his wife coming and being a part and being alongside him, because he was where he was partly because of her. And I think that just opens people’s eyes to what public works is all about. You see the equipment, you do the networking, you… It just was really eye-opening for me. I think, like I said, it really just pulled it full circle for me, what public works is all about. And I think also getting involved. I got to know Mike’s coworkers, would help try and set up, like, the Christmas party. Being able to get involved, I think, makes a big difference.

0:26:34.1 Mike Duffy: Yeah. And it’s kind of funny, because when I’d go to a conference early on, it was just another event that took you away from the family. That changed when I started and had the opportunity to bring Janice along to these conferences. We almost turned it into a little mini vacation. It was a time for us to get away and spend some time together. After a while, it didn’t take very long because she’s a very outgoing personality. But people got to ask, “Where is Janice?” I mean, I think she’s more popular at these conferences than I am. People like to see her, and I think that’s fantastic. She’s spoken at a number of conferences now, not just at the national level, but really involved at the state level as well. And that is just another way that it just makes things a lot easier on me because she’s a part of it. We’re doing it together.

0:27:30.9 Bailey Dickman: Thank you for listening to Public Works Radio, the official voice of the American Public Works Association. And a special thank you to today’s guests, Janice and Mike Duffy. Check out Janice’s Reporter article in the description of this episode, and make sure you subscribe to Public Works Radio wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Rate it, review it, and forward us along to a friend. And don’t be shy about dropping us a note over at podcast@apwa.org, so we can hear your feedback directly. We’ll catch you next time.