“Organization and efficiency”

DENTON – After a year serving as Caroline County Department of Public Works Director Robin Eaton says, “I love my job.”

That job includes county road and bridge projects, culvert and pipe replacement, tree trimming, mosquito and weed control, county park maintenance, snow removal, solid waste transfer, facilities and vehicle upkeep, and a host of other responsibilities.

“I've been here a little over a year now, and it's been about organization and efficiency so far,” Eaton said.

“I'm not looking for easy work or to make it easy,” Eaton said recently. “I'm looking for efficiencies so that then we can work on other things. If we're efficiently working on this (project), then that means we spare up one or two bodies or pieces of equipment to go work on something else.”

His team recently refurbished the homeowner trash drop-off on Old Denton Road near Federalsburg. They added new concrete pads, culvert pipe, building, security lighting, fencing, decking, ramp, oil container cover and asphalt paving to the HODO.

The HODO project was approved by the County Commissioners before Eaton’s arrival and was paid for with discretionary funds. The Melville HODO between Goldsboro and Henderson will be refurbished, as well.

“I’m a budget stickler,” he said. He praised Deputy County Administrator and Finance Director Daniel Fox for his budget oversight. This fiscal year’s budget process was the “easiest and smoothest” he had ever experienced, he said.

“I'm telling you what – not only as an employee here, but as a taxpaying citizen, I am glad that Danny Fox is the man handling my money,” he said.

Eaton also likes spreadsheets and project lists. Some of the fiscal year 2025 spring resurfacing projects have been delayed by periods of heavy rain, but so far, 10 of 39 projects have been completed. Altogether, over 252 square yards of county roads will be resurfaced at a cost of nearly $648,000.

Depending on the type of surface, crews will scrape dirt roads, and patch, pave and replace sections of blacktop and tar and chip roads. Three dirt roads are in the queue for tar and chip: Wolf, Stafford and Trunk Line roads in the north county area.

Eaton, 51, works out of the Central Shop on Wilmuth Street in Denton, where crews maintain county vehicles and equipment, as well as those of county agencies.

He has worked in public works supervisory roles since he was 22 years old, working for the towns of Federalsburg and Ridgely, and in Delaware for the city of Dover and the Delaware Veterans Home in Milford.

A native of Ridgely, he and his wife Heather live near Burrsville. Their sons Brandon and Alex have followed in their father’s footsteps as school athletic coaches. “We’re embedded in the county,” he said.

While he said he doesn’t micromanage, he does appreciate his 36-member team and insists that they enjoy vacation days without getting a phone call to troubleshoot a situation. At a recent staff appreciation luncheon, he developed a Jeopardy game and awarded gift cards donated by county businesses.

Eaton knows someday someone else will take over his job, and he wants to leave a well-organized, efficient legacy and method of finding needed information. “My philosophy is that I want everyone in our organization to know if something (were) to happen (to a team member), that everything will continue, and it continues for the citizens.”

He said that while he values the people he supervises, the work needs to continue, even if an employee is sidelined by an emergency or illness.

“We need to keep operating for the citizens, and I'm in that boat too,” Easton said. “I need to let my staff know as much as I'm allowed to tell them about the projects. And at the end of the day, if I'm off or something happens to me, Caroline County Public Works is still going to keep going, and that's a goal of mine.”