PRESS RELEASE 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MAY 20, 2013 

Contact: Rachel Gordon 

(415) 554-6045

CELEBRATE PUBLIC WORKS WEEK 

Open houses, project tours among the highlights

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – In celebration of National Public Works Week, the City’s Department of Public Works will showcase projects and programs, celebrate achievements and introduce students to careers in the trades, engineering and architecture.

San Francisco’s Public Works Week celebrations kicked off Saturday, when hundreds of volunteers joined together to clean and green the City’s western neighborhoods as part of DPW’s Community Clean Team program and Giant Sweep anti-litter initiative. Events continue through Friday, May 24.

On Monday morning, grade-school students met with DPW’s design and construction teams to learn about San Francisco’s public buildings and infrastructure, and tested their budding knowledge with a model-building workshop.

The focus will shift to the building and infrastructure trades on Thursday morning, when DPW’s operations yard will throw open its gates to students and others who want to learn more about careers as carpenters, plumbers, electricians, sheet metal workers and other crafts workers. More than a dozen representatives from various trades unions and training programs will be on hand to answer questions, and visitors will get a chance to build tool boxes, bird houses and planter boxes, create dog tags, snake a drain, cut glass, plant flowers and herbs and participate in other hands-on activities.

“Public Works Week is a great opportunity to show people what we do, but also to get our young people to think about careers in the trades,” said DPW Director Mohammed Nuru. “Look around San Francisco and you see a lot of building going on. That’s going to continue for a long time. We also need to make sure we have trained workers to maintain our buildings and infrastructure once the projects are built.” 

DPW is actively involved in training a future work force for both public- and private-sector jobs, with apprenticeship programs already up and running for stationary engineers, environmental service workers, cement masons, gardeners and asphalt workers. Three more programs are in the works for carpenters, arborists and electricians.

Other Public Works Week events include a pin and awards ceremony Tuesday honoring DPW employees, and a public presentation Wednesday on DPW’s Strategic Plan, where employees will report out whether the department is meeting the benchmarks set to measure progress on everything from greening the streets and sidewalks to expanding the use of technology to make operations and inspections more effective and efficient.

Throughout the week, DPW will run tours showcasing such projects as the San Francisco General Hospital and Public Safety Building projects and the growing parklets program. Room is still available on some tours; pre-registration is required.

National Public Works Week -- sponsored by the American Public Works Association -- is held annually in May. This year’s theme, “Because of Public Works …” focuses on energizing and educating the public on the contributions public works make to improving the quality of life in our communities, from greening and cleaning the public rights-of-way, to maintaining our roads and bridges, to designing and managing building and infrastructure projects.

Press and photo opportunities:

May 20 to 23, DPW Project Tours. Please visit www.sfdpw.org/tours for schedule and registration

Wednesday, May 22 DPW making progress: Strategic Plan update 

9 to 11:30 a.m. Koret Auditorium, Main Library @ Larkin and Grove streets 

Thursday, May 23 Creating jobs, crafting futures: Operations open house 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.; DPW operations yard, 2323 Cesar Chavez St. Arrangements can be made in advance for press parking.

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