City of North Bend release - NORTH BEND — The City of North Bend recognized longtime employee Joe Vos during the May 26 City Council meeting, honoring his 40 years of full-time service to the residents, businesses and visitors who depend every day on the city’s streets, sanitary sewer and wastewater collection systems. Vos was hired full time by the City on May 20, 1986, but his connection to North Bend began the year before. In June 1985, Vos and Albert Gouley were hired by the City on the same day — Gouley as a full-time employee and Vos as a seasonal worker in the Streets Department. Gouley recalled that Vos worked with the crew for four months that first season, including a summer spent painting curbs throughout the city. An October 1986 photo of Vos and Gouley crack sealing a North Bend street captures the type of hands-on public works maintenance that often goes unnoticed but helps keep a community functioning. Gouley later recalled that during a tsunami alert, while evacuating to safer ground in Coquille, he ran into Vos and told him there was a full-time opening in the Streets Department. Gouley encouraged him to apply. Vos did, and he was hired full time in May 1986. Vos continued working in the Streets Department until November 1993, when he joined the wastewater treatment plant crew. He later became Wastewater Collections Foreman, a role that placed him at the center of some of the city’s most essential, least visible work. Public Works Director Ralph Dunham said employees like Vos perform duties most residents never see but everyone relies on. “Joe has always been dependable,” Dunham said. “He shows up in the middle of the night, does what he is supposed to do, gets people’s sewers unplugged, gets things working, and he never complains. He just takes care of business.” Dunham said Vos has been a trusted “right-hand man” in wastewater operations for decades and has provided steady service through multiple departments, supervisors and changes in the city’s public works operations. For residents, the work is simple to appreciate: toilets flush, sewer lines function, and problems are handled before they become larger public health or infrastructure issues. For the City, Vos represents the type of practical, experienced public servant whose knowledge and reliability are built over a career. As part of the recognition, the City presented Vos with an engraved knife rather than a plaque — a practical gift that reflected his own preference. “Forty years is quite a compliment,” Dunham said. Vos was recognized by the City Council, coworkers and colleagues for four decades of service to North Bend and for the quiet, dependable work that has helped protect public health, maintain essential infrastructure and support the daily life of the community.