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K.C. Water Services director to retire
Frank Pogge has done a lot, seen a lot in 41 years at department
By Gene Hanson
He has served under six mayors and eight city managers during his more than 41 years in Kansas City’s Water Services Department.
And Frank Pogge will call its quits on Monday, Dec. 31, when he retires from his job as director of the city’s water department.
Unlike so many employees in the public sector, Pogge has stayed with the department ever since he first began working for the city in September 1966 in the department’s laboratory services division. He worked his way up to assistant chief of water supply, manager of water supply, deputy director of the department, and then in March 2003 was named department director.
“The changes have been unbelievable,” he said. “There has been a lot of modernization and automation. Technology has taken over a lot of the work, and that’s good. It is getting difficult to find qualified workers in our field. Utilities have been hard hit by a shortage of manpower.”
He said that applied a lot to the meter reader.
“That’s hard and rigorous work,” he said. “You deal with the elements, and you have to deal with customers as well as four-legged creatures. The average tenure of a meter reader is one and a half years.”
Citywide, Pogge has also seen a lot of changes.
“The growth in the Northland has been really something,” he said. “When I moved to the Northland, the Metro North shopping center was being built. The Northland was projected to explode in growth in the mid- to late 1970s. That didn’t occur, but it has made up for lost ground in recent years.”
He said he thought the downtown renewal with the new Sprint Center and Kansas City Live would be good for the city.
But infrastructure, particularly sewer and water, continue to be a huge challenge, Pogge said.
“Most of the sewer and water lines are over a century old, and some predate the Civil War,” he said. “The price tag on that will be about $3 billion, but it will be spent over a 20- to 25-year period.”
He said the $500 million revenue bond issue passed by voters would be spent mostly for upgrades, and not a lot would go for the city’s wet weather program.
“There are some things I would have liked to have seen completed before I left, but I will leave that to others to continue,” he said. “I was lucky that in my 41 years I never was involved in a layoff or had to direct a layoff. We did personnel cuts through attrition and retirements.”
And a lot of things got put on hold after his wife became ill and passed away. So in the immediate future, Pogge said, he has “a lot of stuff to do around the house.”
Then he plans to travel extensively in Scotland and northern Europe.
“I’m ready to go,” he said.
Business Editor Gene Hanson can be reached at 389-6638 or ghanson@npgco.com.
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And Frank Pogge will call its quits on Monday, Dec. 31, when he retires from his job as director of the city’s water department.
Unlike so many employees in the public sector, Pogge has stayed with the department ever since he first began working for the city in September 1966 in the department’s laboratory services division. He worked his way up to assistant chief of water supply, manager of water supply, deputy director of the department, and then in March 2003 was named department director.
“The changes have been unbelievable,” he said. “There has been a lot of modernization and automation. Technology has taken over a lot of the work, and that’s good. It is getting difficult to find qualified workers in our field. Utilities have been hard hit by a shortage of manpower.”
He said that applied a lot to the meter reader.
“That’s hard and rigorous work,” he said. “You deal with the elements, and you have to deal with customers as well as four-legged creatures. The average tenure of a meter reader is one and a half years.”
Citywide, Pogge has also seen a lot of changes.
“The growth in the Northland has been really something,” he said. “When I moved to the Northland, the Metro North shopping center was being built. The Northland was projected to explode in growth in the mid- to late 1970s. That didn’t occur, but it has made up for lost ground in recent years.”
He said he thought the downtown renewal with the new Sprint Center and Kansas City Live would be good for the city.
But infrastructure, particularly sewer and water, continue to be a huge challenge, Pogge said.
“Most of the sewer and water lines are over a century old, and some predate the Civil War,” he said. “The price tag on that will be about $3 billion, but it will be spent over a 20- to 25-year period.”
He said the $500 million revenue bond issue passed by voters would be spent mostly for upgrades, and not a lot would go for the city’s wet weather program.
“There are some things I would have liked to have seen completed before I left, but I will leave that to others to continue,” he said. “I was lucky that in my 41 years I never was involved in a layoff or had to direct a layoff. We did personnel cuts through attrition and retirements.”
And a lot of things got put on hold after his wife became ill and passed away. So in the immediate future, Pogge said, he has “a lot of stuff to do around the house.”
Then he plans to travel extensively in Scotland and northern Europe.
“I’m ready to go,” he said.
Business Editor Gene Hanson can be reached at 389-6638 or ghanson@npgco.com.