[0:22] - My name is Ryan Young. [0:23] I'm an equipment operator here at the city of Bloomington. [0:26] I've been here about three years. [0:28] I was actually born in Texas. [0:30] My mom was working at Valley View [0:33] Elementary for a little while. [0:34] My father worked at a hospital in St. [0:35] Paul and we picked Bloomington. [0:37] Grew up, my backyard was Hag Park. I snowplow in the winter. [0:41] On occasion, we repair potholes, inspect the catch basins [0:45] and make sure they're flowing properly so [0:47] that the streets drain. [0:48] We do some tree trimming activities during the winter, [0:51] but as of the last year and a half, I've been both streets [0:54] and engineering and I'm assisting [0:56] with the fiber optic install in Bloomington. [0:59] As a fiber optic inspector or right of way inspector, [1:03] I'm overseeing that the installation is put in safely [1:07] and that they complied to all our local ordinances. [1:10] Prior to coming to the City of Bloomington, [1:12] my career was in culinary arts. [1:14] I was a pastry chef. [1:16] I was based in Houston for quite a while, working [1:19] for the NFL and Major League baseball teams. [1:21] I then went to the Caribbean for several years [1:24] and then the Middle East and Germany for World Cup Soccer [1:27] and Formula One racing. [1:28] So most of my career was in large scale, [1:31] high quality catering, focusing on pastry. [1:34] I then opened a bakery in Houston, [1:36] Texas in 2008 and 9. [1:38] Had a couple stores and exited that business in 2017 [1:42] and moved back to Minnesota. [1:44] Worked in a couple different things, [1:45] Baker Square Consulting, and then for the Marriott Hotels. [1:50] And then eventually Covid came upon all of us. [1:53] So at that time I left [1:54] and got my commercial driver's license or CDL Class A. [1:59] I worked in bridge construction [2:01] and freeway construction for a company called Schafer. [2:04] And then an opportunity arose here at Bloomington. [2:08] I had seen a thing on YouTube [2:10] that there was an app out there. [2:12] I researched it and found out [2:13] that the city already had the technology. [2:16] Together with Molly McDonald in IT, [2:17] we put together an Esri web interface. [2:20] It enables the teams to, in real time, [2:23] track potholes or a tree trim. [2:25] That information is put on a map. [2:27] It's on everyone's cell phone. It's in testing right now. [2:30] So we're hopefully gonna roll with it. [2:32] And the most important part is that I was given the chance [2:35] to try something to take a little bit of time. [2:37] We put together something that hopefully will be a benefit [2:40] to us here at Bloomington. [2:42] I became, over the course [2:44] of about nine years, fluent in Spanish. [2:46] I'm able to use that other skill set [2:49] of speaking Spanish out in the field. [2:50] It's been a help and hopefully this summer we'll be able [2:53] to continue that in my workout with the fiber crews. [2:56] So we were asked to be part of a TikTok trend, so we danced [3:00] and practiced a song out in the maintenance bay, [3:03] and then it was getting quite a lot of views [3:06] and it went pretty high and pretty viral status. [3:09] I joined the Bloomington Historical Society [3:12] and we just received a grant. [3:14] We are slowly incorporating all our artifacts into an online [3:19] viewable space. [3:20] It's also a small group. We're all volunteers. [3:22] So it's been fun to be part of that [3:25] and I just recently joined the board, [3:26] so a little bit more involved now. [3:28] We're doing great things over there on a small scale [3:30] and always looking for volunteers [3:32] and always looking for folks [3:33] to help us support in any way they can. [3:36] You know, I really love working at Bloomington. [3:37] Being part of the Public Works team has been great, learning [3:40] different divisions, what they do and how we communicate [3:43] and work with each other to get that common goal [3:45] of making a great community that Bloomington is.