Julie Hunt has been connected to the City of Arlington in one way or another for three decades - though, to be fair, she started not long after high school as a collegian majoring in civil engineering.

As she retires as Director of Water Utilities this month, the one thing she'll miss about the City employees who worked with her is this steadfast commitment to quality and service to customers, which makes sense, seeing that it's the very thing Hunt is known for having possessed during her municipal tenure.

Hunt leaves the City's Water Utilities Department in solid shape and with a laundry list of notable honors, such as the Sidney L. Allison Award (for significant contributions to maintenance of wastewater collection and pumping stations) the Watermark Award (for the "Go with the Flow" Toilet Distribution program) and the R.B. Batchelor Memorial Safety Award (recognizing exceptional safety programs).

A number of her staff have been singled out for awards, as well as Hunt herself, including the Top Ten Public Works Leader of the Year for her record of accomplishments, which prompted Mayor Robert Cluck to describe her as "one of the City's most talented and respected employees."

"Julie has consistently demonstrated superb engineering talent and visionary leadership skills that have allowed her to bring value to the organization," he said.

Hunt and the City connected back in 1981 through the college work-study program Cooperative Education and was eventually hired full time as a graduate engineer in the Public Works Department.

She spent 12 years in that department before accepting a position as GIS (Geographic Information System) manager in 1996, assistant director of operations for Water Utilities in 2003, interim director of Water Utilities in 2005 and director in 2006.

She's most proud of how strong the City's system of manipulating and analyzing various types of geographical data has become, the Lake Arlington Master Plan and certainly the pilot study on ways to engineer biofiltration for optimal performance.

Hunt grew up in a military family and moved around quite a bit, settling in San Antonio in her junior year of high school. Her love of place is for a number of places, which might have something to do with her affinity of seeing how cities work.

"I've always had an interest in being a part of how does a city grow and develop and how do you envision for a city," Hunt said.

She simply loves seeing the end result.

"Being able to plan something with a strategy in mind," Hunt added. "Without the plan you don't know where you're going and what you want to accomplish."

By Ken Perkins