By Kris Leonhardt

Editor

MARSHFIELD — Bob Trussoni, Marshfield Utilities general manager, recently announced that he will retire Dec. 31 after a 31-year career with the department.

Trussoni began his career with the utility in 1986 supervising electric operations as the electric line superintendent. In 1999 he was promoted to technical services manager following the creation of that department. He later returned to the electric department as the electric and communications manager.

In 2005 Trussoni was put in charge of electrical and fiber-optic services. He became the assistant general manager of the utility in 2012 and succeeded Joe Pacouvsky as general manager one year later.

Trussoni said that he has enjoyed his time with the utility and will miss the staff environment, but the timing was right to make his move toward retirement.

“I’ve been thinking about it for the last few years as far as when would be the right time and just the way it worked out with the utility and with family. I’ve got 10 grandkids, and I am really looking forward to spending some time with them, so this was the thing to do,” Trussoni stated.

Trussoni said that he has seen a lot of changes during his tenure, but one of the most notable was improving the reliability of the utility.

“I know when I first got here it would not be unusual to have entire system outages where all of Marshfield would be without power. Sometimes it was for a few hours, sometimes it was for 10 or 12 hours, and we had one where we had part of Marshfield without (power) for a couple of days,” recalled Trussoni, “so my challenge was to work on upgrading the system to eliminate that problem.

“Over the years our line crew has rebuilt all of the substations, and we’ve actually added a new substation, and then the existing ones were completely rebuilt, and our distribution facilities were upgraded. Many were completely rebuilt. We went from probably one of the least reliable utilities in the state to now we are one of the most reliable in the nation.”

Looking back to the beginning, Trussoni said, “In 1986 I knew that the city of Marshfield would be a great place to live and raise a family and that Marshfield Utilities would be a perfect fit for a career. I could not have been more right about that decision.”

The city of Marshfield Utility Commission will conduct a national search for Trussoni’s replacement.