Meet A City Employee: Jackson Sheppard, Project Engineer With Public Works

The City of Dalton is special because of the people who work hard everyday to make it the best place to live, work, and play in Georgia. The City is proud of the men and women working to serve our residents. This article is the first in a series of profiles we'll be running from time to time to spotlight the special people who are making a difference in our City. 

Jackson Sheppard is a project engineer with the Public Works Department. He is working on a variety of projects, but his work is focused in the area of stormwater management. As such he's involved with a number of projects to study and work to address the city's issues with flooding and other stormwater issues. Sheppard is a Whitfield County native. He grew up in Varnell, graduating from Coahulla Creek High School before beginning his college career in Iowa as a pre-med student. He later changed directions to study engineering, coming home to Dalton State College and finishing his career at Kennesaw State University earlier this year. 

Here's a Q&A with Sheppard about his career so far:

So Jackson, how did you decide that you wanted to be an engineer with the City of Dalton’s Public Works Department?

So I initially wanted to go into medicine, pre-med, I was wanting to do that and my senior year of high school, I was a baseball prospect, I wanted to play in college, so I got in touch with the University of Dubuque in Iowa, and signed to play with them. I went up there and I majored in biology the first year and was doing research in the biology department. And while I was there the first year, I played ball and everything went great but I wasn’t exactly sure that was what I wanted to do. I had actually started working here [at the Dalton Public Works Department] as my first full-time job in the summer of 2015, I was just summer high school help doing landscaping and things like that. When I came back in the summer of 2016, they had me doing stormwater inspections with our stormwater division and I got involved and that’s when I started building an interest in the engineering side of things. It was interesting to me and that’s when I started getting looped in with [former Public Works Director] Andrew [Parker] and working with him and he slowly talked me into exploring the idea of switching majors to engineering. I looked into it and prayed about it and finally decided that’s what I wanted to do, and I called my coach about two and a half weeks before I was supposed to go back to school and told him I was going to change majors and they didn’t have an engineering program so I applied for Dalton State with their regional engineering transfer program and I was luckily able to get in quickly. So I was there for two years at Dalton State and I interned here [at Public Works] during those two years and once those two years were up I transferred to Kennesaw State and finished my degree. I interned here in the meantime and came back and luckily I was able to have a position here ready for me.

So tell us more about baseball, what position did you play?

I was a catcher. I played at Coahulla Creek, I was part of the first full four-year graduating class from there.

What was the experience of playing college baseball like?

It was fun. It was a lot colder up in Iowa than it is down here. Our field was actually still frozen at spring break, so we went to Arizona and played for a while to start the season which was nice. But it was different, it’s a big time commitment. I really wanted to focus on school… I knew that I wasn’t going to pursue a professional career in baseball so the time it was going to take, even when I was focused on pre-med, I wasn’t sure baseball was going to be a long-term thing. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though, I met a lot of great people and made a lot of friends.

What was your favorite memory or best moment from playing college ball?

Best memory was actually my first at-bat in Arizona, my first college at-bat, and it was the first pitch as well and I hit a double. That was one of my favorite moments for sure. We did pretty well that year, we made it to the conference playoffs, we lost in the first round but it was a big deal, it was the first time we’d made it in quite a few years.

Back to Dalton, getting back to your career, you obviously knew a lot about the department before you came here full time, is it what you expected now that you’ve had a chance to start your career as a project engineer?

I was actually more of the mindset that I’d be focused more on transportation type of engineering work, which I still do work on of course, but the stormwater aspect of it has really been what my eyes have been opened to. That was one of the first things that Andrew told me after my interview was, “I hope you like stormwater.” (laughs) And I’ve just fully embraced it and I’ve tried to use as much time with our consultant [Arcadis, a stormwater firm] learning from them and trying to discuss things with them and it’s really been – it’s been not exactly what I was expecting, but luckily I took the classes for it and I’m fully enjoying it for sure.

What is it about working with a focus on stormwater management that has appealed to you?

One of the most motivating things and what I get the most enjoyment from is that stormwater is one of the areas in the city where you can make an impact for everyone because stormwater affects everybody both on and off the right of way. It’s one of the biggest things that we’re trying to address and I feel very fortunate to be a part of that.

So what are you most looking forward to working on in the coming year?

I’m looking forward to being able to implement the stormwater projects that we have in the West Hill Cemetery. I’m looking forward to being able to finally be able to implement these stormwater flooding abatement strategies and really just looking forward to starting to make a difference. I’m really looking forward to this Market Street corridor improvement project, where we’re hoping to make an economic impact for the city and hopefully bring more business to the city. I’m looking forward to all of that, we’ve got a lot going on right now.

What kinds of things do you like to do away from work?

I love to fly fish. Fly fishing and backpacking, that’s my way of being able to get out and clear my mind and just relax. I enjoy fly fishing and also fly tying, that’s what I do a lot of in my spare time.

Is there anything else that you’d like people to know about you?

Being that I was born and raised in this community, I get the most enjoyment and passion in my work from being able to listen to the property owners and residents and commercial business owners and listen to the concerns they have and be able to use my education to benefit everyone by making Dalton a cleaner, safer, more economically efficient city. It’s really what drives me in my work. Getting to work with community members is probably my favorite part of the job.