Monroe County officially welcomed on Monday its new Public Works Director.
Former Griffin Public Works Director Chris Walker has been hired to replace longtime Monroe County Road Superintendent Junior Watts, who will retire next month after more than 32 years of service to Monroe County.
As Public Works Director, Walker will oversee the county’s road department and fleet maintenance. Assistant road superintendent Gary Futch has been granted the new title of Public Works Operations Manager and will assist with leading the road department under Walker’s supervision while longtime mechanic shop supervisor Jeff Corley has been given a new title of Fleet Maintenance Manager and will assist with running the county’s fleet maintenance shop under Walker’s supervision. In addition, Monroe County will continue to rely on the knowledge of part-time employee, Kimbel Stokes, who is the county’s TSPLOST and Special Projects Consultant for Public Works.
Walker was born in the small West Georgia town of Woodbury before moving to nearby Griffin as a child. Walker’s father worked for Thomaston Mills and Trane companies while his mother was a sheriff’s deputy in Macon before eventually becoming a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent under the Department of Homeland Security.
Upon graduation from Griffin High School, Walker began a 12-year stint in the United States Air Force and Air National Guard, which included drug interdiction missions for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in infamously dangerous Colombia. Walker started out as an aircraft mechanic working on A-10 fighter planes in Myrtle Beach before joining a small remote unit in Kennesaw (attached to Dobbins Air Force Base) and eventually working on B-1 bomber planes at Robins Air Force Base in Warner Robins.
While Walker received numerous awards for his military service, he said his service achievements are no more significant than any other U.S. military member.
“Anybody that serves should get an amount of respect,” Walker said. “It doesn’t matter what you did. If you served and volunteered, you did something for your country.”
While Walker’s Air Force service took up much of his time, it never prevented him from achieving in other avenues as well. While stationed at Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, Walker started and eventually completed his college degree at Coastal Carolina University. And after shifting out of active duty into the Air National Guard, Walker began his civilian career, working as a land surveyor for about five years before taking a job with the Clayton County government as a construction engineer. While with Clayton County, Walker assisted in building a four-lane highway to the location of the Olympic volleyball venue in preparation for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Then, in 1995, Walker, who had two young children at the time, went to work for the government in his home city of Griffin, starting out as an engineering technician before advancing up the ranks within a year to assistant public works director.
“I think everybody’s goal would be if they had a choice, at least for me, was to work in my hometown,” Walker said. “You can feel like you can make a difference and you know the people.”
Walker spent more than two decades as Griffin’s deputy public works director under his mentor, Dr. Brant Keller. While Dr. Keller focused primarily on his specialties of water management and stormwater utility services, Walker was responsible for managing a number of city divisions, including roads, signs, fleet maintenance, the Griffin city pool, the Griffin city cemetery, the Griffin city parks (a 180-acre city park and five smaller satellite parks), and the Griffin city golf course. In 2019, Walker was promoted to Griffin public works director while Dr. Keller shifted exclusively into the watershed management side. Walker stayed on as public works director for about three years before retiring in April 2022.
Walker said he enjoyed his brief retirement because it gave him a chance to take a breath after more than three decades in the workforce. But now, he said he’s refreshed and re-energized for a new challenge in Monroe County. Walker said he strongly considered jobs in Florida and South Carolina, respectively, before settling into his new position in Monroe County. He said his fiancée Melissa and three adult children, son Chandler, 29, and daughters Maci, 28, and Ryleigh, 18, [Walker also has a grandson, Brayden, 6, and a granddaughter, Alex, 2 months] were influential in his decision to stay in Middle Georgia, but he said meeting Monroe County Manager Jim Hedges and learning more about the opportunity here locally caused him to realize that Monroe County was the right choice.
“I inherited a public works department in Griffin. That was something Dr. Keller (who passed away last week following a battle with cancer) built,” Walker said. “This kind of gave me the possibility of doing my own thing and making it mine. That was really exciting to me because I’d like to leave my mark. I’d like to leave my legacy somewhere. That’s the ultimate goal for me. It always has been. To make a difference somewhere.”
Walker said he had little history with Monroe County prior to his interview here other than playing softball in Forsyth many years ago. But the new public works director said he’s already excited about the possibilities here.
“I didn’t really know how much smaller Forsyth was than Griffin because Griffin to me is a small town,” Walker said. “The county land size is twice as big as Spalding County, but Spalding has 70,000 people and there’s 28,000 here. Which means it’s (Monroe County) wide open for development. But I’ve also learned that development is not what people are really trying to push for here, and that’s fine. You’re always going to be torn on that. But development is going to come whether anybody wants it or not. You have a chance to get out in front of it and make smart growth instead of just growth. You know I tell people all the time: ‘Henry County didn’t want to be Henry County either. But guess what, they woke up one day and they were.’”
Walker said he’s already considering making Monroe County his future home, saying he’d even give up his forever home in Griffin for the chance to live here, preferably in a barndominium on a rural lot.
“I think those are pretty cool,” Walker said. “That’s my plan if I’d have to guess today. Within the next year, I’ll be living down here. It’s just a great community.”
In the meantime, Walker has big plans for the Monroe County public works department. His first points of focus are to enhance the county’s training and safety measures for the department’s employees. For example, he said within a year-and-a-half of managing Griffin’s fleet maintenance department, all mechanics were Automotive Service Excellence (ASE)-certified, which he also expects to occur in Monroe County. He also wants to regulate the heights and sizes of county road signs to make them consistent throughout the county. In addition, he’d like for county vehicle markings and logos to be consistent and more easily identifiable in their appearance.
A more long-term goal is the purchase of a geographic information system (GIS), which will allow the county to use computerized GPS maps to mark virtually all aspects of the county’s road system, including locations of street lights, street signs, fire hydrants, light poles, etc. Walker also intends to purchase several mobile signs that can be used as traffic counting devices. He said having this kind of detailed information will make it much easier to make important decisions on road paving or other repairs or enhancements.
“I’m a data-driven guy,” Walker said. “You need to look at all the facts before you start making decision on things. And the only way you get that is by building a database so you can look at it.”
Walker said he also wants to take a more long-term approach to repairing damaged culvert pipes, saying that Monroe County, like many other counties, frequently just fixes the old pipe or puts in a slightly bigger pipe, which is often just a temporary solution.
Walker said, “I’d like to approach it a little differently. I’d like to have an engineering firm look at it, and let’s know we’re putting in what is the best thing for the next 20 to 30 years.”
In order to do that, Walker said the engineers will need advanced data, such as drainage basin geography that the county doesn’t currently have.
“Because culverts shouldn’t be washing out, washing out, and washing out,” Walker said. “If you fix it right, it’s not going to be a problem again.”
One important upcoming issue Walker will oversee is the order in which Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (TSPLOST) dollars are spent on local paving and resurfacing. Walker will utilize a road rating system that will evaluate roads by greatest need of resurfacing work. However, he pointed out that road conditions are constantly changing, and Monroe County can’t spend all of its road paving funds on damaged roads while neglecting ones in better shape right now, particularly if the traffic count necessitates work on more frequently traveled roads.
“Traffic is something that I’d like to get identified because I think that’s one of the main factors in which roads you’re going to pave,” Walker said. “Not just because it’s rated bad but if it’s rated bad and only seven cars go down it all day, is that really a priority for us? For those seven people that live on the road, it’s a priority for us. But if we’ve got a road that 5,000 cars a day on it, I think you’ve got to put that ahead of everything else.”
Although Walker has been reporting to work in Monroe County for nearly two weeks under the guidance of retiring road superintendent Junior Watts, Monday was Walker’s first official day running the Public Works Department. Watts will remain on the job until his official retirement date in mid-October as an advisor and consultant.
