Delano Herald Journal

Serving the communities of Delano, Loretto, Montrose, MN, and the surrounding area

Winsted’s Kenny Radtke one of nation’s best garbage men



Not many people get to drive around town all day and get
paid for it.

That is, unless you work for a company like Waste Management
picking up garbage like Kenny Radtke has for over the past 17 years, including
when it used to be Kubasch Sanitation.

Radtke recently took first prize in a competition among
three of the major garbage packer companies for his driving and pick-up
times.

There is much more to Radtke’s job than “driving around
town,” though.

It involves getting up at the crack of dawn, hopping in
a truck, and beginning the route.

“I started with Kevin Kubasch ­ I used to
help him out when I was in school, and if there were holidays or days we
didn’t have school, I would be down there to help,” Radtke said.

He eventually got into the sanitation business full-time
throughout the summer months while he was in high school. Upon his graduation
of high school from Holy Trinity in 1983, he took on full-time status with
Kubasch Sanitation.

When Waste Management bought the company last year, Radtke
kept on with his job, remaining one of Winsted’s garbage collectors.

His boss, operations manager Michael Illg, received a call
in early October from McNeilus, which is the company that Waste Management
has make its garbage packers. The company representative told Illg about
a contest that would be taking place.

“They were doing a test ­ putting their trucks
up against other leading automated garbage trucks in the country,”
Illg said. “We had one of the first automated trucks, that had the
sideloaders, that they had put out.”

A truck with a sideloader allows for one person to pick
up garbage, rather than two ­ one driving the truck, and the other
on the back.

“A good truck and good driver can do 90-plus homes
an hour,” Illg said. “The truck makes up half, and the driver
makes up half for the productivity.”

McNeilus, which is headquartered in Dodge Center, invited
Waste Management to pick a driver that knew the handling movements of the
truck well enough to participate in this contest, and Waste Management
picked Radtke.

Radtke flew to Chicago Sunday, Oct. 20 where he met with
several representatives from McNeilus, and flew on to Chesapeake, Va.

“The next day, we had practice runs, and on Tuesday
was when we went through the course,” Radtke said. “They had the
course set up, and it was kind of like two streets with cul-de-sacs on each
end, which made it a little difficult.”

It was on a timed basis, and also on a capacity basis.
Radtke had the fastest time, just under 40 minutes, with the highest amount
of stops being picked up.

“Each company had two trucks, so six trucks competed
in the course,” Radtke said. “I drove one, and the other guy representing
McNeilus was from California.”

After the competition was over with, the president of McNeilus
flew from Minnesota on the companys private corporate jet to meet with
Radtke and fly him back home on the private jet.

“The jet landed in Rochester, and they gave me a limousine
ride back from Rochester to the Minneapolis -St. Paul Airport, so that was
pretty cool,” Radtke said.

“We have a star garbage driver right here in town,”
Illg said. “It shows that we’re a national company, but we are still
local. We are able to send local people to these competitions, and they
can come back with their flags flying high ­ it’s great.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.