Behind the Community: Lawton principal equipment operator shares passion for keeping city clean

LAWTON, Okla. (KSWO) - Mallory Thedford has been with the City of Lawton for several years starting as a landfill scale attendant for the City of Lawton and now she is a principal equipment operator for solid waste.

Thedford spoke with 7News reporter Tatiana Scharstein, about her job and shared how having explained having a positive outlook on the job can change your overall satisfaction.

“If I can make any bit of difference at all, I feel very fulfilled at the end of every day,” Thedford said. “Just coming in here with a good attitude and kind of put everybody else in a better mood.”

Thedford spoke about what initially inspired her to pursue a career in this line of work.

“I always wanted to work for the city, and before that I was a code enforcement for bulk pick up and I drove around and taking pictures and notated out compliance bulk, and this position came open and I jumped right on it because driving trucks is a lot of fun,” Thedford said.

When asked to describe her day-to-day responsibilities, Thedford gave a detailed description of what her role requires her to do.

“So what we do is we hit those areas which we have a map on the city website, and we go a little track and pick up smaller bulk items like dishwasher and dryers or maybe smaller piles of limbs, chairs, tables you know that sort of things and we trying clear little piles out for the bigger grapple trucks come through and get the big things like couches and beds and things like that and tree stumps,” Thedford said.

Thedford described what takes place toward the end of the workweek.

“And Thursday and Friday typically if we get done on time we will deep clean any kind of little maintenance for the trucks that need to be done and ready for the next week,” Thedford said.

“It’s the end of the day I’ve got my tires all aired up and everything is good,” Thedford said. “And the last thing I’m gonna do is going here and rinse it off a little bit and make it just a little prettier than it was earlier today. The main reason is so that our reflectors and our lights are visible because we have to drive out on the city roads with other traffic and we want to make sure that we are seen and you can tell where we turning and everything like that, and it’s not so much for looks it’s more safety, and you know of course we want to look nice when we driving through the town people don’t want to see city vehicles all covered in mud, it’s just not pretty.”

Despite the hard labor, Thedford expresses joy and fulfillment in her role.

“I enjoy throwing the trash, and cleaning up the town. I feel like it’s good exercise, and I love driving the truck because it is fun, but I also really enjoy cleaning and the maintenance. It is sort of therapeutic,” Thedford said. “I feel so accomplished and it just brings me a lot of joy because it is part of our unit like we are a team.”