Profile: Ron Knoche talks getting ready for Gateway

IOWA CITY - Ron Knoche has had a hand in Iowa City's engineering projects for more than 15 years. Yet one of his proudest moments stems from a stormwater retention project few Iowa Citians even notice.

That 2002 project, the South Sycamore Greenspace effort, was one of Knoche's first as Iowa City civil engineer and involved the creation of a stormwater retention region south of Highway 6 to develop wetlands, native plantings, a trail system and ultimately manage stormwater for one of the city's older neighborhoods.

It's not flashy, and it's not easily visible unless you look for it. But for Knoche, it was civil engineering at it's finest.

'When I started, it had already been worked on, the concept was there, but we never figured out a way to build it ...

At that point it was kind of a cutting-edge project,” he said.

'It really is kind of a gem in terms of the wetland mitigation in our community.”

After graduating from the University of Iowa in 1996 with a bachelor's in science and civil engineering, Knoche worked with Cedar County Secondary Roads engineering department, where he had interned while in college.

In 1999 he transitioned to the Iowa City engineering department and by 2001 was a licensed professional engineer.

The difference between those two departments was immense, and work has kept Knoche busy since that first day.

'When I came in, that first project was larger dollar-wise than the budget was in Cedar County for the whole secondary roads department,” Knoche, now 42, recalled. 'It was pretty amazing to step into that and the projects have never slowed down.”

In 2003 Knoche moved from civil engineer to city engineer and, at the start of this year, he was hired as Public Works Director to follow his predecessor Rick Fosse, who retired at the close of 2014.

Knoche admitted he didn't anticipate such a job move happening quite so soon in his career, but decided to take advantage of the chance he was given.

'It's still daunting today at times, but in the end I can't thank Rick enough for being able to work underneath him and really get the feel of what's necessary to be a public works director, or even a city engineer,” he said. 'Opportunity was there and the timing was right for myself, my career and also my family.”

Five months into his new gig, the busy schedule of an engineer still remains and has no signs of slowing down.

Immediate challenges include some departmental restructuring and filling a few positions as longtime staff retire. But the big projects - namely the flood mitigation Gateway Project - are quickly coming down the pike.

'The thing before us is obviously Gateway, it has the potential of being one of two if not the biggest project we've undertaken as a city,” Knoche said, noting relocation of the city's wastewater treatment plant after the 2008 flood as the other.

Work on the Gateway Project could begin as soon as next spring.