With former Fountain Hills Unified School District Transportation Director Tim Siemon retiring at the close of the 2012-13 school year, district employee Robert DeWolf has stepped up to take on the job of directing and organizing the flow of students to and from school and extracurricular activities.

As the new transportation director, DeWolf said he and his staff are ready for the new school year.

Before joining the FHUSD team, DeWolf was working with fleet dealership Auto Safety House in Phoenix. Prior to that, he spent 15 years working in public transit.

“I’ve been working in transportation for 20 years now,” DeWolf said.

“I’m from Wyoming originally. I came down to Arizona for school and then started working with the City of Phoenix.”

DeWolf first started working in Fountain Hills two-and-a-half years ago. He came out to do some service work for the district, which is when Siemon told him that they were on the lookout for a new mechanic.

DeWolf has been filling that role ever since and, at the start of July, he switched over to his new position as transportation director.

“I’ve always been into fleet transportation of some type. That’s the field I fell into,” DeWolf explained.

“The challenges are always different. I’m doing different things, day to day. I think that’s what I like about it.”

DeWolf said his first month at the new job has been extremely busy, moving in to take over just a few weeks before the new school year, tackling an audit and refining bus routes immediately after walking in the door.

“There wasn’t any error of any kind, actually. It’s just that the person on their end didn’t exactly understand what they were looking at. So we spent two days going through years’ worth of paperwork for nothing,” he said with a laugh in referencing the audit.

“The main focus now has been bus routes. We took them offline for a while because we had made a lot of changes that were not current. We want to make sure what they see is what we’re currently doing.”

DeWolf said the FHUSD is using new routing software to help maintain and provide bus route information, but his short period of time behind the big desk hasn’t been enough to get the program up and running before the start of the new school year.

“Eventually you’ll be able to go onto the site, plug in your address and see exactly where the closest bus stop is,” DeWolf said.

“But we just got the software and we’ve still got a lot of information to add to it before it’s ready to go.”

Earlier this year, long-time bus driver and Fountain Hills staple Manny Cassar retired for what must have been the 10th time in his life.

DeWolf chuckled when he revealed that Cassar was coming back to help run a route on Wednesdays but, otherwise, he said his staff is mostly made up of the same familiar faces kids have grown used to over the year.

“Manny will actually be helping the new driver learn his old route for a couple of weeks, so the kids will get to see him a bit more as the transition occurs,” DeWolf said.

“Then he’ll be filling in for me on Wednesdays with a route so, no, Manny is still not fully retired yet.”

DeWolf said getting ready for the new school year in such a short timeframe has provided him with a steep learning curve, but he’s up for the challenge. He said that his goal for this first year is a simple one: Getting the kids to and from school safely.

“At the end of the day, that’s the only thing that matters,” DeWolf said.

“If anyone has a concern, just call. I like to handle things as they come to me quickly so they aren’t just stacking up on my plate. We’re like any business, trying to work with our customers, you know? Our customers are these kids, so we’re here to take care of them.”