February 1, 2019
Jackson steps down at Wappapello Lake with big farewell
That Cindy Jackson grew up in a town called Amity — it means friendliness — must seem pretty appropriate to the approximately 200 guests who helped celebrate her retirement this week. That she was a shy kid and once wore skirts and heels to a job at a bank might seem a little harder to picture...
Donna Farley Associate Editor
That Cindy Jackson grew up in a town called Amity — it means friendliness — must seem pretty appropriate to the approximately 200 guests who helped celebrate her retirement this week.
That she was a shy kid and once wore skirts and heels to a job at a bank might seem a little harder to picture.
But Jackson, the outgoing project manager for Wappapello Lake, says it was all of these things — from the small town to the watchfulness that accompanied her initial childhood reserve — and more that helped her succeed.
Jackson, 57, closed out her career with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Thursday, after 38 years. Of those, the past 18 have been at Wappapello, an area that found a place in her heart because of the rural area that reminded her of her hometown in Arkansas.
Bart Dearborn, 46, takes over as project manager, arriving from Sam Rayburn Reservoir in Texas.
“There’s a difference between a job and a career, and I promise you I’ve had jobs, but a career is the best of the two, because you have that permanency,” said Jackson, who mowed cemeteries, worked in saw mills, baby sat, picked peaches and held a host of other jobs before making a career out of the Corps.
The youngest of five and the only girl, her parents, Pauline and A.G. Woodson, taught a strong work ethic, she said. While their own educations ended in the eighth grade, their children grew up to graduate from college and have careers in the federal government.
“I don’t think they ever pushed. They gave you choices and you made your own opinions,” she said. “Work ethic was basically because of (my mother), she had high expectations and I guess when you look at it, she was fairly principled. She wanted you to work and have a good reputation.”
As a shy child, Jackson said she learned to be observant and listen a little more than some. The moments that might be considered bullying now, she calls “little motivators.” Like the long-ago project staff who looked down on her work in part-time positions, helping with clean up, or the jobs where she had to work harder as a woman to prove herself in male-dominated areas.
“I can tell you that in my almost 38 years of working, I’ve had fun. Now, not every day is fun, but I find the humor or the whatever in the middle of that and make it fun at some point,” she said. “I think always being happy, and I think sometimes being content is being happy, those are the things that sort of made me who I am now.”
When Jackson arrived at Wappapello in 2000, it offered an opportunity for more involvement in the natural resources management and special projects that she enjoyed.
This has been balanced with Wappapello’s primary mission, flood control.
“I think we are pretty good at balancing what we can,” said Jackson, who has seen three of the lake’s top crests, and two floods that topped the emergency spillway, adding, “The floods are probably the most sleepless nights, mainly because I worried about downstream. The part for me is that nobody was killed.”
She doesn’t lay claim to perfection, but to trying.
“I always tell people, it’s not a mistake if you tried. If you did your best and it failed, at least you tried. If you don’t try, you’re not ever going to know if you succeed or not,” said Jackson.
The Wappapello project has completed close to $100 million in work to raise roads out of flood areas. An effort to complete the last of the state road projects, at Highway D, is already in the process.
Dearborn says he is excited to come into a project that the previous manager wanted to call home for 18 years.
“As far as recreation management and natural resource management, flood control, it aligned with my ideals and I thought this would be a good place to come,” he said, adding, “I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors.”
He also likes the fact that the Corps shoots for success and achieves success.
After growing up on the move with a father who was career Air Force, Dearborn wants a place that his family can call home for a while.
“Sharing these experiences with my family, my kids, makes this an attractive place to live,” he said.
Dearborn and his wife, Monica, have two sons, Cody, 13, and Garrett, 10.
In retirement, Jackson will be moving back to the area where she grew up. She’s bought an abandoned hog farm and wants to try the women-owned farm program operated by the federal government, possibly in pollinator research. It’s another area of interest that has developed at Wappapello in recent years, with a greenhouse under construction and a pollinator trail.
The Corps has been lucky to have selfless servants like Jackson, said Col. Bryan K. Sizemore on Thursday, during Jackson’s retirement celebration. Sizemore is the commander of the St. Louis district.
“Cindy Jackson is tremendous. She has served this nation for 38 years in multiple capacities and made such a lasting contribution to the Corps,” he said.
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