Profiles in Plowing: George Caridakis

by Matt Mullin, President, president@mantua.org

Those who braved the roads in Mantua last month during the snowcrete blizzard may have noticed a man on a

John Deere tractor clearing snow from intersections, bus stops, and roads. The tractor was not the latest ver-

sion of VDOT snow clearing, but the selfless work of longtime Mantua resident George Caridakis.

Over the course of a week after the storm, George cleared or widened Horner Ct., Prince William Dr., Acosta

Dr., Convento Terr., Tovito Dr., Okla Dr., and many others. On some roads, like Prosperity and Barkley at

Route 50, he set out at midnight to make sure he could work without endangering motorists. Along the way he

also helped clear driveways blocked by snowbanks from VDOT plows, and took requests from bus drivers on

stops that needed help.

What may have not been apparent to

passersby who saw his shiny green

tractor was that George had completely

brought the machine back from the

dead. George bought the tractor from a

farmer who had used it for spreading

fertilizer, which left much of the

machinery corroded and the transmis-

sion locked. Over time he meticulously

restored it to the cheery green vehicle

neighbors saw pushing back the

snowcrete. George honed his skills with

machinery during his thirty-five-year career in the Facilities Management department at Fairfax County Public

Schools, where he helped with maintenance of the FCPS fleet.

George got his start with FCPS while he was still attending FCPS. “I was in the vocational program at

Woodson High School,” George recalls. “I took a ninth-grade class called Maintenance and Repair. We

learned welding, sheet metal work, and small engine repair. I had a knack for small engine repair. My teacher

at Woodson referred me to a friend and colleague who was the assistant director over school maintenance. I

got a summer job working for the school system working on lawn mowers. Back in the ‘80s, almost all of the

high schools had a vocational school. Over at Edison, they had a full-blown machine shop.”

“They had a program called ICT, In Class Training, so I could get out of school at 2:00 p.m. and go next door

to work for a few hours for the schools. I was working to make a little bit of extra money, and I was spending

the money on racing go-karts. We even got a state championship out of it.”

George and his family have lived in the area for decades. He attended Mantua Elementary in 1970.

When asked about his fondest memories of the school, he remembers how Mantua housed a school for the

deaf and hard of hearing in the ‘70s. “We were there when the deaf students were integrated into the main-

stream school system,” said George, “So we had kids that were deaf, and many of us couldn’t talk to them. I

became friends with a girl named Patty, and we started learning sign language together. Kids at Mantua were

introduced to sign language in Kindergarten and first grade. We were learning the alphabet in sign language.

It didn’t seem odd to us. So when I was in high school racing go-karts, I saw a man signing with his son, and it

turned out that we were both from Mantua Elementary. We met, and then parted ways, and then we met each

other again because we all knew sign language.”

He still volunteers at the school, helping with Mantua Drama productions and set building. He’s currently

building an arch in his garage for the spring production, Shrek.

The MCA was proud to honor George this month with a small token of our appreciation, a bottle of scotch for

keeping warm in this icy weather. Cheers to George!