Ruben Cervantes
Solid Waste Management

Like Atticus Finch in the classic American novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Mr. Cervantes has been placed on this earth to do some of our unpleasant tasks for us.

Like Atticus Finch in the classic American novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Mr. Cervantes has been placed on this earth to do some of our unpleasant tasks for us. He is in charge of removing dead animals from property, roadways and rights-of-way in the city. But because of his wonderful attitude and outstanding performance, he makes it seem as if his duties are not unpleasant at all.

Mr. Cervantes has been putting his spirit and sweat into working for the city for six years, fixing tires, manually picking up garbage, collecting heavy trash and working in recycling. Not only has he never turned up his nose at those tasks, he never leaves the owner of a dead pet or farm animal without a truckload of comfort when they are grieving. He also offers encouragement before moving on to the next job.

Most often, Mr. Cervantes’ pickups are dogs or cats. But in the last two years, he has collected wild boars, an 8-foot alligator, horses, cows, deer and baby birds. Not only are some of these animals heavy, some are also under a house or in some other spot that makes them very difficult to retrieve. Yet Mr. Cervantes does it all with a smile.

When he is not at work, Mr. Cervantes coaches in the Northside National Little League and volunteers at Barrick Elementary, where his son Jacob is a student. He also helps design and build floats that appear in the annual HISD parade each October, works booths at the Barrick school carnival, helps with the spaghetti dinner fund raiser and serves as a “listening buddy” in the reading program.

And when a vacant lot across the campus needed cleaning, Mr. Cervantes led the effort – even getting the people who put the garbage, old tires and debris there involved in the cleanup.

Solid Waste Management Director Buck Buchanan says Mr. Cervantes is courteous, polite, helpful and the epitome of the can-do spirit. For all he does in making Houston a better place to live, we proudly present the Bravo Award to Ruben Cervantes.