Devin Cornish, 22, of Ames started work Monday, Aug. 23, as the newest member of the Wastewater Treatment Plant team. Cornish takes the place of Jayson Kingsbury, who recently moved into a new City role as Building and Grounds Coordinator for the Parks and Recreation Department.
Cornish is originally from Webster City, where he was a member of the conference champion Lynx basketball team and graduated from high school in 2017.
After high school, he applied for a position doing wastewater treatment with the Van Diest Supply Company in Webster City. He’s been working there for the past four years.
“In the job with Van Diest, I was doing chemical treatment and chemical safety processes,” Cornish said. He learned about things like removing impurities, oxidation, and carbon filters.
Mark Jones, Wastewater Treatment Plant Superintendent, said, “He had an understanding of the basic processes. Here, it will be more about physical and biological processes.” And, there will be the learning of Nevada’s current trickling filter plant, and later the learning of Nevada’s new activated sludge plant when the new wastewater treatment plant project is completed.
Cornish looks forward to the learning process. Wastewater treatment has become more than a job to him. It’s a career.
For the past three years, Cornish has been living in Ames, where his fiancée is attending Iowa State University. He was making the daily commute between Ames and Webster City, and while the distance of the drive didn’t bother him, the shift he worked on, the second shift, did start to weigh on him. “It felt like life was just work, work, work, and there was never time to spend with my fiancée,” he said.
His job in Nevada will provide regular day hours and much less time commuting. Cornish also likes living in Story County, where there are lots of things to do. “We like going out to eat and … bowling and miniature golf.”
Cornish also enjoys playing video games with friends and said he is a fan of superheroes and their stories. “I actually took a photo with Stan Lee (creator of Marvel comics).”
