Jorge Cardenas wanted to be a truck driver since he was a kid growing up in Mexico.

Now, he drives big rigs for the city of Aurora, living out his childhood dream and being a hero for city residents who need to get from place to place.

Cardenas, who works for Aurora Public Works, is a master of many trades. Each day at work is different, he said.

Some days, he fixes roads. Other days, he picks up trash. Oftentimes, police call Cardenas and his team in to clear debris off the street after traffic crashes. In the winter, he drives the snow plows and clears roadways.

Aurora has more than 4,000 lane miles of road.

No matter what he does each day, he’s always excited to come to work, he said.

“I don’t get bored because I’m always doing something different,” Cardenas said. “I get paid to have fun.”

Cardenas applied to work for the city when he found out they offered commercial drivers’ licensing to employees.

He grew up wanting to drive trucks, he said. The excitement of moving large vehicles and the effect of that kind of work had always drawn Cardenas in.

When he started working for the city, he got paid to live out his dream.

The learning curve was hard, but Cardenas found the education fun as well. He learned to drive several kinds of big rigs, including skid steers, loaders, sweepers and back hoes.

“It’s not just the driving aspect, you also have to learn almost every inch of the truck,” he said. “It was very challenging at first, but I wanted to do it, so I said if I want to make my dream come true, I have to put in effort and that’s what I did.”

Cardenas enjoys the physical labor aspect of the job and the way it gets him outdoors, but he didn’t always drive large trucks. Before moving to Aurora with his family, Cardenas delivered pizza for his family’s pizza restaurant in Los Angeles, where more than once he came face-to-face with celebrities like Jay Leno, Shaquille O’Neal and Joel McHale, he said.

While delivering pizza to O’Neal and clearing debris from roadways are very different in many ways, both jobs have allowed Cardenas to interact with and help people.

As a food delivery man in Los Angeles, Cardenas got to talk to people and hear their stories — building relationships with regulars and getting to know people from many backgrounds.

As a public works professional in Aurora, experience is similar (sans celebrities). With all of the time he spends in Aurora’s streets, he gets to know a lot of people who share their stories with him.

“I like my job because I love people,” Cardenas said.

Cardenas likes to point his work out to his children when they drive around because it’s neat to see the impact of the work he does on the city and its residents.

“It’s an amazing thing to just go around and be able to help people,” Cardenas said.

No matter the weather or time of day, Cardenas can get called out to do work.

“If we’re not there to clean the street, how will people get to the hospital? If a house is burning, the fire department has to get there no matter what,” he said. “Whether it’s snowing or raining, we go out no matter what.”

Cardenas is an unsung hero in Aurora, Streets Superintendent Mike Morgan said.

Like everyone who does work like Cardenas’, he is not always recognized by the public for his contributions to people’s daily lives, but it’s people like him who keep travelers safe on the roads and maintain the flow of traffic — and life — whatever the conditions might be, Morgan said.

Cardenas, in particular, is the shining example of someone who cares about his city and his community members and who works hard to keep them safe and moving, Morgan said. 

If there’s a crash, someone needs to come clean the debris. In a snowstorm, somebody has to get up early and plow the roads to essential services like hospitals and schools.

Cardenas is that person, and he takes pride in what he does.