Earlier this month, Carnation proclaimed November would henceforth be known in the city as Jordan Perry Month.

Perry works for KPG Psomas, a civil engineering consultant firm out of Seattle, and has been “instrumental” to several Carnation capital projects since 2020, the city posted on social media. He recently moved north to Ferndale and will not be able to work on Carnation projects as often.

To say thank you for his hard work, the Carnation City Council named November “Jordan Perry Month” at its Nov. 5 meeting.

“Jordan ensures the Carnation community is getting the infrastructure they deserve by advocating and enforcing the city’s high standards for excellence,” the proclamation said. “Jordan goes above and beyond the call of duty as a civil servant, being a helpful resource, a diligent problem solver and a sounding board for city staff.”

Perry’s stint on the Lego building competition show “Lego Masters” is also mentioned in Carnation’s proclamation. He and his friend Chris Conway got 10th place on season four last year.

“The city thanks Jordan for representing Carnation on a national stage for his Lego mastery,” the proclamation reads.

Perry first got involved with the city after moving to Ames Lake, just up the hill from downtown Carnation, around the same time that his firm was interviewing for Carnation’s Tolt Avenue Project.

“As much as most of my projects are kind of in my greater community, this was … really in my town,” he said. “That sort of proximity, I think, potentially helped us win the original project, but then later on became this really great resource where the city could hit me up at a moment’s notice.”

Perry has worked on a few Carnation projects, but said Tolt Avenue was the biggest. The $10 million project revitalizing Carnation’s main street was completed in 2022 after 12 years of work.

Perry said most of his firm’s work is for public agencies like Carnation. In many cases, the agency receives a large grant for a project, but doesn’t have the staff to make it happen, he said.

“There’s usually a lot more kind of firepower you need to run a contract that’s $10 million than a town like Carnation might have in house,” he said. “So they hire a consultant to come in and help them run the project, to make sure it goes smoothly, negotiate changes for the contractor and make sure that all the funding requirements are handled.”

Perry also worked on the McKinley Street, East Bird Street and Tolt Middle School sidewalk improvement projects. In that time, Carnation’s small staff experienced a lot of turnover: “I kind of joke that I’m the longest tenured employee at this point,” he said.

Though not an actual city employee, Perry made an impact on Carnation, according to the city’s proclamation. Carnation’s small-town feel made working there all the better, Perry said, because many people get involved in city matters.

“In a small town, everybody feels a sense of ownership of what’s going on,” he said. “They just want to feel like they’re heard and that their role in the city is important.”

Perry said he made a strong effort to notify the community of project details, whether that meant going door-to-door or answering questions on the city’s Facebook page. Connecting with the community on these projects was easier, he said, because he himself was a local.

“If I was the business owner who was being impacted by the sidewalk demolition … what would I want to receive in terms of service from the person who was in my position? I would just try to do my best to meet or beat that expectation,” he said. “I think that really helped people maybe even give me the benefit of the doubt in some situations that what I was trying to do, or the disruptions that they might have to go through, were overall going to be in the best interest of the community at the end of the day.”

While he appreciates the honor, Perry said having a month named after him isn’t as important as a job well done. But it does help to feel like all those late nights and extra efforts were worth it, he said, recounting a time he did an inspection with City Manager Rhonda Ender — in the hail and using a knee scooter after an injury.

“I was like, ‘Rhonda, don’t let anybody tell you I don’t love the city of Carnation.’”