Phil Chien has been a facilities mechanic at Northern Iowa University for decades and the school is always sending him students who are looking for full-time work during the summer. Some of them pan out. Some of them don't.
Chien wasn't really sure to make of David Johnson three years ago when the youngster was first assigned to his detail, which involved repairing dorms around campus and doing everything from carpentry, lighting, flooring and cleaning out toilets and drains for $9 an hour.
"The first year he worked for us, he was always falling asleep from building to building," Chien said Friday during a phone interview from Cedar Falls.