How Public Infrastructure Really Gets Built with Dustin Boatwright

Why do we take infrastructure for granted until something goes wrong?

In this episode of On the Surface, Seth Stevens and Jordan Janet sit down with Dustin Boatwright, Chief Engineer of the Little River Drainage District and Vice Chair of the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission, to explore the systems, investments, and leadership that shape our communities every day.

Dustin shares his journey from growing up around heavy equipment in Southeast Missouri to leading one of the largest drainage districts in the United States and helping guide transportation policy across the state. Along the way, he offers a behind-the-scenes look at how infrastructure projects are funded, built, and maintained—and why they matter more than most people realize.

They explore:

• How the Little River Drainage District transformed Southeast Missouri from swamp land into one of the most productive agricultural regions in the country
• The role infrastructure plays in economic growth, public safety, and quality of life
• How major flood events have shaped modern flood control systems and transportation networks
• Why Missouri has become a national leader in delivering large infrastructure projects
• The challenges of transportation funding and planning for future growth
• What it takes to lead through adversity and make decisions that impact generations
• Why long-term thinking and investment are critical for building stronger communities

From drainage systems and highways to leadership and public service, this conversation reveals how some of the most important work in our lives often happens behind the scenes—and why investing in the future requires vision, courage, and a willingness to do the right thing.

If you're interested in engineering, infrastructure, leadership, or the future of Missouri, this episode offers a fascinating look at the people and projects that keep our communities moving forward.

Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome back to On the Surface. I'm your host, Seth Stevens, and this week I'm joined by fellow co-host Jordan Janet, and we sit down with Dustin Boatwright. Dustin is the chief engineer of the Little River Drainage District and Vice Chair of the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission. So we cover anything from the specifics of infrastructure funding to overarching life advice. But first, if you haven't already, show some love to the show and go follow, rate, and review our show on whatever listening app you're using and talk about it with your friends and on social media to help get the word out. All right, let's get into it. So why don't you start by like telling us about your background?

SPEAKER_05 0:55

Sure. So um I grew up in Southeast Missouri, grew up in Hayti, Wardell. Okay. Um Wardale's a really small town. Um I grew up in the Little River system. So my dad and my grandpa. Um grandpa started working for Little River in 1952. Uh he was a drag line operator, and my whole family's background is pretty much construction. I mean uh uncle's uh granddad, and so um fast forward as a kid, I grew up around heavy equipment. Um really early age operating dozers, excavators, drag lines, which are dinosaurs today, but drag lines um and like during the summer times when I was um when I was at home, I mean uh every day I'd get up and go to work with my dad, you know, from I don't know, seven to eight years old on. So I I I became kind of really just infatuated with um how to get things done, how to do work on the ground, what tools you need to do things better, that type of thing. So fast forward uh once I graduated high school, wanted to play baseball, went to Three Rivers for two years, pitched over there um for Three Rivers Community College, uh started um pre-engineering. Uh once that was done, uh finished up at Ralah. I've got a civil um civil engineering degree, be uh bachelor's and a master's. Um then one day while I was at Rala, get a random call from a number that I didn't really recognize. And uh the board of Little River asked me to come back and start working for them. So Oh, nice. Yeah, I uh I transitioned over and a few months later I I jumped in the saddle with Little River um and and started it it was a different piece, so they started me out. Uh the positions, the names really don't matter, but I was an assistant chief engineer, so basically I was field ops. So anything in the field was related to me. And very early on, I just kind of you know started thinking back in my childhood, the things that I saw, things that I'd done all at once. I've got this education of things that I didn't have. Yeah. And uh started trying to figure out how to how do we do more with um the resources that we have, the people that we have, how do we maximize that? And I went to work uh getting the right tools in the hands of our people in the field, and you know, fast forward to 17, 18 years later. When it comes to uh our line of work, which you know, with the levee and drainage district, uh Little River's got a thousand miles of ditches, 300 miles of levees, largest drainage or large yeah, largest drainage district in the United States. Uh, we've got 26,000 acres of detention basin. So just a lot of landscape to be able to touch. Um finding that right mix of equipment to get the most done that you can with the people that you have has really been the focus of my career over the last 18 years.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Yeah, nice. So yeah. There's a lot, okay, cool. There's a lot to unpack.

SPEAKER_05 4:08

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Righty or lefty pitcher. Uh righty. Righty. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 4:12

You definitely have the height for it. Well, I didn't have that. So I I was a late bloomer. I when I graduated high school, I I ended up growing three or four inches while I was in college. Oh, really? Which is kind of crazy. Yeah, he looked like me in high school. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

No, that's not true.

SPEAKER_05 4:26

I was I I was not a big guy, and then all at once I was. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

When I went to college, yeah. So at Rolla, you did were you there for like three years to finish your career bachelor's year?

SPEAKER_05 4:40

I was there for two and a half years.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Okay. And you were when you got the call from the board of Little River, you were still in school or you were working.

SPEAKER_05 4:49

No, I was still so I I'd graduated with my bachelor's. I I'd stuck around to try to finish out. Yeah. Um, so so I had to stay an extra semester because of the transfer and all that stuff. So I graduated in December with my BS. So I decided to stay that spring semester, and then uh ended up staying the summer part of the summer semester and then finished up part-time after the fact, but um with my master's. But um, I mean, when they made the call, they were like, you need to come now. Sweet.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Man, that is an ideal situation for a college kid.

SPEAKER_05 5:23

Yeah. And you know, when I was in college, I actually I kind of pivoted. And um J E Dunn was really good to me in college. Uh AGC was phenomenal to me in college. Um, Massman Construction was another one that was really good to me in college. And um I after that, I I really thought that um I wanted to uh I mean, of course, the Little River thing was always in the back of my mind. I knew that the chief engineer, the guy that was in charge at the time, was getting close to the end of his career. So that was, you know, that was always there, I thought, but uh until I got the call that day, I didn't know if it would become a reality or not. And it ended up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

So I guess for context, for people who may not know what Rolla is, it used probably when you were there was University of Missouri, Missouri Rolla. It was what it would have been called, but Massive Engineering School now Missouri Science and Technology. Missouri University of Science and Technology.

SPEAKER_05 6:21

And before that, it was the Missouri School of Mines. Oh, okay. There you go. You know, I've got this ring on my finger that's got Missouri ST at the top, it's got MSM uh from 1870 and then UMR on the side of it. So it's got all three of them.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Nice. But massive, I mean, it's like the go-to engineering school in Missouri, in the state of Missouri.

SPEAKER_05 6:39

Yeah, no doubt. Very practical. Um you know, you can go through there are magazines or articles and things every year that come out. But uh, yeah, ST is a really good school. Yeah. Um the the graduates that come out, certainly like on the civil engineering side, um a lot of success a lot of successful people come out of that school. They've got a really proven track record for that.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

And because of that, they have a lot of connections for with businesses and internships and career fairs.

SPEAKER_05 7:12

They've got one of the biggest in the country.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah. I mean, we've got some internships. We got some we have some full-time employees and interns working for us now that discovered us through those career fairs of the city. Oh, get out of the energy. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 7:24

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I uh it was when I was there, it was crazy because um that I guess the first semester I was there, they talked about this career fair, and uh and I didn't think much of it, and I got there. And there's businesses from all over the country that were there, just and it's interesting because they're looking for very specific types of people. I mean, they're looking for personality traits, they're looking for all of these things, and um, yeah, it was interesting. Um, yeah, that's cool. It's a good good school.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah, gives you a lot of opportunities. That's which is how you know you would have been exposed to a lot of things, AGC and these other people you're sure about from that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:05

Yeah. A AGC, um I'm actually on Mississippi Valley AGC now. I'm the chair of the scholarship. It's the Tim Orr um Bruce Tucker scholarship. Um and I think we've got close to six hundred thousand dollars, but we usually give ten to twelve scholarships a year. Well, go all the way back to that time for I was one of the early people to receive those scholarships when I was in school because of those connections I had with AGC back at that time. And um that's a that the folks the folks that are listening to this, like the involvement on that scholarship side being early on uh in you know um a support for students that are that are trying to make it through school, probably don't have a lot of money. Those scholarships make a big thing. They absolutely do. No doubt. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

And Dustin and I talked about that even a week or two ago. And Dustin's working hard at bringing that home, kind of bringing that to Southeast Missouri, giving these students even at even at CMO. Absolutely, yeah. SEMO's got a great instruction management program. Giving those giving those students the exposure to the opportunity that those scholarships offer out there. So we've been working to kind of plug plug in some uh some opportunities for those kids to reach out and grab those scholarships, which is cool. Bring that bring that money to this area and uh let's get some professionals out in this world.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

For sure. No doubt. Okay, cool. So uh you were kind of giving some background about about Little Little River. Yeah, I got it. So what is that, what is it really, you know, I hadn't heard of it, honestly. Uh lots of, you know, you're it's kind of like infrastructure as a whole. You're a benefit of it all, but it's not something you think about or realize on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_05 9:52

Yeah. You know, infrastructure is one of those things that um if you're really doing your job, if you're um if you build it well, if you um put that investment out there, you know, most folks shouldn't have to think about it. Yeah, true. Which is a good thing. But uh so Little River, uh a little background, uh Missouri became a state in 1821, 1850. So for 29 years, that gap between 1821, 1850, the boot this Boot Hill region. Um so when I say Boot Hill, I'm talking, you know, the nine counties that are in the Mississippi. So, you know, if you look at Missouri as a whole, we this area is really unique because we're right at the edge of the Ozark Escarpment. And then we've got this delta ground that comes up called the Mississippi Embatement that comes up all the way here to Cape. You know, if you go down to the Cape Airport, that is in the Delta. Um people say, you know, uh people hear me talk and they're like, Where are you from? You from Mississippi? I well, I'm from Missouri actually, but I grew up in the Mississippi Delta. Yeah. Um that's where the accent comes from. But you know, that area for those 29 years um was most of it was federally owned. Uh it was a swamp. It was 95% trees and water. Um and as a state, we needed to make it productive. As a country, we needed it to be productive. Uh, so there was there was state efforts, there were federal efforts, those failed. In 1850, um, the Swamp Act passed. And what the Swamp Act allowed was for uh ambitious landowners to come in, buy ground at pretty much, I mean, pennies on the dollar. But the mandate that they had is it had to be productive. It had to be um, had to have a tax base, had to be given something back to the state. Uh so in 1850 that passed. The the big influx at that time were timber landowners because, like I said, 95% trees and water was that landscape. Uh, bottom land hardwoods, big timber. And if you think about the time frame, that was the same time that the railroad boom was going on. So what you had in in the southeast Missouri was um uh a lot of timber um landowners came in, started harvesting the timber, using it for railroad ties, that type of thing. That happened for about 50 years. Um the the resource was not uh regenerating at all because it was too swampy, too wet. So the the big push, the big players in this game was was a group called Himaburger and Harrison. So if you think of the court courtyard hotel here today in Cape Girardeau, that was the Himburger and Harrison's headquarters. And if you look at it from an aerial photo, it's in a big H. I don't know if you ever put it I never knew that. No. It's a big H. Interesting. Yeah, oh yeah. So you look at it from Google Earth. So these guys, you think back during that time period, uh, you take all the buildings away, downtown Cape. They had a building in the shape of an H right there, overlooking the river, overlooking the swamp to the south. That that would they they were the players. And um fast forward to 1907, you know, the they they transitioned from being um a timber company to really a PR and a um a uh promoter uh or a developer in a sense of the area. So um in 1907 they created Little River with the help of others, of course. You know, there were other people involved, but they were the big pushers. And um they saw an opportunity to come in. They knew that the landscape had to be drained one way or the other. Uh, if it was drained for timber production, great, but they also saw an opportunity for it to be drained for agriculture production. Now it took a long time to get there, but you know, 1907 they formed Little River with this idea. They started promoting, going around, talking to people, getting the energy behind it. Um, in 1914, they started construction. And by 1928, they built the entire system. And just for scale, I mean, 60 they they had to move 66 million cubic yards of dirt to get there. Um, if you look back, that's more dirt than the original Panama Canal creation. So a monster project. Whoa. Uh dollar-wise, you know, roughly $10 million in those days, dollars, but you fast forward that to today's dollars, it's about $300 million worth of investment that it took to build it. Um but yeah, a thousand miles of ditches, 300 miles of levees, and and they used this concept of room for the river very early. They had they had some really bright engineers involved. One guy's name was Isham Randolph. Isham he had three big projects that he worked on during his career. One of them was the Panama Canal, one of them was the Chicago uh Sanitary Ship Canal. So he ran the Chicago River backwards and then he died on this project, the little river project. So he was a big picture guy. And then another guy uh had a very similar background that I have. Uh he was a construction guy. Uh his name was Otto Kachitsky, and Otto, um, you know, he he was the he was kind of the brains behind how do you actually get it done. Um so if you if you think about that time period, they had to go down into the swamps, they had to carry elevations from the hills all the way down, take a survey of the area to figure out, you know, even how to put a plan together. They did that in seven years. And it was all manual. All manual. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:24

And uh, you know, seven years later they're moving dirt, and then uh 14 years after that, they finish the whole project, which is hard to really hard to grasp that tenacity of that. That's a massive undertaking. Big time. And to put it in a relation, I mean, we move today we move between it depends on the year, but two and a half million to three and a half million cubic yards of dirt is what we move in a year with modern equipment. Yeah, right. Yeah. These were literally they were using wooden drag lines to do this work, which is insane. Yeah. And a lot of electric equipment. I don't think people realize uh the amount of electricity. Yeah, the lot the amount of electric equipment that was used back in those days. Interesting, that's right. They ran yeah, they ran electric lines all laid them on the ground. Yeah. I mean, pretty much, and ran them all throughout. I've got photos of some of these drag lines. You look at them, you're like, well, how is that powered? Because there's no smokestack or anything. It's got an electric line running back. No kidding. Yeah. Oh, we don't.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

I wonder what the driver of that was. Using electric over diesel or steam or whatever. Probably just to what was available there. Yeah. What was available? What you could get out to it. And scale.

SPEAKER_05 16:33

Yeah. You know, running those big units like that took a lot of took a lot of power.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. You know, I grew up here uh as well. Uh I guess all three of us, you know, have been in this area of the state our whole lives. And uh when you grow up here and uh maybe it's a young person thing, but you don't have an appreciation for what we've got. And there's this can be true of any region across the United States, but I love hearing about yeah, we have the biggest this or the best that. You know, so like when you when you look at the fact that we had a project like that of that scale that we now all benefit from to Seth's point every day. Every day. Because what would happen if that were I mean, if if that wasn't the case, we'd be sitting in a swamp right now. It would be. Yeah. At the edge of one for sure. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So it's kind of wild to think about now all this and and now agriculturally, we're we're one of the, if not the most important region of the state of Missouri agriculturally.

SPEAKER_05 17:24

Well, agriculturally, I mean, across the United States, we're one of the heaviest hitting regions in the in the entire country today. Um And that wouldn't be the case if this was all just a swamp. No. Uh the big picture today so 95% trees and water today, it's the opposite of that. It's about five percent trees, 95% open ground or useful ground. Um for scale, we make up about five percent of Missouri's landmass in southeast Missouri, and we account for between it depends on the year. Every year we're gonna be 30% plus, but 30 to 40 percent of the commodities that come out of the state of Missouri come out of this part of the world. That's wild. That was a swamp. That's wild. That's nuts, yeah. It is and the and the piece that nobody could have anticipated is this alluvial aquifer that we've got right below the surface that really makes us unique in southeast Missouri. You know, not only do we have this rich fertile landscape, but we also have water that's just right below the surface. Um, you know, there's places, certainly on the edge of the Ozark Escarpment, you know, in the springtime of the year, you can look down a well casing that's, you know, maybe drilled 90 to 120 feet deep. You can look down and see water two feet below the surface. Or, you know, you go a little further south, go south of Sykes and go down, or even closer to the state line, you look down and it's eight foot below the surface. And that alluvial aquifer, the the really unique and cool thing about it is it replenishes itself every year. You know, even when we've had these really extreme droughts like 2012, you know, everybody was concerned, oh, what's it gonna do next year? Well, in 2013, it bounced back to a higher level than we'd ever seen it. But uh a lot of that is just how we're laid out and the landscape. You know, it's kind of a if you really think about Southeast Missouri, it's kind of an island in a sense, because on the north side of it, you had the headwater diversion channel, castor diversion, all the diversions that come into the Mississippi River that create that um direct connection of water. On the east side, you have the Mississippi River that runs down. On the far west side, you have the St. Francis River, and then you get down to the Missouri-Arkansas line, you have this monster area called Big Lake, National Wildlife Refuge, which is all water. Yeah. So then we're surrounded by water on all sides. That and that, and then the system in between, you know, every mile, every mile throughout Southeast Missouri, there's a ditch. And that ditch is cut somewhere between eight to ten foot deep. And, you know, that surface water that comes into it certainly replenishes through those ditch cross sections every year. So we're pretty blessed with water in Southeast Missouri, no doubt. Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

I thought about that recently because you, you know, you hear like news stories and you see splashes all over the place of well, I didn't mean that as a pun, but uh all over the place about drought and and water rations and things, and like we've never experienced anything like that. We have experienced droughts, but never have we been put on any kind of water usage rations where you like you gotta drain your swimming pool or you know, things like that. Like it's like Which is a blessing. It's a resource that we have. We take that's another thing we take for granted right there. That's like that's never a problem.

SPEAKER_05 20:34

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that and that's one of those big picture issues, like I mean, gosh, over my 18 year career at the federal level and at the state level both. I mean, those conversations about upstream diversions, they come up. And Missouri fights for it. Um we fight or not for it, we fight against those diversions because um we understand how much of a resource we have. If you start diverting that resource, it changes the landscape pretty quickly. So uh making sure that our water rights are secure is a is a very important thing.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

It's interesting. Yeah. So how is all how is all of Little River funded? And how is it funded today? No, that's a great question.

SPEAKER_05 21:17

So the landowners funded.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 21:19

So uh today we have roughly 4,000 landowners. Back then, when it was built, I mean, those landowners funded it out of their own pocket. This wasn't uh something that a federal or state effort was put into it. These were the locals. I mean, they they put local money into it, made it happen.

SPEAKER_03 21:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 21:34

And um the interesting thing about Little River, it's a lot different from these other levy and drainage districts, is you know, going back to the Himmelberger and Harrisons, they owned a big part of the landscape. And rather than just provide a right-away for the infrastructure, they actually deeded a lot of the ground over to Little River. So today, you know, Little River is a pretty large landowner in southeast Missouri because of that. Uh now, granted, a lot of that landownership, I talk about the basins, you know, that 26,000 acres of detention basins that we have spread out. A lot of that ground uh falls in those detention basins, but the way we manage it for storage and water capacity and all those things, we farm it. So that income from the farms comes back in to fund the infrastructure, which is very, very different than other uh levee and drainage districts. Now, going back to the predominant source of funding um that comes in, of course, is the landowners. Uh a landowner in Southeast Missouri that's in Little Rivers district uh pays in about three dollars an acre per year on average. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

So that's that basis. It's kind of like part of their property tax-ish. I mean, it's it may not be, but it's the same concept.

SPEAKER_05 22:48

It's the same concept. It's more of a user fee or a um or a um an assessment is what we call it. Okay, sure. Uh on the property. Yeah. It ensures that productivity. And you know, I'm sure back, you know, you go back 118 years ago when it was formed, uh, it was a big burden then. Today, it's a pretty small burden in the grand scheme of things with the with the amount of work that gets done with those funds. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Cool.

SPEAKER_05 23:15

Yeah. That's that's the predominant source. It gets a little more complicated than that. Yeah. Um, because we do like uh with the way well, a lot of things changed over that time period. You know, I go I go back to that 1907, the 1914 to 1928. Well, if you think about this as a country, we had a monster flood in this country in 1927. And then, you know, a couple years later, we had stock market crash in 1929. A lot of people don't relate the two together, but I I've always um had this sense that that 27 flood, when you start looking at it big picture, uh, that was one of the most impactful events that we had as a country as a whole. Not just this area, not just the area all the way down to the Gulf, but the the country as a whole. And let me break it down. So that particular year, we lost a third of our country's GDP because of that flood, because of the magnitude of it. A third, gone, wiped off. 3,500 miles of rail destroyed, 2,500 miles of roadways destroyed, 750,000 people displaced. I mean, it was it was it's wild. It was wild. Um East West Commerce was cut off, and one year later, Congress passed the 1928 Flood Control Act. So that 1928 Flood Control Act, what it did is it, and for Congress to act that fast is a big deal, but what that basically said was okay, enough is enough. We know that this is a big deal. We know that this is impactful. We're gonna make sure it doesn't happen again. So when the Flood Control Act was passed, it created um what was called the Mississippi River and Tributary System. So the Mississippi River and Tributary System, a lot of people just consider it from Cairo down to the Gulf. Well, it actually runs all the way up uh to the headwater, so the top end of Little River system, all the way out into the Castor River where that diversion first starts. Um so that MRT system from 1928, and we're fit we're getting ready to um pass that 100-year anniversary, um, that created a system that provided protection for the country to make sure that we didn't have a repeat of 1927. But what it did on these small systems like these smaller systems like Little River is it took these local efforts that were put together and meshed them all together. So today, that MRT system runs from Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi. I mean, just go down the line. And then we can go across the other side of the river, Kentucky, uh, Illinois, um, Tennessee. And that runs all the way to the south and protects 25 million acres or 25 and a half um million acres of landscape that was not usable and ensures that we don't have a repeat of 1927. So, and of course, that flood catrick's changed several times since then. 1950 floodcatrict passed, and there's small incremental changes that happened, but um big picture that investment back then, you know, it started with the locals. Now at once we have this federalized system that provides this level of protection that not only protects Missouri, but also protects the entire country and our uh interest. And uh all at once we had this system that not only did we have protection, but we also had this inland waterway navigation system that uh really, when you when you look at the flood control aspect and the navigation aspect, they're really one of the same because those flood control features, you know, having that having that levee system on each side that keeps that river tamed or keeps it within its banks, it also allows that when we have these low river years, you know, with the dikes and the river training structures and all of these things, it also provides reliability on low river years. Right. So it was a brilliant, uh brilliant concept. I I think today the return on investment of the federal dollars that have been put into the MRT system have returned, and and this is strictly on damages prevented, nothing else. It looks at damages prevented, it doesn't look at economic development, it doesn't look at anything else, just damages prevented. It's it's provided a 125 to 1 return on investment. That's nuts. Pretty incredible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

And like you said, that's just what we've prevented destroying, not what we've created. 100% with that levy system at the same time, or with that drainage system at the same time. Flood control system at the same time. You talk a little bit about um well, actually, next you you kind of lead into it because obviously you've got uh a lot of knowledge on um the government involvement uh side of things as far as infrastructure in this area of the country for sure. In your in your relatively young career, you've had a lot of involvement and leadership in that type of thing, whether it's uh in the state of Missouri or through different associations and things like that. How'd you get into that? What what drew you to that? Um what benefit have you seen come from it?

SPEAKER_05 28:31

Uh so not nothing drew me to it. Uh I I wasn't looking for these roles. Um, these roles have kind of just uh popped up over time. Um I think the biggest thing is just being involved, being there, being up on the ground, showing up, um, trying to understand how things work and and uh how to make them better. I mean, that's that's kind of been my goal from from day one. How all of these other things have compounded, I mean, I I I guess you could say just being at the right place at the right time, but um also adversity, like you know, when I first came in, uh so I came in in 2009, two years later we had the 2011 flood. So, you know, trial by fire. Two years in, fresh out of school, we had the flood of record on the MRT system. Yeah. Bigger flood than 1927. I I don't think a lot of people realize that. The 2011 flood was bigger than the flood of 1927. Do you guys remember any damage from this? Right. Yeah, very little. Uh now there were certainly lives impacted. So I'm not going to say that there wasn't, but um, that system overall functioned and we passed that flood and and had minimal damage, uh, minute levels of damage compared to what we had in 1927 as a country. Um now, you know, you can get into the Bird's Point and Imagined Flood Way conversation. Right, right, right. Was that certainly impactful to the folks that lived and on ground in that area? Absolutely, it was. The part that was missed a lot of times in that conversation is that was a feature in the Jadwin plan of the MRT project. When we get to a certain level at Cairo and rising, uh, you have to activate that floodway. That floodway is roughly 140,000 acres. And when you activate it, uh, it takes the pressure off of the system and provides storage and and reliability to get that flood to pass that flood through the rest of the system. Um the day that that levee system was blown, we saw a three-foot drop here in Cape instantaneously. That's wild. Yeah. So uh the the plan worked. Well, is it perfect? No infrastructure is perfect.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Um But people don't see the bigger picture. Yeah, they don't understand the bigger impact that decisions like that had.

SPEAKER_05 30:56

And they're big. So, you know, that that happened. Um, you know, as a country, we've had this period. 2008 was really the kind of the kickoff to it, but 2008 we we had uh had a big event uh uh and it started this uh talk about high-intensity short duration rainfall events. And those type of events, so so just think of it simply. I I'm I'm from Southeast Missouri, I gotta keep things simple. You know, let's say you used to get rainfall over 10 days. Let's say that rainfall was four inches over ten days. All right. All at once to 2008, you get 10 inches in 24 hours. That's a different conversation. Um and I'm trying to think of the specific event in 2008. I think it was close to 20 inches, it was 18 to 20 inches in a 10 or 12 day period, which which again, that's not the textbook, high intensity, short duration, but it's uh it it's certainly uh a lot of rain at one time, a lot of volume. And then 2011, similar, you had, you know, this um rainfall that fell over the the east side of the river in that um in that Ohio Valley that had to come down and uh ended up being a big event. And then, you know, since then, you know, we had we've had rainfall events in 2013 and 2016. We actually had the flooding record up here at Cape. Uh, that was a monster event. Um if you think about the folks that are working um down on Nash Road, um, the water surface elevation of that flood, I'm trying to think, and I'll probably butcher this, but um, it was um 14 feet above the heads of the folks working right side of the levee, but that levee system functioned, worked, and all of those things. Uh and there was, you know, there we had five years in between 2011 and 2016, made some massive improvements on the system over that time period, put relief wells in, that type of thing. The issues that we saw in 2011, we saw none of those issues in 2016 on the uh headwater diversion channel system. But uh, you know, back to the point, you know, then you have 2019, that's the longest duration flood that we've ever had. Um, on the Mississippi is 220 days of in flood stage on most of the 2019, the longest duration flood ever. And then you just start clicking through it. I mean, you know, these things are coming more often. We're seeing we're we're certainly in a wet period. Now we've kind of transitioned into a dry period, but uh you have to have the infrastructure in place to be able to prov provide protection. Uh so back, and that's a long way to get back to the the the the point that you were making and what you were asking. How did I get involved? Being at the right place at the right time, I suppose, and trial by fire. Um, you know, when when these things happen, you either run from them or you run to them, and and all of those events, I I I I was one that ran to them, tried to find solutions, tried to help people do things, and that kind of led into um anytime something would come up, somebody'd say, Hey, can you help us with this? I'd raise my hand and say, Yeah, I'll help. And um so long way to get there, but that's I mean, in a nutshell, that's kind of how it played that way.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

That does make sense. So you I mean, you had uh you had a leadership involvement in a um a pretty important piece of our infrastructure protection in the state. Um, and that led uh through some pretty extreme events, even as a young engineer, uh somebody who's young in their career. Um, that led to you getting noticed for hey, this guy can solve some problems. We got some problems over here. So um talk a little bit about um your and and you're still part of it, but your stint with the Missouri Highway Commission. How'd you how'd you get there?

SPEAKER_05 34:53

Uh that's a wild one, man. I I I honestly don't know. Um so a little bit of so I gave you guys kind of my history on my my dad's side of the family.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 35:04

So the other side of my family, my mom's side, um, my grandpa was a banker. So first state banking trust, um, Cruthersville, Missouri. Um, you know, he he led that organization for many, many years. Uh, but he was also a big picture guy. And uh he was a highway commissioner from 2001 to 2010.

SPEAKER_03 35:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 35:27

So he had uh he had that statewide uh involvement then, and that that was the time period that I was, of course, in high school and in in college. So I was as an engineer, I was um, you know, every time I could get around him, I would ask him questions. He would bounce things off of me like 6440 when it was going on and they were talking about closing down the highway for X amount of time. He's like, Oh my gosh, I don't know if it's a good idea. And you know, ended up, they did it and it worked. It was great. Um wasn't without challenges, but it worked. So that that kind of is where um the interest came from. Uh that my my grandfather, uh Dwayne Mickey, he passed away in 20 uh 19. And um six months later or so, I get a phone call and said, Hey, uh I think that you should consider throwing your name in the hat to be on the Missouri Highways and Transportation uh commission. I was 35 at the time. Yeah, you know, I've I've got kids and uh my wife and I had literally just started a business um here in town. And I didn't know how I was gonna make all of that work, and and I I I mean my initial answer was no, I'm not gonna do it. Um and I started talking to people about it and I actually talked to my wife, she was the most brutal on it. Uh she was really upset with me that uh I I did not raise my hand and oh, she was really upset about it. She was like you know she gave me some really good, she she just she she kept it pretty simple. She just said, look, if you don't do it, who's gonna do it? Yeah. Um if you don't do it, um what opportunities are we gonna miss? And you haven't ran from anything so far in your career, why would you run from it now? Absolutely, you need to do it. So with all of that and the support that I got from other folks, um, I threw my name in the hat. And um, of course, before you throw your name in the hat, the governor has to uh have some interest in you doing it. And that that was the initial phone call that I got. And now I was told that it was only an hour or two or a month. Yeah. That's turned into I've been told that before. Yeah. That's that's turned into probably uh on a on a easy month, 40 hours, on a tough month, 60 to 80 hours a month gig. Um so yeah, threw my name in the hat. Uh it was during COVID, it was a weird time. Um it's probably six months went by, didn't hear anything on it. Uh, then one day get a call uh from the governor's office, hey, um the governor's gonna appoint you today. Um this announcement's gonna be made. Announcement was made, and um of course, what that kind of that sets off a chain of events to where you have to go through so so with the with the highways and transportation commission, um their six-year terms, they're they're appointed by the governor of the state of Missouri. And um once the governor appoints, you have to go through Senate confirmation. So that set off this chain of events of I had to go sit down in front of the Senate, the Missouri Senate, and um answer questions, do all of those things to get confirmed. The conf the confirmation, my confirmation process went through really easy. Um, I've I've seen some that were much tougher, but um yeah, that that's how I landed there. Now, to give some background on the commission itself, uh, because a lot of people probably don't know this, maybe listen to this, is in Missouri, we have uh our governance uh with you know, at the federal level, you have uh undersecretaries or you have uh folks that are appointed for these positions. In Missouri, it's different. So for conservation and for the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission, in our constitution, those are uh they set up commissions to oversee them. So the the commission uh for the highway side is a six-person commission, uh, has to be uh three people each of opposing parties, um, which was another interesting conversation when I when I came when all of this came up because I'm apolitical. Um I work for both Democrats and Republicans. Um and quite frankly, infrastructure doesn't care if you're a Democrat or Republican. So if you look on the website, I'm I it shows me as independent. And the way that came up is when they asked me what party I was affiliated with, I said, I'm independent of party. And um they said, so you're an independent. No, I'm independent of party. If if this comes down to me having to say I'm a Democrat or Republican, you can find somebody else to do the position. So when you see independent on there, um that's why. That's why. That's why. But it neither here nor there. You know, my grandpa, uh Mr. Mickey, he he from a very early age, uh, because I was also really um interested in politics when I was young. I didn't quite understand him, but I I also knew that politics were a way uh one of the one of the things that you had to learn and understand and um navigate uh getting anything done. So, you know, I got really infatuated with that at a very young age. And my grandfather, he he gave me a couple zingers for advice when I was a kid. Um one of them was uh on the infrastructure side, you know, I I just asked him one day, I said, Hey, how do you how do you navigate all of this? I don't understand how you how you keep your sanity and navigate and get these things done. And uh he told me, he said, son, you just he said it's really simple. He said, You just do the right thing. And he goes, it'll all work out. So I I kind of walked away from like, oh well, that's great advice. But before I walked away, he stopped me and he said, You don't understand what I'm saying. He goes, just understand one of these days, doing that right thing, the people around you, your family, all of these things, everything that you love, you doing the right thing is gonna impact them. And he goes, You still do the right thing. Yeah. So that that was a zinger um for advice. But one of the other things he he told me early on was because I was I was trying to figure out whether I was a Democrat or a Republican, and if I needed to, you know, it's it's all silly. But um he just told me, he said, Look, son, you're gonna he goes, You're gonna be in infrastructure work. And he goes, quite frankly, infrastructure doesn't care. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

So it's funny when you get those pieces of advice when you're young, you don't know what it means until it means something. You know what I mean? Like what when it comes down to making one of those decisions or making one of those moves, and then you hear that in your head and you're like, Oh, yeah, I was right. Absolutely. It made some sense now. Those are zingers. Yeah. So what's the role of the highway commission?

SPEAKER_05 42:49

What what uh talk a little bit about that? Absolutely. So the highway commission is the governing body over the Missouri Department of Conservation, uh the Missouri Department of Transportation. Uh so um there's six of us statewide, again, three Democrats, three Republicans, or three of opposing parties. I'm an independent, but um they are the oversight, they are the uh accountability for the department. Um when it comes to setting budgets, when it comes to hiring the senior senior leadership staff, or or really not the entire senior leadership staff, but more than the director, uh, the person that's gonna sit in that what would typically be a cabinet level role, um the commissioners decide who that is. Um we meet monthly. Um every month we go over budget, we go over um things that have come up, we let projects. So anytime uh a letting happens, that letting goes out, or yeah, that letting goes out, bids come back. Um the staff racks and stack those stacks those bids, then it has to come before the commission for acceptance if we're gonna move. Forward with those projects. So really oversight, governing, accountability, set policy, those types of things is what the commission entails. And it's a it's a lot. I mean, you know, we have a huge system uh here in the state of Missouri. We've got the seventh largest uh roadway system in the United States. Um by mile, right? By mile, yeah. Massive system. And which which is another, you know, big topic of discussion. You want to talk about the folks that have really our forefathers have done things for us that we we did they didn't know, I don't think they truly understood it at the time, but they moved the needle for us in ways that uh we take it for granted. And but you you know, you go back to the Miz to get Missouri out of the mud years, they they took a $60 million bond issue to build that if to build the roadway infrastructure that we have in the state, that's equivalent to a billion dollars today, and they had no base, nothing. And went to building from scratch. You know, that's a very similar story to a little river, yeah. Um, but really big risk takers. And um, you know, for a long time we didn't do that as a country, we didn't do that as a state. Um we've been very fortunate that over the last, and you guys have seen this first hand, but over the last six years, um we've made some big moves as a state. Um we put some real investment into the ground. Uh and that's you know, that goes back to uh Governor Parson. He he was pretty plain from day one. Infrastructure, workforce development were his two things, and uh he never deviated. And at the same time, the um, you know, with our 197 members of the legislature, uh, of the legislature in Missouri, um, we had this opportunity, we we we had surplus funding. And uh the the brilliant thing that these folks did thinking bigger than themselves is they said, you know what? Yes, we've got this surplus funding, we're gonna invest it. And they made that move to make major investment in our uh roadway system in the state of Missouri through general revenue funds, which had never happened before. And at the same time, you know, back in 21, uh a super majority Republican Senate and uh House passed um a user fee change, uh a gas tax increase, which who would have ever thought? So those big picture moves have really put us in a position to where, you know, you know, I can run through the list, you know, $2.8 billion for I-70. Now, 1.4 of that was bonding, another that was, you know, uh debt service for for the bonding, but you know, one four billion of that was cash, and then 600 million on uh 44, Ford 44, you know, 320 million to date on low volume roads, which low volume roads may not mean much to um people who live in city centers, but when it comes to rural Missouri, you know, and you look at the road network that we have in the state, that's really our roots. That's our that's that's where this all started was farm to market. And um, taking care of those farm to market roads is an extremely big deal. And that was one that was a win for all 197 members because every single one of them that put that $320 million, they saw work in their district because of it. Um but all of those investments, and there's more, I'm gonna miss them, but um, those were big picture moves, a lot like our forefathers did to where they took real chance to uh invest. And that's one thing that I always try to do is when I'm talking about infrastructure, is I like to talk about infrastructure as an investment. It's not money spent, it's not revenue that's coming in that's just going out. When you put infrastructure in place, let's say a roadway, that's 40 years, 50 years that you're gonna get out of that infrastructure. You know, some cases more than that, some cases less than that. But when you build a bridge, that bridge is gonna provide you benefits from day one to where it's open all the way to the last day that it's there. And um, you know, that's that's an investment. That's not money spent. That's that's an investment not only in the people that are here today, but the next generation and the generation after that. So, you know, when when I went when I went around to these 197 members over that time period when all of this wild stuff was going on on talks, uh, I kept the talk pretty simple. You know, our folks before us, they invested in us. What are we doing for the next generation? Can anybody answer that? And I'd look around the room. We're not doing much, are we? You know, if we were if we want to give the same opportunities to our kids and grandkids that we've reaped the benefits of, we've got to invest. And all at once, investment came. And um now, this is something that people get really confused about is investment's one thing. But if you don't have an execution arm, if you don't have the people that can get it done, investment means nothing. That money means absolutely nothing. What we ended up having in the state of Missouri, and I think that you guys have seen this firsthand, is we had a we had a we had engineering firms, we had contractors, we had this network of people that was willing and ready to get it done and had the capabilities to get that done, that all at once that energy, you know, it took a lot of energy just to get it across the finish line. But once it was across the finish line, that energy continued. And look at where we are right now. You know, this stuff happened just a few years ago. Go up, go up to I-70 right now and go across the state and look how much work's already being done on that project. And by the end of 2030, that's completely done. That 2.8 is invested and executed and in the ground. So when I talk about this, you know, the investment part is certainly important, but you also got to have the execution arm. And we're very fortunate in the state of Missouri to have a contracting community and have all these other pieces of the puzzle sitting there willing and ready. And when the when the trigger was pulled, here we go. Yeah. And, you know, that and uh you guys probably don't listen to the commission meetings, but I've talked about this a lot lately. Uh one of my major concerns moving forward is right now we've got this really, I like to talk about a three-legged stool. We've got this really sturdy three-legged stool right now. And the three legs of that stool is one of them's funding. One of them's the contracting and and engineering and all of those things, capability. And the other one's having a department that can get the work out the door. And and this may seem simple on the on the Modite side, but you look at DOTs across the country, they're not Modite. Um and if anybody takes anything away from this, uh just understand when I came in as a commissioner, I had one interpretation of what I thought Modot was, and I found out really quickly it was quite the opposite of what I thought it was. Uh, we're talking about a world-class organization. Yeah. The best of the best. When it comes to getting work out the door, they are bar none. There's nobody better in this country at getting work out the door than Modot is. So, you know, go back to that three-legged stool, you got to have all three pieces of that puzzle. Now, was it easy to get Modot in this position that we're in today? No, it was not. It took a lot of adversity and took a lot of hard things. You know, you go back to the 92 plan. That was the last time we had an adjustment in the gas tax. A lot of promises were made. Those were empty promises. They were not delivered. That cost us 30 years. It literally cost us 30 years.

SPEAKER_00 51:57

Yeah, because who's gonna who's gonna want to invest? Nobody.

SPEAKER_05 52:00

Yeah. Because you don't have trust. Right. You know, so you know, it took 30 years. You go to like the 2010-11 time frame when we went through Boulder. Are you guys familiar with Boulder? So Boulder was when 1,200 administrative staff were cut from Modine and the sheds were sold, uh, basically a consolidation. We tightened our belt because the funding wasn't there. But because of that, and and and trust me, this this led to some really, really hard times. Uh, but because of that, you fast forward to when all of this stuff happened, we were ready. Yep. We were we were hungry, we were ready, and this Modot team is absolutely incredible.

SPEAKER_00 52:41

Well, and those those thin years made them better. As opposed to some other states that we've witnessed, uh, you know, how they would handle something like that. Modot, if you know, if we, the state of Missouri, we handled that responsibly. We did. Now when the when the investment does come, we're delivering. We know, yeah, we know it's we know it's gonna be handled the right way.

SPEAKER_05 53:00

Absolutely. And you know, when it comes to politics, when it comes to the the the trust piece, if you don't have that trust, if if if if folks know, if folks don't know that you can deliver, they're not gonna give you the funding. And we were fortunate in this state that, yeah, we went through those lean and tough years, made some really hard decisions, lost some really good people within the department over that time period, but it made us lean enough to where now we're the best of the best. You know, other states come to Missouri, how do you do this? Like, oh my gosh, how do you literally six months after you put out or yeah, it was within 12 months. But uh, I mean, I-70 happened really fast. We had that first contract at the door within 12 months of the bill being signed, and it it's a big deal. Hey, a lot of those other agencies probably don't like the answers they give. No, no, no, because they don't like to be fast, right? You know, um, but yeah, really world-class team. And um, but on that three-legged stool, my biggest concern, you know, you have Modot on one side of that, you know, on one of the legs, you have the funding as one of those legs, and then you have the contractor and engineering capability in the state. If that funding starts to dwindle, that stool starts getting tippy. Okay. And there's a lot of factors that go into that funding stream, you know, inflation's a big piece of that. You know, what inflation does, it impacts it over time. What the the amount of uh user fee or revenue that's coming in every year. There's a lot of things that can impact this. Uh the the one I worry about the most is inflation. But once that funding stream starts to tip off tip, that that stool gets uh unstable. And what you end up having is this contractor and engineering piece. If the work's not there, they're gonna go find the work. We've we've already seen this happen once. You know, it took a lot to get folks back in Missouri and get them serious about doing the work that we've got. And then, you know, once that starts to dwindle, then this MODOT piece that starts to get unstable. So, you know, I I think that, you know, statewide right now, we've got a DOT that and a contractor force that can get work done unlike anybody else in the country. I mean, we're the envy at this moment, but we've got to really pay attention to this funding piece because if it starts to dwindle away, we've got real problems.

SPEAKER_00 55:22

Yeah. And that's a challenging piece. That's probably that might be your most challenging piece to manage of those three. It is. And and like you said, if you if you are managing that that leg of the stool, the other two we've proven as a state that we can take care of it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 55:38

Yeah. So um with the Modot stuff being quick, you mean what all goes into that? So you mean within 12 months they have to draw up plans, they have to get the you know, basically they have to go from okay, well, we got the green light to here's a contract that we can put out, we can let first of that right that funding.

SPEAKER_05 56:01

And I have to go back, and I'm gonna butcher this, but I believe it was July of 2023.

SPEAKER_01 56:09

I guess more like not necessarily specific timelines to that example, but what all what all does Modot have to do, like high-level process to get it. Oh, I'm that makes sense.

SPEAKER_05 56:20

Yeah, no, no, no. I'm tracking exactly. Yeah, so to to even get to a project. So, yeah, a lot of people don't know this, is you have to go through an environmental assessment. You have to have all of that stuff knocked out. You have to go to federal highway, you have to have all of the nods from federal highway saying, okay, yes, you can do this on this stretch of roadway. You have to have plans, you have to have all these different things before you ever get to a point to where you can start work. Um, Missouri does design build better than there's a nut, there's not another state that does design build like Modot does. Um that tool on the tool belt has us in a position of where when we when funding becomes available, we can move it out the door really fast. And you know, a lot of people worry about competition. Well, when you do design build and you've got three teams competing against each other, that all three of those, you know, when you do a design build project, conceptually, you have to have here's the start, here's the finish, here's the here's the must-haves. Outside of that, you tell me what you can do with X amount of money. And you three teams are gonna compete against each other, or two teams, four teams, whatever it may be. And at the end of the day, the best value proposal is gonna do the work. So that piece right there is one of the reasons that Missouri moves so fast on these projects. They're leaning into design build. They're leaning into design build. Now, here's where other states mess up. It's really hard. You know, engineers really, you know, I and I'm talking about myself here, really square brain, feel like they have to be in control, all of these things. That's tough. Yeah. When you come to design build because you're not a control. You know, you have to relinquish some of that control and let other really smart people put together this idea that they, with their people, can deliver.

SPEAKER_01 58:20

Yeah, you're talking about from Modot's perspective. Yeah. They can't control it all. Yeah. No, you can't. But it allows you to move faster.

SPEAKER_05 58:27

But this is where other states mess up on it, is they'll try to go out with 60 or 70 percent design build plans to do it. Modot's closer to the 20 to 30 percent.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 58:39

Conceptual, more conceptual than anything else. Yeah. And then let the teams decide. But that gets into the speed piece to where you can get it done quicker. And at a high value. You know, if you start going right, I could go through each one of these design build projects that we've put out since I've been on the commission. And what we thought we were going to get going into it and what we actually got, the contractors have exceeded expectations greatly on all of them. Yeah. So huge value for the state of Missouri for Missourians.

SPEAKER_01 59:16

Well, like as MODA, you can have great people that work for you, but realistically you can't afford to employ all the smartest people, right? So you lean into contractors employing smart people and brainstorming to come up with these ideas. And is that fair?

SPEAKER_05 59:33

That's fair. Yeah, it's fair. Um the the the uh pay piece is is that's a big uh that's a big piece of the puzzle with the DOT because uh staying competitive's tough. Yeah. Um but to your point, the it doesn't matter what we're talking about, but when it comes to infrastructure, if you're looking for a government solution on anything, you're probably not gonna get what you want. That's just the truth. Sure. But when you look at how can we collectively as a team all focused in the same direction and accomplish a goal, that's a different conversation. And what design build allows for is it allows for us to collectively, as Missourians, as people that care, as businesses compete to make it happen. And that's that's huge. That's a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:32

Well, and I and I mean I don't want to misspeak here, but from my perspective, being part of this organization, I think contractors are chomping at the bit to get a to get into some design build. It's exciting for them. What makes exciting for us?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:43

I guarantee you, if we pulled in any of these teams that have competed on any of these jobs, you said, is your team better or worse? Whether you got the contract or not, from going through this process, it makes them better. Yeah, I think so too. Because it's tough. Yeah. I mean, that they they're battling to try to get this work, and uh those teams learn something going through that process. It teaches our our team at Modot, it teaches them a tremendous amount going through that. You know, and this is a part that's probably not talked about very often. But, you know, I can go through these design build teams throughout the state and I can look at these different teams and I can pick out and go, yep, that person right there, they'll be in senior leadership within the department. So what it's what it's allowed for Modi to do and the commission to do is our next set of senior leaders, they're being trained trial by fire right now on these design build projects. I can promise you. Because you know, I I've saw I I watched some of these folks before they ever got involved. And then you fast forward and you look at them today, they've grown a lot professionally over that time period. It's a big deal. So uh I think things are moving in a really positive direction as far as the department's concerned. Um, you know, one of the pieces that does get overlooked a lot is we we're a 5,000-person organization. About 3,800 of those folks are boots on the ground. They're the folks doing maintenance every day. There's only about 1,200 or so that are putting out, you know, um, I guess this year it's been a little over $2 billion worth of work on the ground. It it's it's a lot. Um and we do it, um, we do it with a small um a small operation. And and I'll give you guys this example because this blows people's mind when I give them this example. Is when you look at Modot's budget on a yearly and you look at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers civil works budget on a yearly, they're pretty close. Certainly over the last three years they've been pretty close. Modot has 5,000 employees. Anybody want to guess how many the Corps of Engineers has? Civil Works. What is it? 35,000. Oh gosh. I wouldn't guess that. 35,000. Now, it's not a fair comparison because the way the Corps structured, some of that gets split off into MILCON, uh military construction, which is a different facet altogether. But just to give you an idea, yeah. You know, we're nimble, we're we're lean. Um each of the folks that work at Modot, they've got a lot of responsibility. But we've we've we've gotten all of this work and all of this stuff done because we've been lean. And um, I mean, on the maintenance side or the contracting side, I think, I think the organization as a whole is find me another DOT that can compete with them. It'd be tough.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:45

How does that benchmark against other DOTs, like total funding or total spend and employee headcount?

SPEAKER_05 1:03:52

We're we're lean. Um I'd have to go back. They do it every year, but we're typically top three um in the country on admin costs compared to the amount of work that's going out the door. Like as a percentage or something. Yeah. As a percentage. We're we're we're the we're the leanest, we're usually top three leanest in the country on admin costs compared to actual work going out the door.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:15

Okay. Yeah. Going back to funding, how do like how do you guys focus or work towards continuing to keep that funding coming in?

SPEAKER_05 1:04:27

So Modot has a dedicated funding source. It's the road fund. Um, that road fund, you know, you have licensing fund uh licensing fees that go into the road fund, you have user fees uh or the or the gas tax that go into that fund. So there are different pieces, and and anybody that wants like in-depth information on this, uh Modot puts out what's called the Citizen's Guide to Transportation Funding. It lays it out in buckets, really simple snapshot of exactly where the money's going. If you if you wrap it up and put it in a nutshell, um an average Missourian spends somewhere between $20 and $25 a month on uh a roadway infrastructure that's directly going to Modot each and every year. So between $20 and $25. You start comparing that, you know, I my my wife and I went down to Dallas with our kids here back right after the first of the year, and I spent $40 in totals in three days.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:29

In Dallas. In Dallas.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:31

$40 in totals in three days. So if you start looking at the real dollars on what we're investing, um it's it's it's pretty small in the grand scheme of things. Um what are the so what are the levers? So that's tough. Um you know, one of the one of the things that I've been really consistent on uh on my time on the commission was uh I I've seen this mistake uh Uh at the federal level, state level, all levels to where you have these spikes and then falls in funding. And I said no matter what we do over this time period, that rise has to be a consistent rise. It can plateau, but it doesn't need to fall off a cliff. Um, so how are we how are we offsetting that with bonding capabilities? So, you know, we we we can bond. Uh, one of the mistakes that was made back in the 90s, early 2000s was bonding for 20 and 30 years. We don't do that. We'll bond for three to seven years. Seven years is kind of on the high end, uh, but we can fill that gap with the bonding. Now, what does it look like long term? Right now, the projections are is pretty flat. Um, so unless we have just an influx of uh a lot more road users that are paying in on that gas tax, it looks like funding's gonna be pretty flat. And here's why flat's concerning is is flat may be okay until you start putting the inflation piece into it. And then flat starts to look like a fall. So yeah, it's gonna be a challenge. Um, how do you solve it? I mean, there are tools, the the bonding is certainly a tool in the tool belt. Um, but ultimately, and and I tell people all the time this ultimately it's up to us. It's up to us as Missourians, it's up to us as the legislature, it's up to us as the governor, or whoever that is, at whatever time period. Um, you know, these investments like that 60 million to build roadways back um at the early part of the 19th century, uh the early part of the 1900s, that was the decision we made. We said, hey, we're gonna invest $60 million in it. This work that we're doing on I-70 right now, we decided our elected representatives decided, hey, we're gonna do that. So moving forward, certainly, you know, you there's two things going on at the same time. The other piece that's going on right now is the tightening of that general revenue funding because I thought that that was really going to be the way to fill that gap over time. You know, if we continued to where we're having surplus funding, all of these things, then that was gonna be a path to where legislators could pull that lever and actually stick general revenue. Does it look like that's gonna be there? You know, just speaking big picture looking at the budget. So I don't know. That's something we're gonna have to figure out. Yeah. Um, but ultimately it's up to us. Yeah. What it looks like is completely up to us. If we want to invest, I think there's gonna be an opportunity to. Will it take some tough decisions to get there? Yeah, it will. But if if Missouri citizens want more out of their transportation system than what they're currently getting, if they want to build for the future, if they want to do all of those things, we have 109 members, n 197 members of the legislature that can that have and can absolutely um make a decision to invest more into transportation infrastructure. Um, but again, that's uh that's up to us.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:07

Mm-hmm. So there's um recently I've seen a lot of national data on like construction cost indexes and stuff like that about due to inflation, among other factors, like construction expenses are going up drastically and funding's not keeping up with it, like across the board, right? So what you're getting per dollar is less is less. So do we see that as much in Missouri? Yes. Is it help does design build and things like that help where you're making like maybe more of a competitive landscape and uh sharing risk and cost, or is it still an overarching problem? And how do we fix it?

SPEAKER_05 1:09:57

Well, I mean, it's basic, it's basic economics, you know, money in, money out, um, supply, demand, all of those things, you know, yeah, it's a problem in Missouri. Yeah. Uh are there tools that we can use that uh make the impacts less? Yeah, we're and we're using them. Yeah. The the bonding is one of those tools. The design build contracts are one of those tools. Um and we can touch on design build a little bit. You know, when you're when you're doing, when you have a contractor that's locked into a 250 million or close to a $500 million contract to do that type of work, you know, if they're not having to mob and demobe, if they're, you know, able to plan the whole thing out, there are savings there in doing that. Right. Um there's a margin for profitability there in doing that. So when we think big, uh when we think big picture, when we think um, when we don't get in tunnels, because that we've been in a lot of tunnels over the years to where we're seeing just these little pieces instead of looking at the big picture. If we continue to look big picture at projects and fund them up front, long term we're gonna be in a better position than states that are sitting there and that are letting these things go on and looking through a tunnel, just trying to touch this piece and that piece. So, yeah, that that's that that design build is certainly a tool that helps us maximize dollars. And I think maximizing dollars to the to the to the biggest extent that we can will certainly help, but at the end of the day, it does come down to the dollars. There are only so many dollars that are out there. Um dollars don't always fix it because I mean I can give you I can give you a couple of examples that tomorrow you could double the budget of a couple of states that are neighbors of ours, and it probably wouldn't make that much of an impact or a difference because the execution piece isn't there. Yeah, that's how I was referring to earlier. Now in Missouri, that's different. You know, we're maximizing execution, we're maximizing that output. So as long as we continue to do that and we don't get into this mode that we were in after the 92 plan, then I think we're gonna continue to win. Is there a silver bullet to it all? Yeah, I mean, we if we just had a money tree that we could print money, yeah, that'd be a silver bullet to it all, but it's not that simple. Yeah. Um, but you know, if we fast forward to the current governor, what's what's he been big on? Economic development. Uh he's been pretty plain about public safety, economic development, um, things that are going to put Missouri in a position to be a magnet for uh investment to come into, those pieces also help tremendously. So you you know, you put you put that combo together of, and he's also, and and Governor Kehoe is also big on work uh workforce development. But you know, you go back to Governor Parson, who was big workforce development and infrastructure, those were his two things. And then you got this governor now that's really pushing on the economic development side. Those investments that we've made over the last six years are certainly making Missouri more attractive for businesses because with that infrastructure, you know, once you have it, that makes that makes these businesses go, you know, they've already got it. I'm not I'm not being promised this. They've got it. Yeah, they're gonna come. Yeah. So that that piece can help too. Um you know, if you look at, I think if you look at our major metropolitan areas, uh Springfield's blowing up. Um it's got tremendous growth. Kansas City's got good growth, but St. Louis is not growing. Um, I think that's a uh that's a piece of the puzzle we've we've got to talk about too. That's that's outside my realm, though.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:58

That's that's Governor of Missouri gets uh tackle those issues. Do you think Springfield is like a benefit of northwest Arkansas or its own beast? Or you think because they're really not that far from each other, right? They're not. Um and maybe it's just uh center of the country, a lot of outdoor stuff, uh kind of in the Ozark Mountain area.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:22

I I I just think they are geographically where they're at. It's just so beautiful. Um they've had big investments. Uh, that that energy behind it is unlike anything else that I've experienced.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:34

So I don't know that it's because of northwest Arkansas. I think it's because they're so similar. They have a lot of white things. I guess that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:40

I don't mean that they're that it's all due to it, but that entire area seems to be blowing up, and that's probably a 200-square mile area or whatever. So I don't know what it actually is.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:52

But that's an interesting point that you're making. So so look at Cape Girardeau. Look at Cape Girardo and then look at Springfield. If you if you had to say from a resource standpoint, which area is more blessed, which area would you say is more blessed? I'd say Southeast Missouri. Not even close. Yeah. Not even close. So geographically, we we got everything that we need right here. Yeah. Just the right investments haven't happened over time. But it takes leadership, and Springfield's got leadership. I'm telling you, those they they know exactly where they're going. They know exactly what it takes to get it done, and they're getting it done. Yeah. You got to have that vision. Yeah. So I I I wouldn't I I wouldn't I wouldn't paint that saying that that growth is because of Northeast Arkansas or Northwest Arkansas. I think that um I think they know exactly what they want and they're they're they're going for it. Yeah. They got a purpose. They got a purpose. Yeah. It's no different from Popper Bluff. Look at look, I mean, you guys have been around here. Look at Popper Bluff. I mean, they basically, with internal funding on the transportation side, they cost-shared 67 all the way up to Festus. Yeah. And now they're cost-sharing uh 6757 all the way down to the Arkansas line. That's because of one town.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:12

That's because of leadership out of that area has has has had has caused that growth. So no, I leadership matters.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:23

A look into the long-term investment in the gotta have a long-term investment.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:27

A long plan, right? Yes. And those two, and there are examples all over the state, but those two are the reasons that they've had the growth is because they've had the leadership and the vision and they're making it happen. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:38

No, it's good. It's a good point. I don't know. After you started this saying I didn't want to do this uh board thing, and your wife had to convince you, you are pretty passionate about it now. I've never I've always been pretty passionate. Um It doesn't seem to me like you could have ever second guessed it at this point.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:01

Well, I mean, you guys But I get it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:03

I get it. Yeah. I know exactly what you're saying. I'm just I was also sitting back listening to you talk, and I was like, man, you are all about this. Like you know all about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:14

You and what's what's interesting, I was gonna bring that point up earlier, and something that Dustin probably doesn't know is that is a recurring theme here. Is we've we've had Seth, we've had Zach, we've had Dustin all talk about pretty big events that have led to where they're at today that they were really on the fence about. I'm not gonna do that. You know, I just that's just too much to take on. And you said it, Zach said it, and now Dustin said it. I went home and told my wife, and my wife said, Why not? Why aren't you doing that? Oh, yeah. And now here you are. I think that's a good thing. Well, that part's a that part's a big deal. It's a it's an important piece of it, no question.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:52

Yeah. You gotta have the family on board.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:54

You gotta have the family on board and you gotta have support behind it. Because I mean if if if I didn't have some uh my my my wife's is saying, if I didn't have Amanda's support, there's no way I could do all these things. I'm gone a lot. Yep. You know, I it's funny. I mean, she'll she literally tracks my phone because she doesn't know where I'm at. Like she'll ask me to do something, and then she'll go, Oh, you're in Springfield. I didn't know you were in Springfield today, or oh, you're in Kansas City today, you know. So you gotta have that support at home. And she has been extremely supportive of me and and allowing me to do all these things. And and I didn't mention this earlier. A lot of people may not know this, but the the highway commission and the conservation commission, those are volunteer positions.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:38

I was gonna ask you that earlier. I assumed they were, but yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:42

These are volunteer positions, these are not paid.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:44

Just like a board position, essentially. Yes. Like if you compared it to a nonprofit board or whatever, like they're all volunteer positions.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:52

That's exactly right. Um, and you have to be passionate to sit on a board to invest the amount of time that it takes to do it right. Um and and guys, I mean, I I'll have to brag on the rest of the commissioners that I've served with. I mean, yeah, I'm passionate, but they're equally as passionate about these things and uh from all different backgrounds. Uh a lot of people don't know, but Bob Brinkman, uh, he was on the commission when I first came on, and I are the first two professional engineers to ever serve on the highway commission. First two. Interesting. Yeah, it's it's um typically a pretty diverse background. Um which is great. Yeah. Uh the diversity. It is. There's there's you know, if I if I think through the folks, I mean, there are financial folks that have been on the commission. Um, a lot of car dealers have been on the commission, um, bankers, um politicians, some um just business folks with business backgrounds, but I mean it uh railroad executives, I mean it it it takes um, you know, having a six-member board, you've got a lot of different we'll sit down and have conversations, and you know, as an engineer, I think one way and I'm very square-brained, and then these other ideas come up, but having having people that think differently is a really big deal um on the highway commission. And um I'm the young I you guys can fact check this, but I think I at 35 I was the youngest member to ever be on the commission. Um I think that the the day I was appointed, I was the youngest member to ever serve. But that also is different because I I can tell you guys when I sit down um with the other five commissioners, um, you know, that they're they're in their 60s, some in the 70s. Um they have a wealth of knowledge. Uh, we actually have a mayor, former mayor of St. Louis, long-serving mayor of St. Louis is currently on the commission too. I forgot about that. But, you know, each one of those commissioners brings a little bit of different flavor to the table. And having those conversations, having some folks in the room, you know, of that six members, having a couple that know politics really, really well, having a couple that know engineering well, having some that know how am I gonna make these dollars and cents work? That's pretty valuable to have. And for folks to be, you know, for over a hundred years now, to be willing to volunteer their time to do that for the betterment of the state's a big deal. Yeah. It's a really big deal. Yeah. So Governor Kehoe and my grandfather served together on the highway commission. So he, so he, he has uh the current governor has certainly gotten um some of those words of advice from my grandpa over the years, and I'm sure some of the same ones. We actually, uh, both of us, I gave him this after my grandfather passed away, and I have to look it up because I'm gonna butcher it if I don't. Um but I found a notepad on his desk after he passed away. And it said lessons in life. Oh, no way. What a find. That's cool. On his notepad about a week after he passed, lessons in life. And these were his just five points. And they were literally I'm gonna read this verbatim. Number one, don't sleepwalk through life. Number two, live without fear. Three, stop complaining. Four, know your destination. Five, enjoy life.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:40

That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:41

That's awesome. That's what he wrote down. So I had a I had a um I had this little uh five by five made with those points on there, yeah, and it sits on my desk every day. That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:53

That's awesome. Pretty cool. Man, uh okay. So you may or may not be familiar with the podcast, but what we do as tradition for the final question is the the guest leaves a question for the next guest. Oh, you your question for you is what were your childhood aspirations?

SPEAKER_05 1:23:15

I mean, I don't know that I had uh like I I wasn't I don't know that I had just something that I wanted to be. Uh as a young child, I wanted You know, I I got to watch my my grandpa and my my dad worked for um Larry Dowdy, uh who was the uh who was the chief engineer of Little River at the time. Um he was the fifth chief engineer, I'm the sixth. There's only been three of us since 1932. But uh as a young child, I guess my aspiration was to be that guy, and that ended up working out. I'll be dang. But but uh as far as being a politician or anything like that, no, I didn't have any of those things. Um I I guess um working hard was an aspiration. Yeah, I watched my dad and my mom both hard workers, um, and that was kind of instilled early on. So I big picture aspirations, just um God, I I don't know. I'm I'm maybe just way too simple just to be able to live and enjoy life, I guess. Yeah. And and and enjoy what I do every day, because if you if you have a job that you truly enjoy, do you ever work? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, seriously, I mean I'm asking you.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:38

I don't think so. No, no, no, I don't think so. And there's challenges in in anything that you do, right? I mean, even if you're doing everything that you love, like there's challenges in that, but when you get through those challenges, that's part of the good of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:50

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:51

And put them behind you and you're like, that was kind of fun.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:55

I get to talk to I get to talk to high school kids pretty often. And um I always ask them, I'm like, what sets you on fire? What do you love? And you know, they'll tell me. And uh I had this one kid down in Saint Hornsville. This has been twelve, twelve, fifteen years ago. It's been ten years ago. He goes, I love to farm. I said, Well, young man, you need to farm. I said, How you gonna how you gonna make it happen? I don't know, but I'm gonna farm.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:33

He farms, he farms some of the property now for us. Yeah. Uh for for Little River. And uh I didn't think a thing about it after I left, but he told me that day was the day that he decided that that's exactly what he was gonna do. Oh, we didn't. Oh, nice for you. Yeah, so I I say that just to say, you know, whoever listens to this, whether maybe somebody in high school or somebody in college trying to figure out what they want to do in life, don't let the path that you put yourself on so far dictate what the path forward looks like. If you love something, figure out a way to do it, yeah, and the money will work itself out. Don't worry about money. Money will work itself out. Because if you're really good at something, the money will chase you.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:16

Yeah, yeah. That's great advice. Yeah. Well, thanks, man. Well, thank you guys. Absolutely. Enjoyed it. Good. If y'all enjoyed the episode, please rate our show and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and check out Delta on all social media platforms at Delta Companies, and our website at Delta C O S looks like Deltacos.com. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week.