Episode 154: MAINTENANCE OPERATIONS TWG - 2026 National Briefing

This National Briefing segment is presented by Jed Falgren Minnesota DOT and features the Maintenance Operations Technical Working Group of AASHTOs Maintenance Committee. One of the 5 Technical Working Groups of this Committee, Maintenance Operations focuses on activities like winter maintenance, work zones, and safety.  

If you want more information about this Technical Working Group you can check out the Maintenance Committee website at: https://transportation.org/maintenance/

or email its Chair Jed Falgren at jed.falgren@state.mn.us 

Watch the video and presentation along with all the other briefings on our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@Talkinwinterops or listen on the Talkin Winter Ops podcast at https://transportation.org/winter-weather-management/sicop-talks-winter-ops/ or wherever you get your podcast content.

Sign up for email notifications on future episodes and other communications associated with winter maintenance and winter weather management by clicking on subscribe on the Talkin' Winter Ops website at TalkinWinterOps.com

Thanks for listening in and stay safe out there!

Transcript

Rick 0:11

Welcome back to Talking Winter Ops. It's that time of year again when we sit down with other organizations working in winter maintenance to catch up on what they've been doing this past year. I'm Rick Nelson, and I'll be your host for the 2026 National Winter Maintenance and Road Weather Briefing Series. These briefings give us an opportunity to catch up with our partners in winter maintenance and road weather, learn about what they've been working on over the past year, and hear about their plans for the future. More importantly, they give you a chance to see how these ideas, tools, and initiatives might fit into your own operation. So grab your favorite beverage, settle in, and let's catch up with our partners across the country to hear about what's new and what's coming up next.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Hi, I'm Jud Falgren, State Maintenance Engineer for the Minnesota Department of Transportation. And for the last 14 years, I've been actively involved in the snow and ice community at the state DOT. And over the years, I've seen no shortage of new technologies, products, and ideas come along. The challenge often isn't finding information, it's figuring out what really works and what makes sense for your organization. As someone who's been involved with the program for these many years, I've come to appreciate the role the Ashto Winter Weather Management Technical Service Program plays in helping agencies answer those questions. One of the things that I've always valued most is that this just isn't theory. It's practitioners helping practitioners. It's a chance to learn from the experience of others. Avoid reinventing the wheel, and tap into a network of people who understand the same challenges that we face every winter. I've seen firsthand how these ideas and relationships built through this program have helped agencies improve safety, efficiency, and service to our traveling public. And with a modest annual contribution, your agency can take advantage of the same resources, webinars, workshops, and peer networks that have made this program so valuable to me over the years. If you're not already involved, I really encourage you to take a look at the Ashto Winter Weather Management Technical Service Program. Visit transportation.org forward slash winter-weather-management. You may find the answers to a challenge you're dealing with today. Or the next idea that really helps you move your winter operations forward.

Rick 2:54

This segment focuses on Ashto's maintenance committee's maintenance operations technical working group. And with us is Jed Falgren from the Minnesota DOT and chair of the Maintenance Operations Technical Working Group there at the Committee on Maintenance. Hey, Jed.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Hey Rick, how are you today?

Rick 3:13

Good, thanks. So what's going on with the maintenance operations twig these days?

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Well, we are excited. We've we're our our next big event will be out at the uh Committee on Maintenance meeting in Westminster, Colorado, coming up here at the end of July. Uh we've got three days of breakout meetings that we're gonna be getting together. Uh myself as chair, uh Darren Hemelink from Missouri and Alan Hanscom from New Hampshire. Uh we've got a, I think, a really nice agenda put together of things we're gonna talk about. Obviously, we with all of with uh the departure of Brad Darr from North Dakota uh and that role that he serves so well. We've got some storming of our group or forming and norming, but talking a little bit about some of the things that are happening just within the technical working group itself. Um, there'll be some up, obviously, some updates that we will provide that'll come from the Committee on Maintenance just to share with them. Uh, but we're gonna lead off on Monday with one of our presentation that is actually uh a presentation that was given recently at the winter weather management uh meeting down in Houston. And that is uh an all things liquids presentation that Craig Bardfried uh from the Iowa DOT is gonna come in and share with us. So uh uh liquids are a passion to Craig. Uh they're a passion across the country, and and quite frankly, they're a passion of mine. And so it's one of the early things we wanted to talk a little bit about. Uh so we'll we'll be talking about that, and and some of that will lead into uh some open discussion on what we want to do around liquids. So uh Craig's got a really great presentation on some of the great work we're doing in Iowa. But again, I wanted anytime we're gonna get together with a group, I want to have a forum and an opportunity to talk a little bit about that. And then also a little bit that day, we're gonna close out uh with the winter weather management TSP update uh with myself and uh Tom uh Tom Renniger in from Nebraska. So that'll be our our day one. Uh day two, uh we're gonna pretty highly highlight one of our coordinating groups, the uh Astro CTSSR group, uh, is actually going to be also meeting uh alongside the committee on maintenance. And Chris Engelbright from Missouri is putting together some neat work that we're we are uh talking about in kind of that emergency response situation. And so Chris is going to talk a little bit about a tabletop exercise design for emergency response. Sometimes your best way to perform well in the emergency is to have at least talked about it a little bit in advance. So we're excited about uh Chris talking about that. We are planning also on uh potentially talking about uh transcom, and that is uh our relationship with the with the military and and how state DOTs uh can form with that or can work together with that. We end up may have moving and end up moving that presentation actually to a full session group of the entire committee. So that if it doesn't get covered at the committee level, we're gonna cover it at our twig level. Uh another interesting idea or item that we're gonna touch base on that that day is Ty Winter from the Idaho of O DOT is gonna talk to us about performance measures. Ty's been involved with some great work around performance measures here recently. Certainly something that all of us can learn from, can be a port, be involved with, and just get our arms around as we take a look at how do we best not only do the work, but also share with others how we're doing that work, whether it's a fiscal stakeholder, uh, as our taxpayers, or maybe it's uh the other operations folks that we're trying to work with in our given state DOTs, uh, just those performance measures become so important. Oftentimes the adage is you know, if what gets measured gets done. And so we're anxious and really pleased to have Ty coming in to talk to us uh also uh on our second day. On our third day, uh we are going to continue with the our joint discussions with CTSSR and talk about you know, kind of an open more discussion. Maybe it's DOT facility uh safety things we can talk about, uh or security, employee security. We'll touch on that. Um, probably talk a little bit about resilience, uh, FHWAER. So we got a bunch of individuals that will be coming in and talking about that. Uh that third day will also be the day where we'll we we really enjoy giving the platform to Jeremy McGuffy at FHWA. And he's gonna talk really about their road weather management program, give us an update on that, research, development, kind of outreach training, all the different things that Jeremy's team comes together. And one of the things that we want to kind of close that discussion with, uh, our time in Colorado is uh Mark DeVries from Visla and Ben Hershey from DTN are going to go through a list of kind of some of the latest trends in winter maintenance. And in many cases, we will have a lot of the people that were involved at those trends, but this is also a good level setting to just kind of talk about what uh what are those emerging things that are occurring, who are those emerging technologists, who are the people you want to go to or should be going to or connecting with when you uh think about resolving an interesting solution or an interesting challenge within your respective DOT. So I think with those three different days getting together, uh our TWIG will get a chance to kind of introduce ourselves uh with the leadership team. Uh, it is a farewell for Alan, uh, who will be uh retiring sometime soon after the meeting. So we'll be looking at how do we fill his leadership spot within our TWIG. But again, we're always excited to get ourselves together and am looking forward to a great time out in Colorado.

Rick 9:43

You know, Jed, I think some of the things too that get covered in um the maintenance operation TWIG is this uh research, this idea of research needs. Um there's opportunities to to talk a little bit about what's happening in in people's organizations and their operations. Um are there some gaps out there that that maybe need to get plugged? And maybe there's some some research or or just some synthesis kind of activities that you know just sort of to find out who's doing what in what particular arena. Um that that always seems to occupy a little bit of the uh the breakout time.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Absolutely, and that's actually part of some of our our day one conversation, just kind of talking about the nuts and bolts uh things that occur within our uh within our twig. We've been very successful in the past. Uh, we'll I will certainly credit some of the great work that Brad did in his his tenure here on kind of championing some of those research needs statements, moving some of those items forward. At this point, we don't have anything that's kind of on the docket or ready to move forward into the new side of research, but that's again why we get together and we start talking about things and identify: hey, is there something that's unique and interesting that we should be leaning into? So absolutely, Rick. Great part of what our conversations can be about while we're in Colorado.

Rick 11:13

Jed, can you talk a little bit about the operations breakfast that that you have on Tuesday mornings?

SPEAKER_01 11:19

The Winter Weather Management TSP is very closely aligned with our TWIG. And this is a chance for us to sit around. We're all we're gonna sit down and have breakfast anyway, but let's sit around that breakfast table and walk through, talk through what some of the issues are. We've had some really lively, engaging conversations. I must admit, there's been a couple of times when we've gone over. Uh, and it's only goes over because it's great conversation, and I really look forward to that. So know that uh folks want to talk to us about potential things around winter weather management, whether research it or what it might be. We are gonna be getting together on Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. Uh come find us, we'll be there.

Rick 12:05

Yeah, sweet. Jed, thanks so much for giving us the lowdown on what's going to happen with the maintenance operations twig, and we'll look forward to seeing you guys in July in Colorado. Safe travels. We'll see everybody there. Thanks for listening in on this year's national briefing. You can catch them all and other Talk and Winter Ops episodes on our website, talkin'winterops.com, at the Ashto Winter Weather Management website at transportation.org forward slash winter-weather-management, or wherever you get your podcast content. Video versions of this briefing are available on our Talk and Winter Ops YouTube channel. Now, if something in this briefing sparked your interest, you can email me or our guests to keep the conversation going. Until next time, thanks for tuning in and stay safe out there.