MoDOT's Andy Meyer retiring later this year

Andy Meyer, assistant district engineer/program delivery for Missouri Department of Transportation's 25-county Southeast District, wraps up a 28-year career with MoDOT on Friday, Sept. 1.

"It's all passed in the blink of an eye," said Meyer, who grew up in the downstate Illinois town of Pinckneyville.

Meyer, 51. a 1994 civil engineering graduate or Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, is often the public face of MoDOT locally as he usually presents reports to the monthly meetings of Cape Girardeau-based Southeast Metropolitan Planning Organization, a transportation agency.

As he takes his leave, Meyer discussed his tenure with the Southeast Missourian.

Top accomplishment

I have a friend and co-worker that always answers the question "What's going on?" with the response "Oh, you know, the usual: building roads, saving lives." If that's the filter for our accomplishments as public servants in the area of transportation infrastructure, then my proudest achievement is arguably being the engineer of record and project manager on the first high tension median guard cable projects in our region. The systematic installation of safety cable in the medians of Interstate 55 and U.S. 67 have undoubtedly saved lives by reducing the severity and occurrence of cross median crashes. Not just building the projects but working with our staff and local EMS to educate and prepare for the behavior of the cable system during accident response. From a safety perspective, that's likely been the most impactful thing that I've had the opportunity to be involved with in my time at MoDOT.

Andy Meyer, left, assistant district engineer for program delivery with the Missouri Department of Transportation Southeast Region, on Thursday, July 13, with his supervisor, Mark Croarkin, district engineer, at Gordonville Elementary School. Meyer will retire this fall after 28 years with MoDOT.Jeff Long

Andy Meyer, left, assistant district engineer for program delivery with the Missouri Department of Transportation Southeast Region, on Thursday, July 13, with his supervisor, Mark Croarkin, district engineer, at Gordonville Elementary School. Meyer will retire this fall after 28 years with MoDOT.Jeff Long

Biggest challenge

The opportunity to be the regional coordinator for the Safe and Sound Bridge Improvement Program design-build project was an exciting time and huge challenge. Our MoDOT staff worked with a design-build team to deliver 116 regional bridge replacement projects in about 36 months, almost all of them involving a six-week temporary closure that was faster than typically assumed possible. Our shortest closure time was nine days on (Highway) 21 south of Caledonia. This wouldn't have been possible without a great team focused on positive proactive communication aimed at building relationships and establishing a level of trust with local leaders in the cities and counties. Many of those relationships have continued through the rest of my career.

Rising costs

We have experienced a significant inflationary impact to many of the materials that we use in our road and bridge projects. Supply-chain impacts during and after the pandemic were significant, not just impacting price but also availability of things that are fabricated, like steel beams, piling, sign posts, signal and lighting equipment. We have adapted by bundling work and extending contract schedules so that our contracting partners have additional flexibility in working around some of these issues, allowing us to work together to continue to deliver quality projects of great value.

Understaffing

Statewide, we have experienced a loss of personnel that has been described by our senior leadership as stemming from below market salaries and a very competitive labor market. Some examples are maintenance crew with CDLs, certified mechanics, and engineers with a BSCE and the potential to obtain a license as a professional engineer. The market is very competitive with a diminishing number of available candidates. Thankfully, recent actions by Gov. (Mike) Parson's administration and our legislators have improved this situation, and we are much closer to being fully staffed as we do important things like deliver our summer construction program, mow our right of way, patch our roads and start planning for the next winter operations interval.

Marching orders

Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission is a bipartisan group with members appointed by the governor and approved by the legislature. MHTC sets our direction, approves our construction program and overall budget. MoDOT is organized in seven districts. We are in the Southeast District, which is the 25 counties bordered by St. Louis urban area, Springfield urban area, Arkansas and the Mississippi River with a unique geographical area including Arcadia Valley, the Ozarks and the Bootheel. That's a huge and diverse area that my district design engineer likes to describe as "by car, 3.5 hours tall and 5.5 hours wide." All districts take overall guidance from the Commission and senior leadership while maintaining the flexibility to work through issues with local staff as the need arises.

Complaints

The hardest thing to do is explain why the right answer is sometimes "I'm sorry, no, we can't do that, but here's why." This comes from a combination of training, mentoring and building relationships with those involved. One of our area engineers likes to say all feedback is a gift. We are constantly encouraged to treat everyone with respect and appreciate that they have taken the time and made the effort to bring their concerns to us. They didn't have to do that.

What the public should know

We are all professional public servants with a passion for helping people and doing the absolute best we can to serve with available resources. We are also a state agency that has a charge to protect the traveling public on our roads, bridges, intersections, bicycle and pedestrian pathways, railways and ports. We utilize local, state and federal funds to do these things, and that means there are rules and regulations involved that may be frustrating at times. Over the course of my career, I've experienced co-workers going above and beyond to solve problems in extremely creative and innovative ways when the need is there. One of my previous supervisors used to emphasize that we were in the problem-solving business, not the problem-creation business. We are best when we work together to find the "yes" and not the "no", but that's usually going to be a compromise for all parties.

What's next

I have three kids to put through college, so I'll be looking for a role doing something similar to what I've done all my adult life and hopefully involving infrastructure.

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