By Andrew Wrucke, MnLTAP Director
Since joining MnLTAP in early May, I have had the great pleasure of working with and meeting with transportation professionals across Minnesota. These interactions have led to some important early takeaways for me on how to deliver the best services we can through MnLTAP in the years ahead.
Throughout my time working as an engineer in the Midwest, local governments have always impressed me with their ability to do more with less. And that is certainly true from what I’m seeing across Minnesota. There is great collaboration between all local jurisdictions on best practices, and the academic side of me is excited to join a strong research environment supported by MnDOT. This allows our cities, counties, townships, and tribal agencies to maintain their expansive infrastructure investments effectively and efficiently on behalf of users and communities.
The good news: Local governments are getting historic levels of highway funding from the federal government. The related news: We need to maintain and grow the workforce to fully leverage those funds. Transportation staff will need to be developed, retained, and trained in the best practices to maintain these investments for our future motorists
and shippers.
Local governments are at the center of broader changes in workforce demographic trends, and retirements will (and are!) hitting all local governments hard. I want to provide a well-positioned and effective LTAP program to help our local partners recruit, hire, train, and develop the workforce to do more and serve our communities effectively. I will continue asking for your help in this endeavor as I serve in this role: A top priority of mine is listening to understand your needs and priorities and how our top-notch LTAP team can best add value and help deliver for you.
MNTransportationCareers.com
One example of a new resource designed to address local agencies’ workforce concerns is MNTransportationCareers.com. This website is the outcome of an LRRB-sponsored project launched July 9 as a one-stop resource for job-seeking adults and students interested in careers in transportation maintenance as well as public-sector human resource professionals who connect these candidates and careers. The site features a number of resources—videos, brochures, a job board, case studies—and a training guide.
Members of the project leadership team produced a webinar that lays out the new program. The video includes testimonials from leaders of two local agencies sharing their approaches to workforce development.
LTAP, of course, is all about sharing knowledge and ideas to advance our field and better serve our communities. If you can send us jobs and internships for the job board, case studies about your successes with workforce development, and any general feedback, we will all greatly appreciate it!