Each transportation department across Minnesota faces unique operational demands every day, and also in the long-term with staff recruitment and retention. At this year’s Minnesota Roadway Maintenance Training and Demo Day, MnLTAP staff caught up with professionals from rural, suburban, and urban agencies and related employers to talk about these issues. Despite their differences in size and geography, many have found a common strategy to address them: MnLTAP’s Roads Scholar Program.
The program provides training and professional development opportunities to local agency staff through three certificate programs: maintenance operations and technical; leadership, supervisory, and operations management; and civil engineering technician. Each program combines high-quality, low-cost training into a structured curriculum to help staff advance their skills and careers and includes a mix of online courses and in-person workshops offered across Minnesota. Enrollment is free, but there is a modest charge to attend many of the required classes.
In Edina, public works director Brian Olson has made the Roads Scholar Program a cornerstone of professional development in the suburban city’s care for its infrastructure, which includes 230 miles of roadway; hundreds of miles of storm, sanitary, and water mains; and $20 million in vehicles and equipment.
Costs and required time for Edina’s public works team members to pursue Roads Scholar certificates are fully funded through the city. In 2024 alone, 29 team members became Roads Scholars; 5 more have earned certificates so far in 2025.
Olson says this experience adds value for the city’s residents, businesses, and visitors by providing “well-trained and confident employees [who] make better decisions in their day-to-day interactions and a great internal pool of candidates for promotions, thereby building resilience in our workforce. They take pride in being excellent employees and are not only rewarded with additional pay, but realize we value them as people.”
In Ramsey County—the most urban and second most populous of Minnesota’s 87 counties—construction program manager Cory Richter and general supervisor Maximilian Hanson are working together to utilize Roads Scholar training for both the highway maintenance and program delivery teams in different but complementary ways.
In highway maintenance, crew leaders and supervisors leverage select Roads Scholar coursework and share information back with the team. Team training days are also supplemented with online modules from the Introduction to the Minnesota Temporary Traffic Control Field Manual for Highway Workers Webinar Series. “Courses like Communicating with the Public have been especially helpful for new staff who haven’t had much experience interacting with residents,” says Hanson. “Others, like Culvert Installation and Maintenance, have served as useful [seasonal] refreshers for operators.”
The program delivery team adopted a staff requirement for the Civil Engineering Technician Level 1 Certificate earlier this year. “There are a limited number of people entering civil engineering technician programs, as well as a shortage of experienced technicians in the market,” Richter says. “The Roads Scholar Program ensures that all technicians start with a consistent base level of knowledge that we can build upon during hands-on fieldwork.”
Staff at other agencies from A (Anoka) to Z (the Minnesota Zoo) have also shared their individual strategies for leveraging Roads Scholar training in their departments. The 2024 class of Roads Scholars is the largest in history, with graduates from counties and cities in every corner of the state.
When asked what advice he’d give agencies looking to further incorporate the Roads Scholar Program into their professional development plans, Edina’s Olson says, “Do it now and start seeing the benefits!”