By Andrew Wrucke, MnLTAP Director
Beginning last winter and through this spring, I have had the pleasure of visiting with a number of transportation professionals in their own shops across Minnesota. On separate trips of a day or two each, I met with folks in Marshall, Otter Tail, Douglas, Red Lake, Pennington, Polk, Roseau*, and Lake of the Woods Counties and Fergus Falls, Brainerd, Golden Valley, and Eagan.
In addition to the great conversation and camaraderie, what’s driving me in these travels is making sure that MnLTAP is providing what these teams want today as well as anticipating the future needs of our profession.
Two discussion questions were common to these rural, suburban, and urban departments: What will our workforce look like in 5 to 10 years? And what training do we need to have in place to develop the next generation of leaders and to attract and train new workers?
I was impressed and gratified to see that almost all of the shops I visited were fully staffed. A number of leaders discussed recruiting high-quality people into positions they might not be fully qualified for, but then developing training plans through MnLTAP and other resources to skill them up on the job.
These conversations also reinforced that work-zone safety is an essential training always in high demand across the state. Our MnLTAP team will travel to you—anywhere! To make it easier for both you and us to schedule, our office is aiming to hire about a dozen part-time work-zone safety trainers. Know any colleagues who might be interested? View the full job posting online.
Another initiative with a lot of support and momentum is our new civil engineering technician training, which helps local agencies advance current employees into hard-to-fill civil engineering technician positions such as inspectors and surveyors. Although our first Civil Tech I Roads Scholars haven’t even received their certificates yet, our proposal to expand the track to Civil Tech II and III levels has been well-received. We’re currently teaming up with a group of advisors across the state and developing courses to be offered soon.
Finally, I asked for feedback on our Local Operational Research Assistance Program (OPERA), which awards up to $20,000 to help agencies develop an idea or equipment modification to improve operations or safety. Because the awards are relatively small compared to other types of grants, so is the paperwork! The conversations reinforced that the program is right-sized to get low-cost pilot projects moving relatively quickly. Learn more and submit a funding proposal.
I plan to continue learning about how MnLTAP can best help agencies by meeting with folks on-site around the state. Is there a good time of the year to visit you? Please let me know at [email protected].
* If you’re up near Roseau, the new public works facility is worth the trip! I was impressed with how it was planned not just for today, but also to anticipate the needs of the next generation.