By Sue Roe

Minnesota is one of eight states participating in the country’s first multi-state truck parking information management system that launched Jan. 4 to help truck drivers find safe and legal parking. MnDOT installed the technology at six rest areas in the state. A seventh rest area will go online next spring.

The technology collects and broadcasts real-time information to dynamic message signs along the Interstate 35 and I-94 freight corridors to alert truck drivers about the number of available parking spaces ahead. Truckers and dispatchers can also access the information on the 511 traveler information system and smart phone applications. The 511 system will include a text and email notification feature that will be available in mid-January.

“This technology makes the regional freight corridor system safer and more efficient,” said Dan Rowe, state project manager. “Drivers can plan their routes better and make safer, smarter parking decisions.”

Truckers often spend an hour or more looking for safe parking. They end up parking in illegal and unsafe places such as ramps and shoulders.

“Hours of service limits force truckers to park in other areas than the rest areas, which fill up quickly,” said Rowe. “Well-rested drivers mean fewer fatigue-related crashes.”

Other benefits of the system include more efficient movement of goods, reduced fuel consumption and emissions and less non-routine maintenance repairs on highway shoulders and ramps.

The technology is available at the Lake Lakota, Big Spunk Lake, Enfield, Forest Lake and Elm Creek rest areas along the I-94 corridor and the Heath Creek rest area on the I-35 corridor. The St. Croix rest area on I-94 will be operational in the spring.

The system was funded with a $25 million federal TIGER grant in 2015. Minnesota received $1.2 million from the grant and contributed another $177,500. Other states in the region include Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Project stakeholders include the Mid America Association of State Transportation Officials. More information is at www.trucksparkhere.com.

By Nick Carpenter, Government Affairs

The 91st Minnesota state legislative session is officially underway as legislators from around the state converged on the capitol Tuesday, Jan. 8.

This session marks a time of transition with Gov. Tim Walz becoming the 41st governor of Minnesota, 39 newly elected state representatives receiving their oath of office and dozens of new appointments across various state agencies, including here at MnDOT.

Health care, education, economic development and equity top the list of priority topics this year. Transportation—funding in particular—will be an integral topic this session as well. MnDOT’s legislative proposals are currently being reviewed by Commissioner Margaret Anderson Kelliher and the Governor’s Office for consideration before they can be introduced as bills.

One topic that has already drawn interest this year centers on connected and automated vehicles.

Kristin White, Office of Connected & Automated Vehicles innovation director, provided an introduction of CAV to the Senate Transportation Finance and Policy Committee Jan. 16.

Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have enacted legislation related to CAV, including neighboring Wisconsin and North Dakota. Minnesota has yet to enact CAV-related legislation; however, former Gov. Mark Dayton issued a connected and automated vehicle executive order in March, 2018 that recognized CAV technology is evolving rapidly and Minnesota must prepare for the transformation and opportunities associated with it.

White also explained to the committee why CAV is important to the future of Minnesota. CAV technology can:

• Improve safety and move the state closer to achieving Toward Zero Deaths
• Encourage workforce and economic development
• Improve transportation equity and accessibility for all Minnesotans
• Promote environmental sustainability and public health
• Improve the efficiency of the transportation system for the movement of people, goods and services
  

CAV is expected to remain a hot topic this legislative session. Employees who would like to stay updated on transportation-related discussions and bills during this session can do so by visiting The Office of Government Affairs website on iHUB. Government Affairs will prepare and publish a legislative summary every week to the website during the session, which will conclude May 20.

Jeremy Greene, Bridge Design Section, is eligible for the vacation donation program. Greene has worked in his current position for seven months.

Greene has been diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer and will be receiving palliative chemotherapy treatments. His condition has caused him to use all of his sick and vacation accruals.

A GoFundMe page to help pay for Greene’s medical bills is part of a fundraiser page on the Employee Bulletin Board.

Also eligible for the vacation donation program are MnDOT employees Donna Koren, Operations Division; Tom Brown, transportation generalist in District 2; Donald Obernolte, Office of Environmental Stewardship; Kyle Goosman, District 8 transportation generalist senior; and Melissa Janzen, Office of Land Management.

By Rich Kemp

Brian Sorenson joined MnDOT as the state traffic engineer Jan. 3 and is located in the Waters Edge Building in Roseville. 

Sorenson grew up in Hastings and graduated from South Dakota State University with a bachelor of science in civil engineering. He began his career with Scott County, where he worked for more than 11 years.  He began working for Dakota County in 2006, and since 2010 has led the programming, transportation planning, traffic, design, right of way acquisition and project management areas of the transportation department as an assistant county engineer.  

"In addition to his solid transportation experience, Brian is a strong leader and will be a great addition to our Traffic Engineering Office,” said Jody Martinson, assistant commissioner, Operations Division. “As we continue to grow and strengthen our relationships with our partners, I am excited to have Brian provide his local agency perspective to further enhance that important work."

The Office of Traffic Engineering establishes guidelines and procedures throughout the state, and builds relationships between state, county and city engineering staff to resolve questions about engineering and roadway safety.

By Judy Jacobs, Office of Organizational Planning and Management

MnDOT’s 5,000 employees do a lot of different things to deliver the transportation system, from high-profile services like program delivery and snow plowing to more behind-the-scenes processes like procurement and data governance. With so much going on across the department, describing what MnDOT does – and where it is going – can be a real challenge.

Business planning is one way in which MnDOT is getting better at telling its story. A business plan is a tool for communicating organizational goals and strategies for achieving for them. At MnDOT, business plans connect the goals and strategies in the Five-year Strategic Operating Plan to the core functions and projects of the districts and offices, enabling MnDOT to give very specific and tangible answers to the question: “How is MnDOT advancing its strategic priorities?”

“MnDOT is full of really smart, dedicated people who are committed to our mission and vision, and who are making decisions that align pretty well with what our plans say we should be doing,” said Sue Mulvihill, deputy commissioner and chief engineer. “We can do better at capturing that, especially at the front end when there is greatest opportunity for coordination. That’s what we are trying to do with business plans.”

MnDOT launched its current business planning program in 2017 with the development of district-and-office specific business plans for the current biennium. These business plans were developed in workshop settings by district and office management teams using a standard format and template that highlighted goals, risks, processes and measures.

Beginning Jan. 22, 2019 the Office of Organizational Planning and Management will start training districts and offices on the approach MnDOT is using to develop business plans for the next biennium, FY20-21. This approach features a number of improvements designed to make business planning more flexible, user-friendly and sustainable. Notable among the improvements is a shift from a static plan developed through facilitated exercise to an ongoing, dynamic process maintained within each district and office management team as part of their regular work. 

“We heard you,” said Judy Schmidt, director, Office of Organizational Planning and Management. “Our office took the feedback you provided from the FY18-19 plans and have designed a consistent format in the form of an Excel spreadsheet that will serve as a living document each office and district can update as part of their process management. We want you to experience the value a strategically focused business plan can provide.”

To help prepare for the FY20-21 business plan rollout, OPM staff facilitated business planning pilot sessions with representatives from Districts 4 and 6 and the Office of Project Management and Technical Support. 

“Our office was very excited to be involved in the pilot training,” said Tom Styrbicki, director, Office of Project Management and Technical Support. “We see business planning as a fundamental part of prioritizing our work efforts and aligning them with agency goals. Our business plan will serve as an ongoing framework for decision-making as our office and agency adapt to meet the challenges ahead of us.” 

Current schedules call for each district and office to have a “live” version of its FY20-21 business plan on the business planning SharePoint site by the end of March, with the first division and agency level reporting of business plan results occurring this spring. As the process matures, business plan reporting is expected to play a key role in SOP implementation and the establishment of priorities for investment in MnDOT operations.

“The SOP is MnDOT’s plan, and we all have a role in implementing it,” said Mulvihill. “I am really looking forward to hearing what folks out in the districts and offices are seeing as their priorities for moving the SOP forward.”

For more information on MnDOT’s business planning, visit the OPM website. 

By Mary McFarland Brooks

The holidays annually provide an opportunity for MnDOT employees to show their true colors by helping those in need, which sometimes includes our own employees. Each year, donations usually exceed the previous year's and 2018 proved to be one of the most successful for employee donations and the organizations and people they benefitted.

District 1
District 1 participated in the Toyland Express effort during the holidays and collected a total of 60 toys and $100 in cash.

District 2
Employees responded to the annual combined charities drive, spearheaded by Joe McKinnon, and employees donated $600 to the Christmas Giving Tree that includes ornaments hung in honor of district employees in need of extra support. The Giving Tree event raised a total of $2,000 from a potluck dinner, silent auction and employee donations. In the spirit of the holiday, District 2 also hosted a blood drive.

District 3, St. Cloud and Baxter
District 3/St. Cloud raised $2,424 and received 90 toys, including bikes from employees at a Toys for Tots holiday lunch fundraiser. The AFSCME union also donated $300 to Toys for Tots.

District 4  
District 4 employees celebrated the season by hosting an annual potluck. This year $2,233 was raised to support the Red River Valley Hospice. District 4 employees have been supporting the hospice since 1995 and have donated more than $34,000 during that time.

District 6
MnDOT employees donated $486 dollars to Toys for Tots and filled two bins with toys at the Rochester location. Each year, Marnie Krohse organizes the campaign and works with volunteers from the Toys for Tots drive. Locally the Toys for Tots campaign helped 7,751 children in southeast Minnesota in 2017; a total for the 2018 campaign isn't yet available.

District 7
MnDOT employees partnered with the local State Patrol in their 11th year of collecting for the Toys for Tots program. The program distributes toys locally to more than 3,000 children in South Central Minnesota. Employees also are planning a food drive for late January.

District 8
Staff in the District 8/Willmar office provided food for local families facing difficulties this holiday season.  Non-perishable food and personal care items, as well as cash donations, were collected for the Kandiyohi County Food Shelf. KCFS serves an average of 600 households monthly, operating entirely on donations and grants. On Dec. 21, 100 pounds of food and care items, plus $140 were delivered to the food shelf. Due to a purchasing agreement with Second Harvest Heartland, the cash donation will allow KCFS to purchase $1,400 worth of food.

MnDOT Bridge Office
At the Bridge Office’s annual New Year’s party, several coworkers raised money by shaving their heads to benefit co-worker Jeremy Greene, who lost his hair due to chemotherapy. Greene is a recently hired architectural drafter, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and is currently ineligible for health care. Committed to helping Greene’s situation, co-workers, agreed to have interesting patterns shaved into their hair if a goal of $2000 was raised. In all, $3,832 was raised from head shaving, a silent auction and photographs. It was provided to Greene for ongoing medical expenses. Watch the KARE 11 broadcast about MnDOT employee’s ongoing efforts to support Greene.

Office of Environmental Stewardship
The Office of Environmental Stewardship conducted a winter clothing drive of new and gently used winter clothing for Prism, www.prismmpls.org, an organization that provides clothing, housing stability and food to children, adults and seniors in the NW suburbs.

MnDOT and MAPE locals
MnDOT and MAPE Local 801 collected monetary contributions for The Sheridan Story, www.thesheridanstory.org, whose mission is to provide food to students during weekends, school breaks and summer months. The combined contributions from MnDOT, the Pollution Control Agency, the Department of Human Services and Hiway Federal Credit Union provided more than $1,900 to The Sheridan Story.   

“The support from MnDOT employees and MAPE is a great demonstration of how we can all work together to solve big problems in our community, like child hunger,” said Rob Williams, founder of The Sheridan Story. “This donation will help provide eight children in our community with a weekend's supply of food for a whole school year. Thank you!”

By Carol Hennekens, Workforce Development

The deadline is fast approaching for enrollment in the Leadership Development Program. The deadline to enroll in Group 12 LDP is this Friday, Jan. 18.  If you are still deciding whether to enroll or approve an employees’ enrollment, take a look at the impact this program has had on individuals, teams and MnDOT.  This information is taken from the impact surveys conducted with employees and supervisors after their participation in past LDP groups.  The information is summarized for this article. The comments received are taken from the survey results and are anonymous.

Employees have stated that they have improved and applied what they have learned in LDP to their work.  The top improved competencies include: higher confidence and motivation, better communication with team members and customers, increased responsibility and ownership, better time management skills, and more overall knowledge about MnDOT.

“Delegation, stress/conflict management and recognizing individual strengths (vs. weaknesses) have become much easier for me – as a result of my participation in the LDP. My construction projects have run much more smoothly as a result!”

Supervisors have commented on the increased collaboration in their teams, increased production, higher engagement and better service to customers.   
“More confident in his ability to lead, teach, train and motivate other team members.”

“I have noticed conflicts are resolved much faster and employees involved are satisfied with the outcome more often. Work is done more promptly and to a higher degree of accuracy.”

Overall, the benefits to MnDOT can be summarized into themes which include:

• Increased confidence and awareness
• Stronger communication abilities
• Specific task application and increased efficiency
• Application of learned organizational knowledge
• Establishment or improvement of relationships

You might be thinking that training takes time away from everyday work.  Well, it does, but consider this: A well trained employee saves the individual, team and MnDOT time and money over the long run. If your employee can be more effective and efficient as a result of participating in the program, it is well worth it in the long run.

The LDP is offered to all employees; managers and supervisors as well.  It is a cost effective way to brush up on individual skills and competencies.  The uniqueness of the program allows participants to create their own goals and work on them at their own pace.