President Mike Howe called our hybrid zoom/in person meeting to order promptly at 12:11, and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.
Inspiration, Pledge, 4-Way Test:
Dan O’Dell
Greeters and guests:
Kendra Ziler and Joe MacGuire were our greeters and Joe introduced the members who brought guests.
- Lisa and Al Scroggins introduced their daughter Allie Scroggins;
- Sabrina Kemper introduced Kevin O’Hearn (State Representative);
- Mike Howe introduced Ross Schriftman (Author);
- Hal Hutchinson introduced Nancy Boswell (First United Methodist);
- Fred Feth introduced Kelly Ivanoff (WY Plant CO);
- Moriah McCurdy introduced Pamela Carrell (Rocky Mountain Oncology);
- Glenn Januska introduced Tatum Hlavarek (retired);
Family of Rotary:
Rotarians of the Week:
President Mike Howe nominated John Griffith for all of his work on Boulder Park, by showing us a quick video of the boulders being placed.
Miamie Sleep nominated everyone in the club who had anything at all to do with Duck Derby. She thanked everyone for all they did.
Chastidy nominated Miamie for being Duck Commander and all the work she did. She then nominated everyone who helped with the command center, all those who sold tickets at all the venues, and all who helped with the duck counting. She said we sold 3,350 tickets which was an increase of 693 over last year.
Dan O’Dell nominated Anthony Martinez for putting on a car show this weekend to help those suffering from Cancer.
Glenn Januska nominated Mike and Ryan Stepp for donating the coffee for Saturday morning.
Steve Loftin nominated those who helped up at the falls at Rotary Park working on the erosion issues, Matt Grant and Guy DeWitt. They almost fixed two places but there is much more to do so he will plan another day.
Brian Deurloo nominated the boom crew at the Derby for all the work putting the boom in the water. He also nominated Dan O’Dell and Taylor Schwahn for cleaning up trash around the Ramkota.
Lisa Scroggins nominated Al Scroggins for his work over at Mimi’s House.
President Mike Howe nominated our District Governor Shurie Scheel for helping at Duck Derby.
Miamie Sleep announced we sold 3,350 Derby tickets which was an increase of 693 over last year. She also thanked Tammy and Sabrina for the Duck Decorating fundraiser the winner was the City of Casper who raised $75.52. She will have more numbers for us once they have all the data compiled. She also announced that on September 11th we will be having a multi-club BBQ more details and information to come.
Edis Allen is prize Chair for the Derby, he put a list out on the tables of all of the winners and he has the prizes with him if you would like to pick up anything you won or someone who you sold the ticket too that you would like to deliver the prize to. After today they will be at Martinizing on 2nd street to pick up.
President Mike announced that this Wednesday at 5:00 we will be having our monthly social. It will be at Donell’s Candy and will be an ice cream social. District conference is September 18th in Cheyenne if you are interested, the club will pay the registration fee. September 26th will be Rotary International Day at the Rockies to watch a baseball game, email will be forthcoming. He also said we have two birthdays between now and the next meeting, Gene Theriault on August 25 and Brad Cundy on August 27th.
Membership:
Senator Barrasso then spoke to us for a few minutes. He let us know that what is going on in Afghanistan is a disaster and he is very concerned about what is happening there and asked that we keep all of those people in our prayers.
Program (WYDOT):
President Elect Miamie Sleep introduced our speaker today, Luke Reiner from WYDOT who is here to let us know what is going on with WYDOT and how they serve Wyoming. He started by introducing his guest Mark who is the district Engineer for our district, District 2. He told us that WYDOT touches all of us in our daily lives in some way. He said that WYDOT is much more than just roads and highways, it encompasses Troopers, driver services, and aeronautics division and emergency services. A couple recent events, the truck arrestor at Teton pass failed so he shut it down had a redesigned one put in and did a public test of it to make sure the public knew it was safe. There are 63 jobs going on now, there is a total of about 90 for this summer. He told us about a new employee he met and said that all of their employees are great with customer service. He said drier services had an 89% approval rating across the State for customer service. Our State Troopers scored 86% and the people who they engaged with gave them higher ratings. He said that they give rapid effective response to emergencies, he said he got a letter from a dad thanking the troopers for their immediate action that saved his daughter’s life.
They are working to collect money from those who damage the bridges, they hired a third-party vendor to collect it for them. They are doing their best to be fiscally responsible.
The emergency call system is getting better all of the time. He also said that dispatch for emergency services and Trooper dispatch are housed together and they work hard to get the job done.
He told us about the employees working together for Highway 130 that they have to clear of snow at the end of winter. Since they usually have several feet of snow accumulated that the snowmobiles ride on all winter it is a huge task to clear. So, this year they GPS mapped the entire road and when it came time to clear it, they did it in the layers as usual but instead of hitting grass and going off the road, they were spot on the whole way, which saved them a lot of time and money. This was implemented by the employees; it was their idea and they got it done.
He is very proud of his employees and said that their goal is to get to a yes, to figure out how something can be done rather than just say no. He said the purpose of WYDOT is to support the State economy, to connect communities and to make life better. He sees examples of that while he is out and about in the State. He told us of a bridge over the snake river that the engineers did when redoing the bridge. The vertical pylons that were in the middle of the river were in the middle of the rapids where the kayaks like to go. So, the engineers saw this and they moved the pylons over to give them more room to navigate by in the rapids. They work hard to get things done, their role is to support the state and people.
He let us know how they are going to spend the resources, first to support their employees, next critical life saving issues for safety. Then preserving their assets, all of them not just roads. After that is taking care of improvements, these are important but when they can’t afford those then they are the last place they spend money on.
He reported on the infrastructure bill and said for WY they are focused on keeping WY where they need to be for taking care of the highways. If it passes like it is currently written it will increase by $100 to $130 million for the State which is money we can put to good use, the issue is that we have to put together $10 to $13 million as State matching funds to get that money.
He said his biggest challenge is recruiting and retaining employees. They are significantly down in employees. They have a position open that has been open for quite a while and they only have had two applicants, neither of which were qualified for the position. He said that the State compensation plan is part of the issue and they are working on fixing that issue. He said Autonomous vehicles are coming and the are preparing for that. Right of way issues come up, broad band, etc. Electric vehicles and the infrastructure to support those is a challenge, people will be coming through Wyoming in those so we need to be prepared.
He then highlighted some of the WYDOT employees for the great work they do. He said they have one family that has been a four generation WYDOT employed family. They have good dedicated employees.
He then opened it up for questions.
Someone asked about the lack of being able to recruit employees as it is a systemic problem, he said that their pay rates definitely need updating as cities and counties are paying more than what the State is, which is causing even more issues for them.
He then was asked about the expense of maintaining I-80 and why a toll road is being considered to help with those expenses. He said that I-80 costs about $100 million per year just to maintain, they spend about $60 million currently so it is trending the wrong direction, they need more money to maintain and fix it. Toll road is just one of the ideas being looked at. There is a program with the feds that will allow them to toll to maintain the road.
He was asked about the $30 million project on I-25 where the bridge was torn down. So, he invited his guest engineer up to explain that project. Mark said that bridge was originally built in 1968 and was not designed well from the start. He said that it had issues that were terrifying and they were spending a lot of money annually to try to keep it together. He said that when they tore it apart, they discovered there were more structural issues than what they could tell. It was time for it to be replaced.
President Mike Howe concluded the meeting at 1:02, he let us know that next week, we will be back at the Ramkota and our guest speaker will be Paul Bertoglio from the Natrona County Commissioners.
“We serve to change lives”
Commissioner Paul Bertoglio is a member of the Board of County Commissioner’s for Natrona County and is currently serving as the Chairman of the Commission.
