4 The Legend—January 2015

District 3 Employee News

Dates to Remember

2/14 Valentine’s Day

2/16 Presidents’ Day

3/8 Daylight Savings Time

3/20 Spring begins

John R. Kasich

Governor

Jerry Wray

Director

Allen C. Biehl, P.E.

District Deputy Director

January 2015

What’s inside…

DDD Corner

Strides in Safety

Customer Kudos

Employee News & Service

Awards

Retreat brings Teams Together

The Legend District 3 Employee Newsletter

New Hires

Jeremy Adato, Engineer-in-Training in

Planning & Engineering.

Travis Short, Realty Specialist 1 in Planning &

Engineering.

Chris Starcher, Highway Technician 1 in

Ashland County.

Mark Geiser, Highway Technician 1 in

Wayne County.

Tom Grim, Auto Mechanic 2 in Lorain

County.

Retirements

John Smith, Transportation Manager 1 in

Huron County with 30 years of service.

Dan Nehls, Auto Mechanic 2 in Lorain County

with 31 years of service.

Sue Clime, Highway Technician 3 in Crawford

County, will retire at the end of February with

30 years of service.

Reclassification

Ken Knapp to Transportation Engineer 1 in

Planning & Engineering.

Employee of the Quarter

Congratulations to Surveyor Scott Hawkins

for being named the Planning & Engineering

Employee of the Quarter!

5 Years

Dick Feldkamp

Petra Gut

Bill Hanning

Geert Kausch

Aaron Martin

Lori Menk

Ken Stefanik

Ted Trout

10 Years

Nate Berry

Lonnie Bullis

Laureen Carpenter

Mindy Cavin

Levi Foss

Howard Goodyear

Helen Immel

Amy Kenyon

Brad Mayes

Brian Rawlings

Sonya Riley

Carla Simpson

Robert Ullom

15 Years

Scott Brant

Mike Fair

Steve Franks

Jeff Inman

Steve Jacobcik

Charlie Laughrey

Larry Lucius

Bridget Rike

Bruce Sidel

Scott Turchek

20 Years

Laura Colbert

Tex Ooten

Vern Vermillion

25 Years

Michelle Burchfield

Rick Koziura

Tom Pavlik

Sue Pore

30 Years

Dave Drevniak

Chris Jones

Jim McClure

Mark Meister

Luis Otero

Dennis White

Thank you for

your service to the

State of Ohio.

*Unfortunately, the Award

Ceremony was postponed due to

weather; however, employees will

receive their certificate and pin at

a later date.

Employee Service Awards

The old saying ‘two heads are better than

one’ proved to be true recently as the

Construction and Planning & Engineering

Departments put their heads together to

look for ways to improve processes, com-

munication, teamwork and bridge any

gaps.

In mid-November, the departments

came together for their second annual

retreat to build their teams and commit-

ment toward one another. With busy

schedules and work locations dispersed

throughout our eight-county district, the

retreat allows everyone to come together

once a year to reconnect as a team.

The day-long event included welcom-

ing remarks from ODOT Director Jerry

Wray, along with presentations by ODOT

Assistant Director of Transportation Policy

Jim Barna on budgeting and finance; Dis-

trict 5 Deputy Director Dave Ray on com-

munication; and two outside speakers on

teamwork and emotional intelligence.

Director Wray began by challenging

everyone in attendance to leave their ego

at the door. He went on to explain that an

organization cannot be great without

trust, teamwork and effective communi-

cation. Each person at every level of the

Department must strive to understand

others’ points of view.

This is the first step in

obtaining the needed

level of trust to build

teams and improve com-

munication. Finally, he

reminded the Construc-

tion and Planning & En-

gineering teams that we will all either win

or lose together, and it all comes back to

trust.

Afternoon sessions reviewed process

improvements made from the previous

retreat. Further discussions were held de-

termining what additional improvements

could be made to plan quality reviews,

scoping, and change orders. Additionally,

teams were formed to delve in to process

improvements related to new topics in-

cluding road closures/detours and Share-

Point/File Management.

It is clear from the day’s events that

for any project to be successful at the

Department, the handoff from Planning &

Engineering to Construction requires a

smooth transition, including clear and

concise communication between the two

departments.

Overall, the event was a success ac-

cording not only to the Construction and

Planning & Engineering Administrators

Bob Weaver and Bob Hochevar but those

who participated as well. Process im-

provement details developed from the

retreat are under review and will be forth-

coming and finalized for implementation

soon.

Pictured in this month’s banner:

While the month of January has seen a

number of winter weather events, as a

District, we have used 7,577 tons less salt

than the 10-year average thus far.

3 The Legend—January 2015 The Legend—January 2015 2

The new year

brings about an

opportunity to

briefly discuss some of

the goals I will be setting

for the District Leadership

Team in 2015. One of our pri-

mary focuses in 2015 will be to ad-

dress areas within the Critical Success

Factors (CSF) that we fell short of during

2014.

While the last edition of our newsletter high-

lighted some major accomplishments, we still have

some work to do this year in regard to the CSFs. One

area we will improve upon includes the Work Life Index

goal, which measures employee attitudes and opinions about

working for the Department of Transportation. To note, D-3

saw the greatest improvement among satisfaction of employ-

ees across the state between the first and second Quality of

Work life Surveys but have not quite met the goal established

by Executive Leadership. The Management team at D-3 still has

work to do in this area. An opportunity to complete the next

Quality of Work Life Survey will be later this Spring.

Another area that we will focus attention on in 2015 is the

number of Workforce Crashes. While the number of workforce

injuries decreased last year, we still need

to work for a lower number of crashes. Since November, a

‘backing only’ procedure was implemented to help this, and

since that time, there have been zero crashes. Kudos to all of

you who are participating in this initiative – early results are

promising.

Direct Labor Ratio is another metric that should improve as

we continue to work in the new EIMS and better track our time,

as well as manage our resources efficiently.

The District’s pavement condition rating (PCR) also needs

to be improved over the coming year. By selling a spot paving

project on I-90 in Lorain County and US 30 in Richland County,

allowed us to improve our PCR ratings. In addition over the

long-term, we will begin implementing a new “Asset Manage-

ment” strategy to better prolong the life cycles of our pave-

ments. This effort will involve all departments, most notably

Planning & Engineering and Highway Management, as well as

Central Office.

As the year moves forward, we will work together to tackle

these areas where we fell short on the CSFs, while also main-

taining our goals for the other Critical Success Factors. You will

hear more from myself and the District leadership on how we

are doing on the CSFs either

through the newsletter or work

unit visits.

Stay safe.

Al

Ashland 72

Crawford 126

Erie 163

Huron 126

Lorain 56

Medina 204

Richland 147

Wayne 141

District 38

*thru January 15

*

I would like to thank you for your help on Decem-

ber 23 for supplying District 6 and our employees

with a truck and trailer for CDL testing in Norwalk.

We rain in to mechanical issues with our equip-

ment, and you were all quick to the rescue! I am

also happy to announce that all three employees

passed their testing. Again, thank you, thank you,

thank you to Huron County’s Dennis Reer, Curt

Williams, Dayna Scott, Bob Kirchner and Willie

Evans!

Lauren Fitzpatrick, D-6 Training Officer, 12/30/14

Chris Kocher, Rod Craft and Steve Durbin:

Great Team effort! I appreciate the entire team

handling issues and communicating between lev-

els and shifts. It is nice to see the county structure

and communications work like intended. Not only

this issue (speed of snow plows through the vil-

lage of Chatfield where homes are close to the

highway) but in general, we notice when we oper-

ate like we are supposed to and Crawford County

is a good example for others!

Matt Blankenship, Roadway Services, 1/9/15

Co-Worker &

Customer Kudos

Wayne County ODOT:

I am writing in appreciation for the replaced mailboxes

along Dover Road (US 250) in Wooster. The last several

years we have had problems with the snow from the plows

breaking our mailboxes off the old support posts we had,

so I replaced them. During the recent snow, I was saddened

to see the mailboxes on the ground again. I called your of-

fice and reported the incident with the uncertainty of

whether you would fix the boxes. I didn’t know what to ex-

pect or how long we would have to make a special trip to

the post office to get our mail.

I was delighted to see the posts repaired and the boxes

replaced the very next day, even though it was only 0 de-

grees outside. As it is becoming more and more the custom

to shrug off accountability in our society, your efforts

should be applauded.

Douglas Amstutz, Wooster, 1/12/15

Mike Dendinger-

This is to let you know your excellent response and sense of

customer service regarding the flooding problem men-

tioned in the letter (see below) is genuinely appreciated. Our

vision statement says we will be professional and productive,

clearly you accomplished both in this case. Thank you for

doing things right and doing the right things! Also, please

pass along my thanks to all the ODOT people involved.

Jerry Wray, ODOT Director, 12/20/14

Director Wray—I would like to provide some feedback on

your employee, Mike Dendinger of District 3. My neighbors

and I have had severe flooding issues near the SR 2 & SR 60

interchange. I met with Mike, and he came up with a well

thought out plan to address this. The project is mostly done

now and many neighbors have had positive comments about

the amount of work done by your ODOT crews. Mike was

polite, friendly, knowledgeable and professional in all my

interactions with him. In my opinion, his attitude and skills

are a strong positive asset to ODOT. Working with Mike and

the ODOT crews are a great example of how government is

supposed to work.

Tim Costello, Vermilion, 12/20/14

Making Strides in Safety WE DID IT!

The year-end numbers are in and we did

it! In 2014, thanks to your cautious efforts, Dis-

trict Three employees reduced our number of

workforce injuries by 25% from previous years.

This is an outstanding accomplishment, and eve-

ry one of us helped make this success possible.

Congratulations to both Crawford and Lorain

County Garages for going an entire year without

a single PERRP recordable injury. Another con-

gratulations goes out to all District employees

for making the entire month of October PERRP

recordable injury free!

Because of these strides in safety demon-

strated by the county and District workforce,

District Three was able to achieve this milestone.

“While all of our Critical Success Factors are

important, this one, the Workforce Injury goal,

truly means the most to me, because it measures

whether or not our employees are going home

healthy and unharmed at the end each of day,”

said Matt Miller, D-3 Business & Human Re-

sources Administrator. “We care about every

one of our team members here at District Three,

and I want them to have a safe working environ-

ment while they are here at work each day, and I

want them to return home to their families safely

every night.”

District Three experienced a total of 26 inju-

ries last year, and although ultimately we are

aiming for a 100% injury-free workplace, this is a

substantial reduction from previous years.

“The culture is changing in our District in

regards to safety,” said Safety & Health Program

Consultant Jason Sutherland. “More employees,

managers and crew leaders are taking safety se-

riously by keeping it a priority in the workplace

every day by looking out for each other.”

According to Sutherland, he sees our em-

ployees taking a different attitude toward safe-

ty. “Our employees used to talk and hear about

safety, but now they are actually seeing and do-

ing something about safety.”

In 2015, we all must work together to keep

this trend of employee injury reduction to

achieve our personal goal of going home safely

at the end of each work day.

3 The Legend—January 2015 The Legend—January 2015 2

The new year

brings about an

opportunity to

briefly discuss some of

the goals I will be setting

for the District Leadership

Team in 2015. One of our pri-

mary focuses in 2015 will be to ad-

dress areas within the Critical Success

Factors (CSF) that we fell short of during

2014.

While the last edition of our newsletter high-

lighted some major accomplishments, we still have

some work to do this year in regard to the CSFs. One

area we will improve upon includes the Work Life Index

goal, which measures employee attitudes and opinions about

working for the Department of Transportation. To note, D-3

saw the greatest improvement among satisfaction of employ-

ees across the state between the first and second Quality of

Work life Surveys but have not quite met the goal established

by Executive Leadership. The Management team at D-3 still has

work to do in this area. An opportunity to complete the next

Quality of Work Life Survey will be later this Spring.

Another area that we will focus attention on in 2015 is the

number of Workforce Crashes. While the number of workforce

injuries decreased last year, we still need

to work for a lower number of crashes. Since November, a

‘backing only’ procedure was implemented to help this, and

since that time, there have been zero crashes. Kudos to all of

you who are participating in this initiative – early results are

promising.

Direct Labor Ratio is another metric that should improve as

we continue to work in the new EIMS and better track our time,

as well as manage our resources efficiently.

The District’s pavement condition rating (PCR) also needs

to be improved over the coming year. By selling a spot paving

project on I-90 in Lorain County and US 30 in Richland County,

allowed us to improve our PCR ratings. In addition over the

long-term, we will begin implementing a new “Asset Manage-

ment” strategy to better prolong the life cycles of our pave-

ments. This effort will involve all departments, most notably

Planning & Engineering and Highway Management, as well as

Central Office.

As the year moves forward, we will work together to tackle

these areas where we fell short on the CSFs, while also main-

taining our goals for the other Critical Success Factors. You will

hear more from myself and the District leadership on how we

are doing on the CSFs either

through the newsletter or work

unit visits.

Stay safe.

Al

Ashland 72

Crawford 126

Erie 163

Huron 126

Lorain 56

Medina 204

Richland 147

Wayne 141

District 38

*thru January 15

*

I would like to thank you for your help on Decem-

ber 23 for supplying District 6 and our employees

with a truck and trailer for CDL testing in Norwalk.

We rain in to mechanical issues with our equip-

ment, and you were all quick to the rescue! I am

also happy to announce that all three employees

passed their testing. Again, thank you, thank you,

thank you to Huron County’s Dennis Reer, Curt

Williams, Dayna Scott, Bob Kirchner and Willie

Evans!

Lauren Fitzpatrick, D-6 Training Officer, 12/30/14

Chris Kocher, Rod Craft and Steve Durbin:

Great Team effort! I appreciate the entire team

handling issues and communicating between lev-

els and shifts. It is nice to see the county structure

and communications work like intended. Not only

this issue (speed of snow plows through the vil-

lage of Chatfield where homes are close to the

highway) but in general, we notice when we oper-

ate like we are supposed to and Crawford County

is a good example for others!

Matt Blankenship, Roadway Services, 1/9/15

Co-Worker &

Customer Kudos

Wayne County ODOT:

I am writing in appreciation for the replaced mailboxes

along Dover Road (US 250) in Wooster. The last several

years we have had problems with the snow from the plows

breaking our mailboxes off the old support posts we had,

so I replaced them. During the recent snow, I was saddened

to see the mailboxes on the ground again. I called your of-

fice and reported the incident with the uncertainty of

whether you would fix the boxes. I didn’t know what to ex-

pect or how long we would have to make a special trip to

the post office to get our mail.

I was delighted to see the posts repaired and the boxes

replaced the very next day, even though it was only 0 de-

grees outside. As it is becoming more and more the custom

to shrug off accountability in our society, your efforts

should be applauded.

Douglas Amstutz, Wooster, 1/12/15

Mike Dendinger-

This is to let you know your excellent response and sense of

customer service regarding the flooding problem men-

tioned in the letter (see below) is genuinely appreciated. Our

vision statement says we will be professional and productive,

clearly you accomplished both in this case. Thank you for

doing things right and doing the right things! Also, please

pass along my thanks to all the ODOT people involved.

Jerry Wray, ODOT Director, 12/20/14

Director Wray—I would like to provide some feedback on

your employee, Mike Dendinger of District 3. My neighbors

and I have had severe flooding issues near the SR 2 & SR 60

interchange. I met with Mike, and he came up with a well

thought out plan to address this. The project is mostly done

now and many neighbors have had positive comments about

the amount of work done by your ODOT crews. Mike was

polite, friendly, knowledgeable and professional in all my

interactions with him. In my opinion, his attitude and skills

are a strong positive asset to ODOT. Working with Mike and

the ODOT crews are a great example of how government is

supposed to work.

Tim Costello, Vermilion, 12/20/14

Making Strides in Safety WE DID IT!

The year-end numbers are in and we did

it! In 2014, thanks to your cautious efforts, Dis-

trict Three employees reduced our number of

workforce injuries by 25% from previous years.

This is an outstanding accomplishment, and eve-

ry one of us helped make this success possible.

Congratulations to both Crawford and Lorain

County Garages for going an entire year without

a single PERRP recordable injury. Another con-

gratulations goes out to all District employees

for making the entire month of October PERRP

recordable injury free!

Because of these strides in safety demon-

strated by the county and District workforce,

District Three was able to achieve this milestone.

“While all of our Critical Success Factors are

important, this one, the Workforce Injury goal,

truly means the most to me, because it measures

whether or not our employees are going home

healthy and unharmed at the end each of day,”

said Matt Miller, D-3 Business & Human Re-

sources Administrator. “We care about every

one of our team members here at District Three,

and I want them to have a safe working environ-

ment while they are here at work each day, and I

want them to return home to their families safely

every night.”

District Three experienced a total of 26 inju-

ries last year, and although ultimately we are

aiming for a 100% injury-free workplace, this is a

substantial reduction from previous years.

“The culture is changing in our District in

regards to safety,” said Safety & Health Program

Consultant Jason Sutherland. “More employees,

managers and crew leaders are taking safety se-

riously by keeping it a priority in the workplace

every day by looking out for each other.”

According to Sutherland, he sees our em-

ployees taking a different attitude toward safe-

ty. “Our employees used to talk and hear about

safety, but now they are actually seeing and do-

ing something about safety.”

In 2015, we all must work together to keep

this trend of employee injury reduction to

achieve our personal goal of going home safely

at the end of each work day.

4 The Legend—January 2015

District 3 Employee News

Dates to Remember

2/14 Valentine’s Day

2/16 Presidents’ Day

3/8 Daylight Savings Time

3/20 Spring begins

John R. Kasich

Governor

Jerry Wray

Director

Allen C. Biehl, P.E.

District Deputy Director

January 2015

What’s inside…

DDD Corner

Strides in Safety

Customer Kudos

Employee News & Service

Awards

Retreat brings Teams Together

The Legend District 3 Employee Newsletter

New Hires

Jeremy Adato, Engineer-in-Training in

Planning & Engineering.

Travis Short, Realty Specialist 1 in Planning &

Engineering.

Chris Starcher, Highway Technician 1 in

Ashland County.

Mark Geiser, Highway Technician 1 in

Wayne County.

Tom Grim, Auto Mechanic 2 in Lorain

County.

Retirements

John Smith, Transportation Manager 1 in

Huron County with 30 years of service.

Dan Nehls, Auto Mechanic 2 in Lorain County

with 31 years of service.

Sue Clime, Highway Technician 3 in Crawford

County, will retire at the end of February with

30 years of service.

Reclassification

Ken Knapp to Transportation Engineer 1 in

Planning & Engineering.

Employee of the Quarter

Congratulations to Surveyor Scott Hawkins

for being named the Planning & Engineering

Employee of the Quarter!

5 Years

Dick Feldkamp

Petra Gut

Bill Hanning

Geert Kausch

Aaron Martin

Lori Menk

Ken Stefanik

Ted Trout

10 Years

Nate Berry

Lonnie Bullis

Laureen Carpenter

Mindy Cavin

Levi Foss

Howard Goodyear

Helen Immel

Amy Kenyon

Brad Mayes

Brian Rawlings

Sonya Riley

Carla Simpson

Robert Ullom

15 Years

Scott Brant

Mike Fair

Steve Franks

Jeff Inman

Steve Jacobcik

Charlie Laughrey

Larry Lucius

Bridget Rike

Bruce Sidel

Scott Turchek

20 Years

Laura Colbert

Tex Ooten

Vern Vermillion

25 Years

Michelle Burchfield

Rick Koziura

Tom Pavlik

Sue Pore

30 Years

Dave Drevniak

Chris Jones

Jim McClure

Mark Meister

Luis Otero

Dennis White

Thank you for

your service to the

State of Ohio.

*Unfortunately, the Award

Ceremony was postponed due to

weather; however, employees will

receive their certificate and pin at

a later date.

Employee Service Awards

The old saying ‘two heads are better than

one’ proved to be true recently as the

Construction and Planning & Engineering

Departments put their heads together to

look for ways to improve processes, com-

munication, teamwork and bridge any

gaps.

In mid-November, the departments

came together for their second annual

retreat to build their teams and commit-

ment toward one another. With busy

schedules and work locations dispersed

throughout our eight-county district, the

retreat allows everyone to come together

once a year to reconnect as a team.

The day-long event included welcom-

ing remarks from ODOT Director Jerry

Wray, along with presentations by ODOT

Assistant Director of Transportation Policy

Jim Barna on budgeting and finance; Dis-

trict 5 Deputy Director Dave Ray on com-

munication; and two outside speakers on

teamwork and emotional intelligence.

Director Wray began by challenging

everyone in attendance to leave their ego

at the door. He went on to explain that an

organization cannot be great without

trust, teamwork and effective communi-

cation. Each person at every level of the

Department must strive to understand

others’ points of view.

This is the first step in

obtaining the needed

level of trust to build

teams and improve com-

munication. Finally, he

reminded the Construc-

tion and Planning & En-

gineering teams that we will all either win

or lose together, and it all comes back to

trust.

Afternoon sessions reviewed process

improvements made from the previous

retreat. Further discussions were held de-

termining what additional improvements

could be made to plan quality reviews,

scoping, and change orders. Additionally,

teams were formed to delve in to process

improvements related to new topics in-

cluding road closures/detours and Share-

Point/File Management.

It is clear from the day’s events that

for any project to be successful at the

Department, the handoff from Planning &

Engineering to Construction requires a

smooth transition, including clear and

concise communication between the two

departments.

Overall, the event was a success ac-

cording not only to the Construction and

Planning & Engineering Administrators

Bob Weaver and Bob Hochevar but those

who participated as well. Process im-

provement details developed from the

retreat are under review and will be forth-

coming and finalized for implementation

soon.

Pictured in this month’s banner:

While the month of January has seen a

number of winter weather events, as a

District, we have used 7,577 tons less salt

than the 10-year average thus far.