(Will Craft) Thank you for subscribing to The Extra Mile podcast. Help us out by leaving a review and a five-star rating wherever you download the show. After leaving a review, slide on into our DMs over on social media @MississippiDOT, and let us know. As a thank you, we have compiled a Google Map list of all of our guests’ favorite spots to eat on Mississippi Highways. It is our gift to you. Seriously, you guys are the best. We could not do the show without you, and we greatly appreciate the support. Remember, drive smart out there on Mississippi Highways.

[Music and Intro]

(Drew Hall) MDOT presents The Extra Mile Podcast

(Paul Katool) Welcome in to another edition of The Extra Mile Podcast presented by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. I'm Paul Katool, and as always, I'm joined by my co-host Will Craft. And today, we have an internal guest. Very excited to welcome Trudi Loflin, who is the Director of Preconstruction Project Management here at MDOT. Trudi, thank you for making time for us and coming and speaking with us today.

(Trudi Loflin) Thank you, I'm glad to be here.

(Paul) Absolutely, so we'll just kind of get started with a little bit of a softball, but kind of tell us a little bit about yourself, maybe outside of work. Who are you?

(Trudi) Well, I'm Trudi Loflin, and I'm married to my husband Dan, and we have two kids, Caroline and Cooper. And we live in the, uh, Pisgah community of northern Rankin County.

(Will Craft) OK.

(Trudi) I'm, uh, originally from Bassfield. Oh, Southern Mississippi girl. Uh, that's where I grew up. Went to Southern Miss.

(Will) To the top!

(Trudi) Southern, Southern. Miss Grad. Um, my husband went to Ole Miss though, so we, we're Ole Miss people, too.

(Will) That's okay.

(Trudi) Um, I'm outnumbered here at MDOT regardless.

(Will) Oh, yes, we are.

(Trudi) Regardless.

(Will) Absolutely.

(Trudi) Um, but I've been here at MDOT since 1998. So, it's, I've spent over half my life here.

(Will) 1998. Let's get into some of that there. So did you, uh, did you always think when you were from time you were born to a little girl, ‘I just cannot wait to work at MDOT.’

(Trudi) I had no idea what we even did at MDOT, so no.

(Will) Sure.

(Trudi) No. I honestly thought that I wanted to be an attorney.

(Will) OK.

(Trudi) Um, I graduated with my paralegal degree and decided, no, I'm done with school. It's time to, to go to work. But even then, I didn't know anything about MDOT –

(Will) Gotcha.

(Trudi) and how my education could contribute to that, but.

(Will) What, what was your foot in the door here?

(Trudi) Um, actually, Mr. Ronnie Shows –

(Will) OK.

(Trudi) was the Southern District Highway Commissioner at the time. And he's a, to this day, a close family friend of ours. And so they were, he and his wife were at my parents’ house one night playing cards. And, um, I mean, this was 27 years ago. So, I remember this conversation because I was sitting at the bar at my parents’ house. And he said, ‘Trudi, I have the perfect job for you.’ And I was like, ‘What's that?’ He said, ‘You need to be a Right of Way agent.’ I was like, ‘What do they do?’ And he honestly, he didn't know a lot of details.

(Will) Sure.

(Trudi) But he knew that I had an interest in real estate and title abstracting. That was something I really enjoyed –

(Will) OK.

(Trudi) as part of my paralegal degree. And so, he knew that I could apply some of that to this. But I don't know, it was kind of fate, because I guess, I mean he just, he said those words, I applied for the job, and I've been here ever since.

(Will) 27 years later.

(Trudi) I spent those first 26 years of my career in Right of Way, so I've never done anything else, but MDOT's the only place I've ever worked and that was, until now, was the only division I'd ever worked in.

(Will) Nice, OK. So, very familiar with the Right of Way process.

(Trudi) Yes.

(Will) I’m telling you.

(Paul) And you, uh, you worked your way up to division director there, right?

(Trudi) Yes, I did. I came in as, um, actually I wanted to do, like I said, the title abstracting, but they didn't have a position for that. So, I had to do right of way acquisition, is where I had to start and that, that's not for everybody.

(Will) That is a tough world, no doubt.

(Trudi) It’s not easy to buy property that is not for sale.

(Will) Yes.

(Trudi) Um, so, I, after about eight or ten months in that, I was able to switch to the title abstracting and did that for several years and then just continued to work my way up and spent the last ten years there as division director.

(Paul) Look, if you're tuning into the MDOT podcast, you probably already know, but can you kind of just define right of way just for maybe anybody that doesn't?

(Trudi) Well, first of all, you said it correctly. It is “right of way,” not “right away.”

(Will) Nice, Paul.

(Paul) I got it.

(Trudi) I see that, um, a lot and cringe when I see that. Um, we like to say that it's the human element to what we do at MDOT. Um, like I said, it's not easy to buy property that's not for sale.

(Will) Yeah.

(Trudi) Um, you know, unfortunately people are displaced at times, businesses are displaced, and that's, that's the hard thing to do. And we try to avoid that as much as possible, but sometimes it's just not, it's not possible in some situations. And so as far as the right of way process as a whole, it starts with the title abstracting. And that's where we determine who owns the property that we have to acquire. And then we appraise it, and we purchase it, relocate any, from fencing to churches or businesses or whatever's impacted. Clear the right of way of those improvements and have it ready for construction. So, it's, there's a lot.
It's highly regulated. It can be timely. Um, but it's, it's rewarding just like everything else we do here when you see the benefits of it.

(Will) A huge cog, you know, in the process –

(Trudi) Very much so.

(Will) of MDOT projects, no doubt. Well, and you've sort of alluded to all this, but you know, being in right of way and over right of way, now you're really over right of way and in this new role, uh, I say new now, we're, what, about a year?

(Trudi) January will be a year.

(Will) January, so coming up quick.

(Paul) Wow.

(Trudi) It's passed quickly.

(Will) So, what is this new, your new role that you're in now?

(Trudi) So, um, it's um, my title is Director of Pre-Construction Program Management. Typically, in the past, before January, it was assistant chief engineer of pre-construction, but I'm not an engineer. Um, but the pre-construction process is such a huge part of what we do at MDOT, not to take away from our friends –

(Will) That's right.

(Trudi) On the other side.

(Paul) Yeah.

(Trudi) Um, but it, it's a, just a lot goes into that to get you to the point of construction. And so, um, somebody had the great idea that we should divvy up those roles in pre-construction and so we have the engineering side that my counterpart, Lee Frederick, is over and I'm sure he's part of the reason I'm sitting here right now. Um, and then I have right of way, environmental, survey, um, I'm over our program management which we use a project called PDPM.

(Will) Oh, yes.

(Trudi) Project Development/Project Management, which we use for our scheduling and stuff and so I'm over that and utility relocation falls in there some, too. And yeah, so.

(Will) One thing, PDPM, the Project Development/Project Management. For folks that may not know this, I'm a little ignorant of it, myself. That's how all of our projects go into the system. We keep up dates, times, quantity, all these different things. Gotcha. So good.

(Trudi) It's great. It's an, and actually it's, it's an MDOT-built program.

(Will) Oh, wow. OK.

(Trudi) Um, our IS department, I'm sure y'all know this already, but they are phenomenal.

(Paul) Yeah.

(Trudi) They have created many projects that I've been able to use, you know, during my time here for us in right of way or use those they've created for other divisions. But yes, they have someone that manages that, the actual structure of the program for us. And then, um, most all of us at MDOT, most divisions use it to some degree on the Office of Highway side to track and schedule our projects to make sure we deliver on time and so we can track basically each step of the process through that program. So, it's a, that has taken a lot of my time the last 10 months.

(Will) Sure. No doubt. I couldn’t imagine, you know, however many, I won't even throw a number out there, but however many years ago it was trying to manage all the, the numbers and financials that go into these projects and stuff with just, you know, kind of the old school pen and paper.

(Trudi) Oh, yeah.

(Will) Um, and that was that. You know, I guess filing cabinets full of folders and binders and paperwork just everywhere.

(Trudi) Oh, yeah.

(Will) Uh, I can’t even imagine. I’m sure that’s true for so many other processes, too, but shout out to uh, our folks in IS for putting together PDPM.

(Trudi) Yes.

(Will) Great stuff.

(Trudi) David Brown.

(Will) That’s right.

(Paul) He’s the man, for sure. We work with him a lot. So, I know it's kind of a process, the pre-construction process is a process, but is there anything like of note going on under your purview right now that you'd like to kind of shout out?

(Trudi) Hmm. I think as a whole, well, it's pre-construction involved and just MDOT as a whole is the revitalization of our capacity program.

(Will) Absolutely.

(Trudi) Obviously, that's putting a lot of work on, on all of us, including pre-construction. But I mean, when I first came to work here, that's basically all we were doing. And then –

(Will) Oh wow. Yeah.

(Trudi) Yeah. I mean we did, I've seen lots of capacity projects, you know, come to pass in the early part of my career, and then we saw a lull in that for a while. Um. So, I've, I'm glad to see that coming back up –

(Will) Absolutely.

(Trudi) and that, that's a really good thing for all of us, but it's definitely going to be a lot of work for us in pre-construction and everyone else as well. Um, we're in the process of working through our utility relocation and, and developing a manual and all for that, that, that's a big cog in the wheel, as well.

(Will) I’m sure, yeah.

(Trudi) It's trying to get those relocated because, um, we actually in Mississippi, we do that before we let a project, some states do not. They let it –

(Will) Really?

(Trudi) as part of their construction, but we relocate utilities prior to letting the project.

(Will) I would think that that would be better to have that done.

(Trudi) To make sure that it’s done –

(Will) Right.

(Trudi) But it also can, can delay your projects.

(Will) Sure.

(Trudi) So, there’s a lot of coordination that’s required with that. So, that’s something we’re working hard to get that –

(Will) Interesting.

(Trudi) Yeah.

(Will) What about before we get into the last couple of fun questions here? What about a little bit of, I’m gonna throw you a curveball. Maybe like a most memorable project or event, you know something that's been, uh, ideally, maybe in a happy way, a good way that stuck with you. But if there was something, a lesson learned on that one, you know, share that, too.

(Trudi) I can probably do both. Um, I can do, well, you know, like I said, I've been here a long time. I mean, this, it’s fixing to be 27 years.

(Will) Yeah.

(Trudi) So, I could, I could tell you lots of stories. Um, I think for me, the positive thing is just to drive down a highway and know that you had something to do with that.

(Will) Yeah, sure.

(Trudi) You know, it's, it's just real, it's rewarding. And so many people do not. There's just, if you know me, you know that I just speak what –

(Will) That's quite all right.

(Trudi) So, I don't want to offend anybody when I say this, but you know, people just do not understand what it takes to get a project from conception to construction.

(Will) Sure.

(Trudi) And so, to know that you're a part of that, whether it's really small or really large, I mean, that's rewarding to me. So, I think that's over, it's just big picture. That's the positive good that I've had. Um, I think the turning point for me was when I first came to work here, and I was put in that acquisition agent role, and it was on Highway 82 in Montgomery County. We were four-laning that project and one of the ladies we had to make an offer to was an elderly widow. And, you know, she had to tell us the story of how she was like third generation that had been born and raised in her house and was raising her family there. And the project was taking her, I mean –

(Will) Gosh.

(Trudi) we were going right through her house. And when I left there that day, I said, ‘This is not for me.’

(Will) That is the some of the toughest.

(Trudi) I knew that, you know, that, that, so that was, that was a defining moment. I mean, it wasn't a negative, it just let me know. That's it. I don't really know what I want to do in right of way, but it wasn't that.

(Will) Having these conversations is not it, yeah.

(Trudi) Yeah, it was, it was not that. And it gives you an appreciation though for the people who are able to do that and do it effectively. And we've had some great folks to do that over the years.

(Will) No doubt. I would just add to that, you talk about, you know, not wanting to offend anybody for not knowing the process. Look, I work here, and if I had to walk you through from, you know, A to Z, I'm certain that I would miss some things or mess some things up.

(Trudi) Oh yeah, and it's amazing. Me being here as long as I have, the things that I've learned just, I wouldn't say learned, learning over the last 10 months, you know, that I didn't know. I mean, it's, there's just so much that goes into this.

(Will) It’s a great big elephant, you know. You just got to eat it one bite at a time.

(Trudi) That’s right.

(Paul) Put it out. And, uh, we'll get to the fun questions. I just got one more thing. So, we usually ask the internal people this. So, you've obviously been at MDOT quite some time. So, if you’re a new person out of school, an engineer, maybe in another area. Sell coming to work at the, at the Mississippi DOT.

(Trudi) For me, it's the family atmosphere. It um, I mean, I met my husband here. I have raised two children working here.

(Will) They're gonna work here, too? I’m just kidding!

(Trudi) I don't know. One of them for years, my son said he was gonna be an engineer, and now he says he wants to be an attorney.

(Will) Full circle.

(Trudi) But I, I see him, and I see, yeah, he's math minded. I feel like he may end up being an engineer and come to work here. Um, but I really do. I think it's the family atmosphere and you know, I've seen a lot of people come and go, but I really think that we're the best we've ever been now. Um, you know, when you can retire, and you don't want to retire –

(Will) Shoot, yeah.

(Trudi) Um, that, that says a lot to me, and I think it just goes back to our people and the family atmosphere.

(Will) Yeah, I love that. And it's not the first time that that's been said on this show. So, I mean, look, uh, listeners out there, that is not a talking point we discuss before we come into these podcasts at all. It just really is, uh, an awesome place to work. So, if you're out there looking for a job, if you're getting ready to graduate, holler at us.

(Trudi) Come see us.

(Will) That’s right.

(Trudi) We are hiring!

(Paul) GoMDOT.com/careers.

(Will) Yes!

(Paul) Hit it up!

(Will) Person with the actual details. There we go. All right. With that, we’re going to into the fun questions. We like to think they're fun.

(Trudi) OK.

(Will) Um, a little bit of food, a little bit of music, uh, as a people, as a podcast. That's gonna be my tagline. We like to eat. Um, so any place, you can give us a couple if you need to. Maybe like a mainstay, where you going if you have time for lunch in the Jackson Metro. But more importantly, maybe a place that you just don't get to go to very often. Maybe it's, you know, uh, North Mississippi or South somewhere that you don't get to go very often, but you just can't miss it if you're in the area.

(Trudi): I don't typically do lunch.

(Will) OK.

(Trudi) Um, I mean, if I do, I love Keifer’s.

(Will) Alright. Nothing wrong with Keifer’s.

(Paul) Nice.

(Trudi) Yeah. I love to go to Keifer’s, um.

(Will) I’m the guy that gets the hamburger specials when I go there.

(Trudi) Oh, do you?

(Will) Yeah.

(Trudi) You’re the oddball.

(Will) I feel judged out there. Don’t “at” me, yeah.

(Trudi) Um, no, I, typically, like, that’s lunch, lunch is my time where I decompress, so I close my door.

(Will) I get that.

(Trudi) And, uh, that, you know, um, but yeah, I would, I love Keifer’s anytime.

(Will) Great suggestion.

(Trudi): Statewide, somewhere that we'd love to go, obviously, we're Oxford people. As I said earlier, we're Ole Miss people, so anywhere on the square, but as a family, we really love Proud Larry's.

(Will) Proud Larry’s.

(Paul) Nice.

(Trudi) That's one of our go-tos. You can find us there if we're in Oxford.

(Will) That’s the Oxford place?

(Trudi) Yeah.

(Will) OK, alright.

(Paul) Oh, yeah. So, that's a perfect transition. Larry's is the most underrated music venue, probably in the southeast. It's my special place as well. Love it. Great answer there. And we'll transition. So, let's talk about music.

(Trudi) OK.

(Paul) A concert that maybe has stuck out for you in the past. What, give us that detail.

(Trudi) Um, I like all kinds of music. But I would say that, um, Eric Church was probably the best concert I've been to, um.

(Will) He’s a good one.

(Paul) Nice.

(Trudi) Um, really, yeah. He puts on a great show.

(Will) Saw him down in, uh, New Orleans one time and then in Memphis the other time where he actually, you know, you say he puts on a good show. He does, he gets into it. He was stomping his foot, and he broke his foot.

(Trudi) Oh, wow.

(Paul) Whoa.

(Will) Yeah, apparently. We found out a couple days later. So, maybe don’t get into it quite that much.

(Trudi) Well, the thing about him is, I mean, it’s, uh, hours of just him, you know? Seldom does he have an opening act. And, and if it is –

(Will) Oh, true.

(Trudi) it’s very short-lived. You know, most of them have several. He just puts on a good show. But I, I like concerts, I like any kind of music, so I'm, but he would be the one probably that stands out.

(Paul) Love it.

(Will) Strong.

(Paul) Where, where was that?

(Trudi) Tupelo.

(Paul) Tupelo.

(Will) Tupelo.

(Paul) What venue?

(Trudi) Oh, what is, the BancorpSouth?

(Will) That’s the Landers Center, isn’t it?

(Paul) Wow.

(Trudi) No, no that’s, isn’t that the, is it?

(Will) Oh, Lord. I don’t know.

(Trudi) I thought it was the BancorpSouth –

(Will) Up yonder?

(Trudi) but I don’t know.

(Drew) It’s BancorpSouth.

(Will) So, we got to get the help from the production team here.

(Trudi) I think Landers, isn’t that in Southaven or something?

(Will) Maybe.

(Paul) There we go.

(Will) The irony is not lost on me.

(Trudi) See, I do know my music, see?

(Will) You do, yeah. The irony is not lost on me that I struggle with geography, and I work at the Department of Transportation.

(Paul) Oh, same.

(Trudi) At least you can be honest!

(Paul) Same, same. And speaking of music, we do want to shout out an MDOT employee.

(Will) Yeah.

(Paul) Brad Robbins in Contract Administration Division. Will, Michael Flood, Anna Ehrgott, myself. We took in the North Mississippi All-Stars at Duling Hall last Thursday.

(Will) That's right.

(Paul) And he came up and recognized us and said he tunes in the podcast. So, shout out to Brad.

(Will) Appreciate you, Brad.

(Paul) Yes sir.

(Trudi) That’s awesome.

(Paul) Trudi, thank you so much for coming in and joining us today. Lots of good information.

(Trudi) Thank you, Paul. I appreciate it.

(Will) Absolutely.

(Paul) All right.

(Trudi) We can thank Lee for having me here.

(Will) That’s right. Shout out to Lee Fredericks while we’re at it.

(Trudi) And I can take this off my list, and I don’t have to be concerned about it.

(Will) That’s right.

(Paul) That’s what you think. Just kidding, just kidding. All right. We’ll wrap things up there. Thank you to our listeners, our viewers for tuning into the Extra Mile Podcast. You can watch and listen to episodes by visiting GoMDOT.com/TheExtraMile. Follow us on social media. @MississippiDOT is the handle. We want to thank our producer/editor, Drew Hall, who holds things down behind the scenes, and remember to drive smart out there on Mississippi highways.