MDOT presents “The Extra Mile” with Paul and Waverly.

Welcome in to “The Extra Mile” podcast presented by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. “I’m Paul Katool, MDOT Digital Media Manger. I’m your cohost Waverly McCarthy, The Social Media Strategist here at MDOT”. We are so excited to get this podcast up and running. It’s taken a lot of hard work and planning. We’re here. We have a great first show for you today. First we’ll be talking hurricanes with MDOT Public Information Officer Katey Hornsby. She’ll also give us some updates about projects happening down south. And then a little later in the show, we will sit down with MDOT’s newest Executive Director Brad White. Alright, you ready to dive in? Let’s do it.

Joining us is Katey Hornsby. She’s a Public Information Officer for South Mississippi. Welcome in, Katey. Hey. Thank you so much for having me. Hi. Excited to have you as our first interview of the podcast. We’ll get started and dive right in. We all know that hurricane season last year was kind of intense. We’re not meteorologists here but we do keep track what the National Weather Service has to say and everything. So what are they saying for this year’s hurricane season? Yea, like you said we are not meteorologists but our eyes are always on the tropics during hurricane season. Last year was historic. There was 30 named storms, 14 hurricanes, seven major hurricanes and for this year they are predicting a very active hurricane season. They don’t think it’s going to be quite as active as last year which you know, keep your fingers crossed that’s true. They do expect a lot of activity. We’ve already had a tropical cyclone. It never got named, I don’t believe but it definitely came across the coast, swept thru, gave us some rain and what not so, it’s already been active so far. There are a couple other tropical systems out there kind of doing their thing so we are expecting another busy season, keeping our fingers crossed that it’s not as busy as it was last year.

So, what is MDOT’s role in hurricane season before and after? Before we encourage people to go ahead and get their evacuation plans in place. We really promote to people how important it is to know your evacuate route, know where you’re going to go, make sure to let your neighbors know where you’re going to go, have a hotel lined up or a family member that you can stay with and that’s just for your safety. On MDOT’s end what we actually do is all of our crews are on standby, they’re ready to go. They are either bringing down the high mast lights, they’re preparing the bridges, taking out traffic control boxes to prevent any damage from being done to any of the equipment or anything. We are doing that before the storm while y ‘all are doing your planning and what not, y’all as in the everyday person that needs to be evacuating. We’re basically on standby during the storm. Our crews are out there. They are in the maintenance sheds or maintenance shops waiting. They might be at home, depending on when the storm hits.

After, that is when it is our time to shine. We are MDOT first responders. We come out there and we clear the roads for other first responders, for the emergency crews, for ambulances, police. We are out there clearing the roads as quickly as possible so we can get traffic flowing back to normal as much as possible.

You know throughout the year, Waverly does a great job of putting out information on social media, hurricane preparedness information. Yes, absolutely. Get the plug in there, Waverly. You follow @MississippiDOT on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Everything that we got, we put out hurricane tips, safe driving tips all throughout the year but we definitely put a big focus on hurricane safety during hurricane season. That’s @MississippiDOT? Yes @MississippiDOT. There you go. A lot of hurricane preparedness information is on social media channels during this time of year.

Katey, Can you give us a little inside kind of what that hurricane preparedness those tips and information is? Yeah, absolutely. As I said before, you know evacuation is the number one thing that MDOT drives home. We want everybody to have a plan in place. We want you to know what your evacuation route is because not everybody can take Hwy 49 to evacuate. We have a map, we have our hurricane guide. Inside there is an evacuation map and it’s got more than 20 different routes that people can take. It’s such a nifty tool and it’s so easy to get access to. You can get a tangible copy, you can order it on our website at GoMDOT.com/maps. You can also download it too at GoMDOT.com/hurricanes. It’s got tips in there about contraflow, again there are evacuation routes, numbers to call, so we encourage people to get that resource to help them with their planning and what not.

We also have a checklist because we want people to go ahead and get their preparedness kit in place. Basically all that is just a kit full of different material you will need to be away from your home for up to fourteen days, water, food, batteries and different things like that. Once you get your plan in place, once you do have a preparedness kit, we want you to know where you’re going to go. Again we’ve got different kind of resources to help everybody figure that out and the checklist and the map they are really vital. They are really crucial.

So where can you find all that stuff? Again our website is the best place to find it. Go to GoMDOT.com/maps is where you can order all this stuff and it will be shipped right to your house. If you want to just download it or pull it up on your phone go to GoMDOT.com/hurricanes. You plug social media and that’s a great place to constantly updating Facebook and Twitter with what’s happening whether it’s road closures or hey, it’s hurricane season, make sure to get your checklist printed out and ready to go or get your kit ready so, just a lot of different avenues to get all those resources.

We also as the weather approaches, as the hurricane approaches, tropical storm or whatever, we also post, we share from our partners at MEMA, at the National Weather Service, we post updates on the weather. We aren’t meteorologists but we do try to use every opportunity to inform the public about what’s coming on. At the end of the day that’s our number goal. We want to keep everybody safe. An informed public is a safe public. Our goal is to just use as many outlets as we can to get the information out to as many people as we can. Yeah.

You said earlier a little something about contraflow can you explain a little bit about that because I don’t think a lot of people know exactly what that is. There’s always sometimes confusion and just misunderstood information about contraflow. Basically what contraflow is just when I-55 and I-59 all lanes of traffic turn northbound and that is only going to happen if the Louisiana governor requests it and Mississippi’s governor approves it. The point of it is to evacuate the lower Louisiana parishes, a few of the coastal Mississippi counties but it’s primarily to help Louisiana. Basically just all four lanes of traffic will again turn northbound, all the evacuees will head out, get to safety and it will turn back to normal around the Brookhaven and Hattiesburg areas. Then things get back to normal, some exits will be blocked off and what not. We had a drill not too long ago which made sure that all of our MDOT workers were ready to go and made sure they knew what to do and what not and it went really well. If that does happen this year, we hope not, we know our crews are prepared for it.

That’s really good information. Contraflow is definitely something you hear but it’s really good to get a great explanation of what it is as we move through hurricane season. Speaking of hurricane evacuation routes, recently repaired the Fort Bayou Bridge in Ocean Springs. That was a big maintenance project. Can you talk about that and then just talk overall about the importance of maintenance? Yeah, absolutely. So, the 609 bridge, we had to do a full closure. It was supposed to be forty five days but it had to be a little longer. The point to doing that was so that we could basically just redo the entire bridge. It was old. We hadn’t had a maintenance project to this bridge in thirty plus years and so it needed to be done. Because like you said that it’s a hurricane evacuation route, it was even more important that we did this maintenance project. Our goal was to get it back open from that closure before hurricane season. We were able to do it which is awesome. It’s not done yet. We still have some more technical things to do but it won’t disrupt the public as much which is really good. So, it’s open? Yeah, it’s open. There are a few overnight closures but we were able to get it back open before hurricane season. I mean, you think about a bridge. You constantly have to make sure that it is safe. You have to make sure that the wear and tear hasn’t worn it down. You are constantly making little maintenance repairs to make it last longer. Throughout the years we’ve been doing small maintenance projects to the bridge and keeping up with it. That’s why we haven’t had to do any major project until you know, 30-plus years. It’s like a car. If you want it last longer, you have to constantly get an oil change or new tires. It’s the same thing so we are always keeping our eyes on bridges and roads and maintenance projects because it is so vital to the safety of our drivers. You don’t always think about how if a bridge were to go down during hurricane season that completely, I mean block the community from safe evacuation. Yeah, absolutely. That’s why it was such an important project to get done and back open before hurricane season because that’s a major evacuation route that thousands of people could take. We don’t want to cause anymore backups or traffic jams because of a closed evacuation route.

Really great information about hurricane preparedness. Before we get you out of here, can you talk a little bit about some of the projects going on in the Southern District? Anything major you want to talk about? Yeah, so we have a lot going on in south Mississippi. We actually, our Evelyn Gandy interchange, we were able to open a newly constructed bridge. It’s a huge interchange project. It’s been going on for about two years now. It’s about a 24.2 million dollar project. It’s going to be great once everything is officially back open. We were able to open the new bridge a couple weeks ago and get traffic moving on there so that was awesome. Moving forward, hopefully get done late summer. We’ve also got the safety improvement project also in kind of the same area about 15 minutes down the road from there. Basically it’s just making 49 safer for drivers. They’re currently working on grating work in the median in the southbound outside shoulders and drainage culvert work. They’re also doing some work to the existing southbound lanes in several locations. They are just basically reconstructing them to remove steep vertical curves. That’s basically to make it easier for drivers to see the roadways when they are traveling, not as many hills and what not. Just kind of leveling everything out. Again safety is our top priority and this is a big safety improvement project.

You know, we also have in Marion County, a bridge replacement on Hwy 98 and that’s moving forward as well. Crews are working on the caps of one of the bridges so that’s going according to schedule and we’re doing really well with that. We’re making some really good progress down in south Mississippi. Awesome. Well thanks so much for joining us today. We learned a lot about south Mississippi and hurricanes. Can you tell us one more time where we can get our hurricane evacuation guide, our check list and all that kind of stuff? Yes, Absolutely. Our website is the best place to find all of that at GoMDOT.com/hurricanes. If you want to personally order your own map at GoMDOT.com/maps. And they’re free. They are free. Can’t beat free. Katey, Thank you so much.

So, we’re very excited to introduce our next guest Mr. Brad White, MDOT’s newest executive director. Today is his first official day in office and we are so grateful to him for taking the time out of his day to sit down with us. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. Before we get started we just want to get to know a little bit about you. Can you tell us a little about how you got your start? In 1991 a guy named Ray Layton that was a former mayor in Simpson county where I’m from got me involved in Kirk Fordices gubernatorial campaign. Back at that time anyone that would remember no one expected him to win the republican primary much less the general election. So that kind of started it off and I became very active in the political world at that time which led me to meeting a guy named Dick Hall who was also politically active. When he was appointed transportation commissioner in 1999 he afforded me the opportunity to come in with the Department of Transportation.

You were named Executive Director at the beginning of June so how has the last month been for you? It’s been rather hectic trying to close out my office in the governor’s office. Acquiring information here and preparing to come to the Department of Transportation and hit the ground running but it’s been good and everyone’s been very helpful. I found everything just like it was when I left here 15 years ago. A great atmosphere, wonderful people, very inviting, very helpful. You talked a little bit about the sort of positives of MDOT so why were you interested in this position? When I came to work here in like I said in 1999, one of the things that stood out to me immediately was just the sense of family here. At that time, the commissioner’s offices were on the 10th floor and the executive director was a guy named Ken Warren who I think had been at the Department of Transportation since God was a boy. Everybody if you went around the 10th floor, most of the office directors, assistant chief of engineers, everyone I think had a minimum of 35 years of service and were all wonderfully good Christian people. So, my first exposure to the agency was very positive and it was a very important time in my life as a young man. So, I’ve always looked back at the agency, after I left as just one of the best places that I’ve ever worked.

My career took several different paths that ultimately led me into management and being more of an administrator having the opportunity to serve as chief of staff at other state agencies here as well as in Washington for a couple of U.S. senators. So, I was fortunate enough to develop skills that hopefully will be able to put to work back here kind of where my public service career started in earnest. It’s my intention to work in a way that will reflect credit upon the agency and the industry.

Brad, you mentioned your time with Commissioner Hall. Can you go into a little more detail about your time with the commissioner and has he offered you any advice? He has offered quite a lot of advice over the years. Dick Hall and Thad Cochran are probably two of the most influential people in my life. I wouldn’t have had a college education if it wasn’t for Commissioner Hall. When I was a senior in college, my parents divorced and it led me to dropping out of school and going to work. He gave me a job and hired me here. As soon as I was financially able, he allowed me to go back to college at night. Ultimately, I got my degree here from Belhaven here in Jackson by working at MDOT in the day and going there at night. I don’t think I would have been able to do that without his help and support during that time. Which goes back to what I was saying earlier. That support didn’t just come from him but everybody else here in the department and around. So, he’s a very important figure in my life, not just from what he’s done for me personally but learning his management skills and watching him. Of course Senator Cochran, there was nobody like Thad Cochran. I’ve always said that whoever writes the book about Thad Cochran’s life could title it “When Mississippi Got It Right” because he was one of our smartest, best, most capable public servants that I ever had the opportunity of working with. His service as a gentleman and as a true patriot taught me a lot of valuable lessons in my time with him as well.

We’ve talked about your time at the state level with Commissioner Hall. You have a lot of experience at the federal level too, chief of staff for the late Thad Cochran, for current U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde Smith. I’m sure you’ve dealt with transportation infrastructure policy funding, etc. Can you talk about your experience with that and how that maybe will help you in your role as the MDOT leader? Originally we had earmarks back in the days when Senator Lott and Cochran both were in Washington. A lot of the transportation needs that the state had were met by virtue of them holding a knife whenever the pie was getting cut and being able to funnel funds here for things like the Greenville, Mississippi River Bridge comes to mind that was a hundred million earmark that started that project.

But Senator Cochran by the time I became his Chief of Staff was still serving as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee so most of the involvement that we had in transportation all came from the funding side of it. Because as you know nationally we’re dealing with a declining revenue problem where it comes to fuel tax and congress meets that by just plugging that hole, plugging that deficit with the general appropriations.

So Senator Cochran chairing the proporations committee we were very involved in the appropriation process of allocating funds out for all parts of the federal government which included obviously the transportation.

So I know we talked to you a little bit about funding but from your perspective what do you think that MDOT needs moving forward? Well, I think we need a better relationship with the legislature and I think that begins just by building trust. Trust runs both ways. We have to get to a part where and a point where we can trust them and they can trust us. I’d like to think that some of my past roles have given me the opportunity to develop a reputation of somebody that is an honest broker and will keep my word and try to find ways to get the “yes” and be cooperative and collaborative in all the measures there. Hopefully that’s something that we can build on. I believe that we have a lot of talent here. We certainly have a team of people that know how to do their job and know how to do it well. What we need is a partnership with our state leaders to ensure that we have the resources and tools to do the job and the mission that we’ve been tasked with. I think that would be one of my first priorities is trying to deal with them to address issues that are important to us.

Do you have like a hundred day plan? I know you just mentioned that priority. Do you have some things you want to do right off bat? I will be observing at first. I want everyone to give me a chance and not to prejudge me before I come in. So, if I’m requesting that from our team here in the agency I feel like it’s very important for me to reciprocate in kind. So I’m not coming in with any preconceived notions. I want to do a lot of observing. I want to ask a lot of questions. I want to learn a lot and I’ve got a list of things like that I’ve thought about that I want to look into and know more about, but I’m not coming in with any set agenda to start enacting any type of change yet. I want to spend my time observing, learning and then figuring out a course of action.

So you talked a little bit earlier about how your time at MDOT you saw how much of a family and what a great experience working here. Are you excited to get back to that? Very much so. A lot of the people that are here now were here when I was there before…Charles Carr, Roy Tipton, Jeff Altman, Brian Ratliff, and Amy Hornback. In many senses it’s kind of like coming home. When I got off the elevators on the floor where my office will be, you know, that’s where I left from 15 years ago. So it’s a very nostalgic feeling to it but it’s a great source of joy. I love that.

Just from perusing your Twitter profile that’s a great way to get to know someone. We noticed that you’re a big time reader. Is there anything that you are reading right now and maybe anything that could help you as you begin your journey as Executive Director? Or anything that you suggest that other people read? There you go.

Right now I’m reading a biography on Henry Clay, former Speaker of the House, U.S. Senate, was Secretary of State. In my opinion, I think he was probably one of the most pivotal and consequential figures of the nineteenth century that didn’t become president. He’s known for several things but the thing that I guess I admire was he was the architect of finding ways of bringing people together to avoid a civil war. The Civil War would have probably happened many years earlier if not for him in trying to work out a compromise and seeking a common ground and finding a way to move people together forward. I think that’s a valuable trait to try to learn from and hopefully emulate as we move forward in trying to direct the team here.

Can you maybe talk a little bit more about your leadership style? I don’t think I’m a micromanager. I like to kind of point things in a direction and then have capable and talented people that know how to do their job and then just get out of their way. That’s kind of been I think people that have worked on staff where I’ve been the Chief of Staff before would say. I’ve been very fortunate to have really good people around me and I know that that’s going to be the case here. And when that is the situation you just give people the tools and resources to do their job, the direction and then the support and the backing to do it. I try not to micromanage anything.

That was one of the things earlier that we were talking about Commissioner Hall. That was something I learned from both he and Senator Cochran. That’s kind of how they were. That’s how they both treated me when I worked for each of them individually was they always set a very clear direction for me to go in and then they got out of the way and allowed me to do that so I try to delegate and I try to focus on big picture things. I try to support the people that are on the ground doing all the things that truly make the agency work. What I look to do is try to identify those types of resources and support that is needed that I can provide and help make sure it’s available to all the staff here so they can more easily and better do their job.

I know we all here at MDOT work for the tax payers so do you have anything you would like to say, speak directly to the tax payers and say that you would like to accomplish at MDOT or what can you tell them? I think that’s who we are ultimately responsible to. The voters of this state elect the commission that is the policy developing arm and board of directors if you will of the agency. I think that’s very important to remember that’s who we work for. We have a responsibility of how we spend their money. The thing about government is we cannot receive a penny that we first don’t take from somebody so I think that we have a huge responsibility in the way that we administer things here and I think that’s part of what will be needed in building better relationships with elected leaders around the state and as well as our congressional delegation is to show that we can be faithful in not just the big things but the small things as well ultimately keeping in mind the people that are paying the bill.

Is there anything else that you would like to touch on as you begin? No, I’m just excited about the opportunity. I’m appreciative of the commission giving me this opportunity, the support that they’ve given, the support I’ve received from the governor and the leadership in the legislature. This government is a team sport and it’s going to take everybody working together to do that and I’m excited about being a part of it. I’m looking forward to it.

Well, Brad, Thank you so much for joining us. I know you’re a busy man and so I appreciate it.

Thanks for listening. If you want to hear more episodes of The Extra Mile be sure to subscribe or download wherever podcasts can be found. A special thanks to our producer and one of today’s guests Katey Hornsby and our editor Drew Hall. And a reminder as always remember to drive smart out there on Mississippi highways.