Kim Swanson: 0:03

Welcome to AASHTO Resource Q&A. We're taking time to discuss construction materials, testing and inspection with people in the know. From exploring testing problems and solutions to laboratory best practices and quality management, we're covering topics important to you.

Brian Johnson: 0:18

Welcome to AASHTO Resource Q&A. I am Brian Johnson.

Kim Swanson: 0:22

And I am Kim Swanson, and today we have a guest with us and he's a returning guest. So, brian, do you want to introduce him, because I know I'm not going to do it justice.

Brian Johnson: 0:32

Yeah, yeah, we're happy to have Bryce Hanlon back from the Oklahoma DOT geotechnical design engineer and last when we spoke with Bryce, when we met Bryce, he was just a DOT baby with one month old experience, under the tutelage of quite a few really experienced great people. So at this point Bryce has got a year and a half under his belt, uh, and quite a bit of experience. So we're going to talk to him about what's been going on there and get some updates, uh, because we that that episode was tracking pretty well. So I think people will be interested to hear what's going on now. So welcome. Long intro. I'll take it for bryce. So, yeah, welcome b cool.

Bryce Hanlon: 1:22

Thank you guys, I appreciate it.

Brian Johnson: 1:24

After a year and a half moving from I mean quite a few years Now. You're not new to work. I think in that episode you had been with consulting firms for, I think, 18 years, 18 years.

Bryce Hanlon: 1:39

Yeah, age is getting higher and higher pretty quick. But yeah, so I worked in the consulting industry for over 18 years, so like right out of high school, um, I worked in a lab, a geotechnical lab. I did drilling, you know, I kind of did all the things that a geotech engineer would do. And then, yeah, I kind of made the move over here in early 2023, and you know the kind of the main early 2023. And you know the kind of the main reason was it because I kind of I saw that there was a gap at the DOT level with needing somebody to kind of help with geotechnical processes and get kind of the geotechnical industry up to what I would say would kind of be the necessary standard. You know, geotech is kind of the forgotten. You know part of design quite a bit.

Bryce Hanlon: 2:26

So what I did was I kind of used my experience on the consulting side to, you know, identify issues kind of with our processes here and kind of work towards improving it. And then I'm using a lot of my contacts and resources with the consultants to kind of get them, you know, informed on what our plans are and get feedback from them on kind of just different things, like you know our processes are, you know kind of how we do invoicing, just kind of all the day-to-day stuff that like we kind of talked about. It's not necessarily engineering stuff, it's just how can we get these projects done more efficiently and, you know, get everyone to where we can have repeatable processes and, um, you know, going forward, have a have a good, good future. So it's it's. It is a lot like I said, engineering is not really my, it's not really my job anymore. I'm an engineer, but it's.

Brian Johnson: 3:22

It's really kind of making sure all the geotechnical engineering throughout the state gets done correctly when you started a year and a half ago, you had some ideas about what you'd be doing and and uh what. What has changed for you, uh, as far as like what your day-to-day job duties are as a geotechnical?

Bryce Hanlon: 3:41

engineer. Whenever we did this first time. Odot was just kind of doing this modernization initiative thing where all the design groups are going to be kind of grouped together. We had a very separated. We had a roadway division, bridge division, geotech was kind of a. We had a geotech engineer within the bridge group, we had a geotech engineer within the bridge group, we had a geotech engineer, slash pavement engineer within the roadway group and kind of what they were seeing.

Bryce Hanlon: 4:10

As those groups were kind of going to be unifying in the future, they needed to have somebody come in to kind of work with both of those groups. But also with the increased reliance on consultants for completing a lot of the work, they need to have somebody to be able to kind of lead that communication while, you know, being the central figure between the like I said, the design groups and the endo. So I I, the company I worked for as a consultant did a lot of design work so I was kind of the in-house geotech engineer for those. So I understood how a lot of the DOT projects work. So I basically came here and work with the in-house engineers here and the consultants.

Bryce Hanlon: 4:51

So basically I'm kind of the middleman but I kind of understand all the sides, which makes it easier to get people what they need and kind of be able to have everyone speak in the same language. I can speak both geotech and designer a little bit. I'm more geotech but I'm more fluent in geotech, I would say, but the designers I can at least with. Working directly with the designers at my old company I was able to kind of figure out. You know, geotech is a million different things you can give somebody, but you eventually figure out what data is actually important and how things need to be delivered so that they can do what they need to do efficiently.

Kim Swanson: 5:30

Well, you say that you were a middleman, kind of like it was a bad thing. Middlemans are necessary. They're so necessary, just like what you described.

Bryce Hanlon: 5:38

Yeah, I would have loved to have so. Whenever I used to be a consultant it was hard at the DOT level, Like there wasn't really someone here that you could call. That you felt like you know. So whenever I had to call here, I would always have to call, you know, either a bridge engineer or a roadway engineer, which is fine.

Bryce Hanlon: 5:56

But then they don't understand. Like so if you're out in the field and you know, say it had been raining for like two weeks and the site, the site was, was wet, and you know I'm like, hey, we're not going to be able to get out there, or hey, we need more money for dozer work or all this stuff, like they don't understand the cost associated with this stuff. They didn't understand just the time associated with this. They didn't understand weather delays, because everybody that's a designer never has weather delays. You're inside every day, it's, it's great. But with the geotech there's all this, like you know, there's all these variables that like just you don't really, you know, you can't, you can't. Unless you've experienced it, you really don't still understand kind of how things, how things go. So we've got with me, you know that the geotech will come to me.

Bryce Hanlon: 6:37

Like a lot of times I'll get calls from them in the field and they're like you know I'm running into issue. What do you think we should do? You know I can either help them directly or I can be like, hey, let me reach out to the bridge engineer or the whatever you know roadway engineer and be like, hey, you know they're having this issue. You know I've had this issue in the past. You know this is what I would recommend. We do, and typically we come to a solution that way. But before there was no, you kind of were just you'd hope that they'd accept it. Or sometimes you just have to eat the cost because you still have to get the work done, obviously. But yeah, that's a whole you know getting paid for all the work that's required to finish these projects. That was a big, you know, initiative that I helped with when I started.

Brian Johnson: 7:17

Yeah, I know one of the missions that you had starting out was to try to get the data to the consultants that they needed to do an effective job right, because you were on the other end. Now, how has that been going? Have you been able to make any headway on that? You know?

Bryce Hanlon: 7:31

geotechnical data. The processes for how that's delivered has changed over time, like it used to just be, you know, mailed in typewritten reports and then so we had like a filing cabinet of those and then we had a bunch of reports that were, you know, pdf copies and then now we're moving into there's going to be PDF and then there's like a 3D modeling deliverable component that eventually is going to be there. We're not quite there yet but they had had. They had all these filing cabinets that they have been for the last. I've not been here almost two years and I think they've been doing it since I've been here. But they are scanning and logging old reports, bridge reports, roadway reports, all the different things, and then creating a, a GIS database to where you can search it across the state, so like if the geotech consultant has a project in wherever county Oklahoma, they can get on this website and get the most information. Like all the information that we have, they can have access to it quickly. Now this process, I mean it takes forever. It's going to take a while. We I would say they're maybe halfway done. I mean maybe not even halfway inputting all this data. They are getting to the more modern. They started with the old, so like we had reports from like the 50s Like, so 50s, 60s, just in a filing cabinet. You're having to figure out, like you know obviously I don't know if people were using GPS, like coordinates, to track locations back then A lot of it's you know, stations and stuff. So a lot of the work is just figuring out what they had and where it's from and then, yeah, getting it into this database. That's user-friendly. It's pretty cool. They have we have kind of like a.

Bryce Hanlon: 9:14

It's not actually out to the consultants yet. Right now it's in a internal phase. We have a meeting this week actually to where we're going to figure out like what's the next step to get to what we have. Like I'd rather it be out there and it not be complete than you know. So maybe there is a project or two that it will help them on. Like right now, kind of what we've been doing is if somebody needs something, they'll call me Like hey, do you have any reports? And then I'll just kind of ask materials that they have any. Ask the designers, hey, have you guys worked on your projects in this area? And then we can look at that way.

Bryce Hanlon: 9:51

But once this is done it's. I mean, literally in five minutes they can have all of the geotechnical reports that we have, um, you know, over the last 70 years apparently, um in there, so that'll be great. I mean that's going to be a super useful resource. I um, I've been selling it also to the universities for, you know, research, research. You know data is king at these schools. So I'm like, hey, we're going to have all of our soil data for, you know however many decades going back Like you guys can use this for, you know, future stuff. You know it's going to be kind of a helpful.

Bryce Hanlon: 10:21

I always say this too with, like, geotechnical reports and stuff. A lot of times you just do them and you just really don't like see the value in it and like, yes, you're helping the designer for that project. But, like, I think, having your work, um, you know, put into this like database or like historical log, where it's like, hey, maybe in 60 or 70 years, whenever they're fixed, replacing this bridge that you drilled originally, they're going to be using your data for that, it's's kind of a cool, like you know. It kind of adds, you know, added importance I feel like to your work. And you know, like I said, I think long-term it's going to be very helpful. Like doing work and only using it once and not, you know, maximizing the benefit is kind of silly. It's a big cost savings thing here we're trying to figure out ways to obviously save money savings thing here we're trying to figure out ways to obviously save money.

Bryce Hanlon: 11:06

So if we can, you know, have this data to where, whenever we scope new projects you know they don't have to basically start from scratch they have, you know, they kind of have an idea of what's out there. They know how deep the bedrock is, they know they have sulfates in that area, like there's all these things that they can kind of pre-plan for to where they show up on site. You know, maybe we can do reduced scope of borings and testing potentially. Or if we know that there's going to be problem stuff, we can even increase testing, be like, hey, we know this is an issue out here. Let's try to target where these issues are and then be able to build a project without any issues afterwards.

Bryce Hanlon: 11:39

So yeah, data is king. I'm learning that here we have so much data here that no one's really using. So Data is king. I'm learning that here we have so much data here that no one's really using. So this is like one of the ways that I think, with geotech, we can. You know, it's something like we only have so many reports every year. I mean it's a lot, but I think that's something that's easily you can keep up with. So once we're caught up, I think it's going to be easy to maintain.

Kim Swanson: 12:05

And then, like I said, that's geographic information systems, so it's like a digital map thing. But just in case someone didn't know that, but do you know of any other DOTs that are using this system? Like having this centralized mappable database for geotechnical stuff?

Bryce Hanlon: 12:22

I know a lot of them use it for a bunch of different things. They use it for traffic information. I know, you know, I went to a last year, I went to a conference in Missouri and I know they have a similar system for like they call them like geotechnical, I forget what they call it, but basically it's like underground caves like potential, like issue areas where they've mapped and identified like that type of stuff. So like they know if you have a geotechnical thing in that area. But it's not the actual report.

Bryce Hanlon: 12:50

So this is, you know, geotechnical reports are owned by the state, like so these consultants obviously we haven't done by many different consultants, so it's going to be public information that these consultants are obviously developing. So I don't know what other states' policies are on that, but we're basically like, well, you did it for us, we own it. Now Everyone gets to have that information. Like we want the product to be better for you know, going forward for us, so we don't want us everyone to have to necessarily start from scratch, like there are obviously companies that do more work than others so they kind of have had a benefit in the past because they have this large database of past projects and stuff that they can use. Now we're kind of even in the playing field for everyone. So yeah, I don't know, I haven't seen it, but I think, you know, once we get this developed, I'm sure I'll present it at different things. I think it's a good idea.

Bryce Hanlon: 13:40

It's one of the things that geotechnical data doesn doesn't really go. It doesn't change that much. Obviously you know your soil and stuff like your. You know water levels fluctuate, like things do fluctuate, but typically like rock elevations, soil types, you know that general information is isn't going to change too much. So being being educated on that. Whenever you show up for, like, scoping projects, it's, like I said, being as accurate as we can. With the scoping geotechnical projects it's kind of I mean budgets everything. You don't want to over budget things because that could be money potentially used somewhere else and, um, we're trying to get it to where it's as accurate as possible. It's not gonna be perfect I mean still soil, so I mean it still can vary to you know, five feet apart from each other, but you know being as close as we can and as educated as we can as the direction we're going.

Brian Johnson: 14:26

Yeah, I want to talk about the change management process a little bit.

Brian Johnson: 14:29

You mentioned getting information out that you can now so it's usable, instead of waiting right.

Brian Johnson: 14:37

I think that is a really important thing to do, especially when you're talking about a scale that you're dealing with, because once you start getting companies using it and and other entities that may have competing data or or similar data, once they start using it, if they see conflicts early on, uh, with not maybe maybe it wasn't even with the data, maybe it was the way it was handled, uh, but that would allow you to uh troubleshoot early on so that you don't end up with a bigger mistake down the road and have to redo it Right. So, so I think that's a really good point. I wanted to make sure everybody heard that part and understood that aspect of it, because sometimes there's a tendency for organizations to try to control the change in a way that maybe isn't in their best interest, and I don't know if you're fighting against that or not or if that's just kind of the way it's going, but usually you have people with different ideas about, like, what the rollout should look like. Do you want, can you talk about that at all?

Bryce Hanlon: 15:46

I think they're looking for people to be more proactive than than reactive, I think. I think the dot in general has been very slow to do a lot of things, so this is one of the things. They're just. Like you know, once it's ready, let's, let's, or even if it's not completely, let's just get it out there. And I, like I said, we can get feedback Before it's finally done. We can get these consultants using it and see how it looks with them using this data to scope projects and, like I said, I don't see the negatives. I think that's the thing. There's no. Something is better than nothing. That's in this situation. So I would rather just get it out there to the world and then, if they have feedback, that'll give us plenty of time to to kind of get changes in before all the data's in there, and then it'll be a fully. You know, it'll be an, a plus. Like I said, it may start out to see, but it will eventually get there. But, like, right now it's, it's non-existent, so let's just, but it's going to help us regardless.

Bryce Hanlon: 16:40

Um, no matter what it is, because right now, like I said, literally people are just reaching out if they don't have information handy, like, do you have anything and it's. You know it takes me a while to try to dig through you know old project numbers and it's just right now. It's not efficient at all. So like I think, even with just I think I think the newest reports right now they have is like early, like the early 2000,. Like up to like 2005 or 2006. So basically everything since like 6, 7 on is a more modern deliverable where it was literally just like a PDF that was made on the computer thing. I think they're almost at the point where they're going to start uploading those and once those kind of start getting in there, I think it's going to be. You know we have all of that data Like that data hasn't gone.

Bryce Hanlon: 17:25

There's a lot of gaps probably in that you know, early 2000s forward, because there's just like one person throws away one bound report that's gone forever. You know it's just it wasn't a sustainable, you know way to manage data. But yes, I hear everyone's very supportive on us just modernizing. I mean not that they're me like a free way to do whatever I want, kind of thing, but they're like fix it, you know, make things better, like if it's not if it doesn't work out, that's fine.

Bryce Hanlon: 17:52

You know we can always go back to how it was, but you know they want us to try new things and definitely try to get things progressing going forward.

Brian Johnson: 18:01

That's great to hear. I know DOTs can often get a bad rap from the public of being kind of stodgiled, unchanging organizations. But you know, one of the reasons that we had our meeting the first time was because we know that ODOT's not like that and I think it's great for people to hear that and get to understand that people are really trying new things and are trying to innovate and deliver for everybody. I mean, just think of the speed of project delivery that you're going to have eventually, with people being able to speed through hey, are there any issues here? Nope, move forward right. Exactly. It's like that's probably unfathomable.

Bryce Hanlon: 18:39

Geotech is not, like I said, the most progressive of engineering disciplines. I would say it's. You know, a lot of the testing techniques and everything have been relatively unchanged for a while. So I mean just kind of having more data available and changing scoping. Like we're moving the geotechnical um basically within our workflow, we're moving it up in the project, the cycle. So basically as soon as our 30 plans are basically once the alignment is kind of finalized, we're going to get out there and start doing geotech and that'll allow more time to adjust. If there are any, you know, we'll be able to do kind of all the normal testing stuff we do. But it also gives us a little bit of time. Like there is some adjustments to that need to be had due to field conditions, like, say, we find that there are all these problem issues out on the site. It'll allow us to have time to do potentially additional borings or do additional testing to kind of figure out like, okay, well, how bad is it? You know what do we need to do to fix it.

Bryce Hanlon: 19:36

So trying to get everything going, like I said, I think this will help kind of get that early process, like you have as much information as you possibly can as early on, um, it should allow for earlier data collection and earlier kind of. I think the whole thing here is they want to get everybody the geotechnical stuff, um, you know, obviously as soon as possible so that we can just get this. They wanted to become a well machine, I think. I think it's kind of the whole thing we, we there's you talked about a little bit like with dot, like I said, um, a lot of the work has been sent out to, like, the consultants. So we are trying to develop processes that'll become more. You know it'll work for in-house projects that were designed here, but also will work for the consultants.

Bryce Hanlon: 20:18

So, like, getting stuff as early as we can to the consultants will kind of allow them to kind of, you know, work with the information sooner, and then it just communicating with them back to us is not as efficient as even even here. So, like I, I think everyone just sees this as a, like, one of the few things that you can move up and it's really not going to affect the geotechnical data that much. So it'll be kind of a early, not a checkbox, but it's the thing that you can be like, hey, this is done. If you need more data. We can get it, and there's still time to get it.

Brian Johnson: 20:49

You mentioned additional borings, and that indicates to me that there would still be some sort of confirmatory testing once a project is is moving right, even if you have this data and your system is all up to speed. Is that correct? Oh yeah, for sure, yeah this.

Bryce Hanlon: 21:08

It's going to be a, it's a supplemental thing, like we're never going to get away from doing field testing, but we literally show up to every job and act like we've never been. It's like we're drilling on the moon, like nobody knows anything. You know what I mean. So that the idea is you show up knowing kind of what you're getting into, and then, yes, you can do some like confirmation holes or something basically like hey, you know, we think rocks here, we think it's this type of rock, let's do a couple holes here to make sure that's it. And then, with the soils, you know, unless there's like a lot of earthwork, like it shouldn't change too much if you do a real thorough um soul survey, um, like now, like in 20 years, like if you do, if they have to, you know, redo the road or they do an overlay or something like that, the stuff shouldn't really change all that much so it's more of like you know, like for now we're probably still doing kind of full, full projects.

Bryce Hanlon: 21:58

but in 20 years, like you know, whenever all this data is in the system, they better not be doing the same amount of holes that we just did. Like we better be saving money or I'm going to be upset, right.

Brian Johnson: 22:09

Yeah, and I'm almost afraid to ask this question, but who's been entering all this data into this system? They're engineers, so they're geotechs.

Bryce Hanlon: 22:17

Now, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Our technology skills sometimes is you know we're not the most technological.

Bryce Hanlon: 22:23

But, um, they, they know, like the like, what's included in the reports. They know, like what information is. So they're categorizing it by like report type, the county it's in. Um, you know what type of testing was done in the like. All these things are going to be searchable in this gis map whenever. Whenever it's done, so they you don't want to just have like a random person putting these in there because they were not going to. They won't categorize anything correctly. So that's, that's probably why it's.

Kim Swanson: 22:50

I mean it's a lot of reports, but they're also trying to categorize it by all these different identifiers.

Bryce Hanlon: 22:55

So it is. It is a time consuming process, but once you get into the PDF world where you can just search, it should be a lot quicker than having to like scan in of hard copy, like you can't really search those. I mean, I guess there's software that you can probably do, but I don't know if they're using. I think they're literally like reading them and like identifying the stuff in there.

Brian Johnson: 23:14

So yeah, so we have geotext on it which, like I said, it may not be the most efficient way, but at least I think it'll be done correctly, you know, shift away from the specificity of what you've been working on and get more into some general stuff related to change management, if that's okay. So, um, can you talk about, um, some of the lessons you've learned as a DOT employee since you've been there dealing with change? What you know you, how do you look at the change management process now, after this time that you've been going through?

Bryce Hanlon: 23:53

change, I think, is harder here than it probably is anywhere, just because I, I don't know. I think there is so many hoops and stuff you have to go through here that, um, I think people for the most part feel like it's easier just to keep doing what you're doing before you actually make big change. But then, you know, here we got lucky. We have the chief engineer here, brian Taylor. He wants change, like he's been working at the DOT for a while and a lot of the issues that I'm working on, that other people are working on, are pretty glaringly obvious, like whenever a consultant, you see them, um, working here, you see them and you're just like well, you know, this is how that needs to be changed, like we can't keep doing the same thing and we need we really need to.

Bryce Hanlon: 24:36

You know, like now, like you know, brian uh is retiring this year mid-year and he's got a list of stuff he wants to get done. I kind of whenever I started, he was part of the developing the list of stuff I needed to work on, but, um, he's got a lot of stuff he wants to get done even before he's. He retires kind of mid this year as well and then, um, his replacement, uh, tj deal is is progressive as well. I used actually used to work with him at my other consulting firm, but he, um, he's got a great you know he wants to move things forward as well. Like he, he doesn't like the idea of keep doing these same things and and allowing the dot to kind of um like I said the world is kind of

Bryce Hanlon: 25:16

modernizing towards consultants doing a lot of the work. That's just how the industry is. I mean, obviously, whenever you work for the government, there's like limits and pay and like um benefits and there's all these things that you just don't have like a free market kind of stuff that you have with consultants. So you got to embrace the consultant stuff, which is a lot of the change I think that's happening here, getting the internal ODOT staff to be open to helping the consultants, because a lot of times, you know, it is like a pain point, I feel like a little bit, because you know, typically consultants will make more money than the DOT people and so like there's always this like chip on your shoulder kind of stuff here. But what they got to understand is like the point of our job is so you know, we're allocating the taxpayers' money to basically, you know, improve the transportation system. That's our whole job. So whether we're doing the work or whether these consultants are doing the work, our job is to make sure this gets done as efficiently and productively as possible. So that's kind of how I've embraced it. Like well, you know, we have all this information, we have all these things that we can improve. Let's just start working towards them. There's a lot, I mean.

Bryce Hanlon: 26:31

I guess I've been here two years. I still have a to-do list, but we've made kind of big changes. And like, if you ask the geotechnical consultants and even the people here, like the design people here, like they could, there's like noticeable benefits that everyone can kind of see. And it's the thing where, like I think, they're trying to do this in all the different areas. I'm just kind of a new area, so, like I, there was nobody before me in this job, so I kind of came in and filled an obvious gap. These ones that are like the preexisting um, like roadway divisions, bridge divisions, you know, improvements there, I think, are a little bit more difficult because you are, it's way more established. Like I kind of was given like a, like a open, like a whatever you know, open like blank canvas, just like, hey, make this kind of what you want it to be, improve things. It doesn't have to be perfect, but let's get things going in a direction of where this is getting better. And you know, I feel like I've done OK with that so far. But yeah, it's the DOT man. I'm still not fully like. I still don't fully understand why everything is what it is here, but I'm, I'm, I'm learning the processes and being more patient. I feel like I have developed more patience, but you can still get stuff done here. It just it is.

Bryce Hanlon: 27:43

It takes a little bit more of a um. It takes, like I said, more patience, but also um, an open mind like you. You really got to get the right people on your side here, and once you kind of they see kind of your um, they kind of see the direction you want to go and they see how it can benefit the, the um, the public, then that's the. Typically they're out, they're all in. So a lot of it is money, money. Like if you'll say people, money, people are all in usually too. That's my biggest selling point for a lot of this stuff. I kind of always talk about the data. It's like well, if they have this data, they won't need to do as much testing. They'll save us money. It's always that that's typically the language for kind of the higher-ups, but they obviously want things done correctly too.

Brian Johnson: 28:23

Now I know you guys were undergoing one of the big changes and this sounded like a really difficult challenge for you guys is consolidating some of the departments, or I don't know if you completely consolidated them or just consolidated certain aspects of what they did. But every division is going to have department heads and they're going to have protocols and organizational structures. And I answer to this person and not this other person and how has that all gone?

Bryce Hanlon: 28:57

That's a good question, because that is a thing where you, whenever you earn a title, it's hard to relinquish any kind of I don't know, it is hard. People love titles here. I have learned that here. Like I came from the consulting world where I was just a geotech engineer. I didn't have any fancy title, I literally did geotech reports and that was kind of here, you know, there's everybody wants a title and then once you get that title, you definitely don't want to move backwards.

Bryce Hanlon: 29:24

So you, like you said, consolidate different areas into different groups, like you are potentially gonna there's gonna be people that have to take like the back seat to someone else and it it's been weird. There has been times where it's been weird like, um, you know, but I think if you can kind of explain the bigger goal and and you know, like I said, it, a lot of it is is morale, like it, kind of keeping people positive about the, the big picture. It's hard but yes, it that's a pain point I've learned. I've learned that here, I think here, here more than any place too, because I think that is one of the things you pride yourself on here, because whatever, like I said, that is kind of the one thing you work towards here like titles here are kind of cool, like you are like the state, whatever, whatever you are here, um, but yeah, if, if you know so, like the bridge group and the um roadway group, that they merge together but they still kind of have the titles within there, but there are, like um, like you know, cat people within that. I don't know if their titles change too much, but the higher ups, most of them, kind of kept their same time. Like we still have a state bridge engineer, we still have a state, you know, roadway engineer, um, but they're within the design branch instead of the roadway group or the bridge group. You know that way.

Bryce Hanlon: 30:35

So, but there are other, you know lesser, not lesser, but uh, different titles that, um, I think they've had to adjust their responsibilities. Like some aren't managers necessarily anymore. Some, you know, maybe have different areas that they're that they're working in now, but it, and then also we, within the last couple of weeks, we everyone had to come back into the office, which was a big, which was a big thing as well. So there was kind of all these things that kind of had happened. That work they're kind of pushing everyone. But I think what's going to come out of it is, I think everyone's going to be more. You know, I think the people that are going to be here are going to people that want to be here and people that are going to make make things better.

Bryce Hanlon: 31:15

So I it is. Yeah, it's, it's, it's. It's a fun one. I said I have a title I don't really use it that much, but, um, you know, I don't, I don't know. I think there's definitely some, some that take it way, way too, way too serious, but whatever, yeah, you definitely are going to have that.

Brian Johnson: 31:35

Uh, I, I, I do wonder also about the process of, of getting that accomplished. Uh, you know, you come up, you come in with this idea okay, we're going to get these responsibilities handed out, and you can't really look at it just on paper, like, oh, it makes sense for this person to Figuring out, okay, well, are we going to do this based on what makes sense for the position or what makes sense for the talent that we currently have, because you can change later. Like, this doesn't have to be forever, right. So did that come into play at all when you guys were determining this?

Bryce Hanlon: 32:21

Yeah, so within my group that is. So you know, I kind of manage the paper design group right now and I've seen kind of other people's groups how it's gone as well. I think having a task assigned specifically to a person, it can be. It needs to be more fluid. I think that's the thing here. I think everything here is so like everybody's in their little boxes, like if this isn't specifically in my to-do task, I'm not going to do it. I'm like no, we got to be where everyone's like everybody's working as a group to get the entire, you know, to get the whole thing done. Like we're not just because your little part is done does not mean you can just sit there. If there's other stuff that needs to be done and this person's drowning, like go help them out, and that's like with I'm I managed to pay design group and that's kind of how I'm trying to approach them as well, like I've I've kind of reassigned tasks within that group. But then also, you know, we do weekly meetings where I'm like, hey, how busy are you, how busy are you? And then if, if it is a thing where one person can help the other, we got to do it because we, we, that that's.

Bryce Hanlon: 33:22

That's how I think delays happen and people get further behind is, like you know, if tasks are not appropriately, you know, split up like you can really put a lot on one person At that time. You know, maybe that person can handle it, but sometimes they can't and they can get burned out and stuff. So no, I like things to be more fluid. It comes from the manager. Like the manager really needs to be like more on it, like they really got to see what's happening and not just, like you know, writing down, like you said, on a piece of paper, like you know, this is what your role is and as soon as that person finishes that, they're sitting there for the rest of the week.

Bryce Hanlon: 33:58

You know that's not good, that doesn't help anyone out and I would say our staffing Staffing here is probably as low as it's probably been in a while. So you know, everybody needs to kind of pick up slack when they can. Like there's not a, there's not really. You know there's always something that needs to be done. So it needs to definitely be more proactive that way.

Bryce Hanlon: 34:17

But I think it's probably like that everywhere. I think everyone's probably having to pick up more slack. I know there's just a shortage, kind of a staffing shortage everywhere. But here I think DOT people historically, like you said, it probably is the public. I thought it whenever I worked in Arkansas. I was like those people don't do a whole lot someday. You know, you can just tell just from what you hear like these people are kind of slacking. But then when you get here you're like well, I can see why. I mean, maybe they don't know they're supposed to be doing something. You really got to be vocal and be like, hey, I need you to do this so that this could be accomplished, kind of thing.

Brian Johnson: 34:49

Yeah, it's a management effort. 100% it's required.

Bryce Hanlon: 34:54

Yeah, I mean, it's a more you know, I think you know a lot of the managers here are engineers and I think that is a thing where not all engineers are great managers. So, like managers, so like a lot of the people we have now are great, like I think they're very vocal and you know they can, they can interact with people well, but if you get the a certain type of engineer in a managerial role, you're asking for problems because they a lot of them, are very introverted and they're just not going to proactively tell somebody that you need to go do this other task that they weren't necessarily assigned. But you know it would help the group if they were to help. So that's, yeah, we I feel like we're going in a good direction with our leadership here. We have some very, you know, people that want things to be done the right way and definitely I'm probably the newest one here by quite a bit.

Bryce Hanlon: 35:42

That's kind of in, I'm kind of a semi-leadership role, but a lot of like the division heads and stuff have been here for you know, five, 10 years and they're kind of they're about my age, like kind of late thirties, and they're very, you know, wanting things to be better, like they're going to be working here for another couple of decades, so you know they need things to improve. You know now, so their life's not miserable. And you know now, so their life's not miserable. And you know what I'm going to say. Like, I think a lot of times. Like if you get a person that you know they're going to retire in a couple years, like their level of effort for trying to move things forward is probably not as much as somebody that's going to be around for a while, for sure.

Brian Johnson: 36:16

so yeah, you definitely see that I. I know you've talked about some elements of this already, uh, but I was wondering if any tips for other managers who are relatively new to a position but are dealing with some organizational change and some potential struggles with trying to get staff members to understand the value of those changes and why they should greet them with a positive, a positive feeling and, in a way to move forward effectively.

Bryce Hanlon: 36:51

It's hard man. It is. You know everybody, so you know, I think, a lot of people what I've seen is like once they get a job, they're like, okay, well, we talked about this earlier, but, like I had, these are my tasks, like this is what I do. So if you're asking them to do more stuff, they immediately want more, want, want more money. Or they're asking, like why this person isn't doing.

Bryce Hanlon: 37:08

I'm like, okay, cool, I, I get what you're saying, but I think I always emphasize how it's going to make them a better engineer and like I'm just like, well, you need to learn different stuff. You need to be more proactive on doing this stuff. Like you're not always going to want to. You don't always want to be the person that's sitting here, you know, waiting for somebody to give you something. Like be proactive. Like if you don't have want to be the person that's sitting here waiting for somebody to give you something, be proactive.

Bryce Hanlon: 37:28

If you don't have anything to do, ask if there's something you can help with. Be more like that. Even if you don't work at the DOT forever, if you go into consulting and if you're just sitting there waiting for people to give you tasks, you're never going to amount to anything. You're kind of just going to be the maybe you'll be whatever. You'll be in probably the same position for the rest of your life. But just having that, I think, just in general, like being wanting to be helpful and and, um, you know like, the group that I manage is very tiny, so like literally it's like two or three people, so we're, you know like whenever there is somebody that's drowning.

Bryce Hanlon: 38:01

It's very easy to be like, hey, can you take these tasks associated with pay design and move it under these people for at least this week, and then the next week we'll talk about like, hey, were you able to catch up with this? Was this person able to get to where they're not drowning, and then they can kind of go back to their normal tasks after that. But yeah, like it's a tough sell because I think naturally people want to do not all people a lot of people want to do the bare minimum to get their paycheck and then go home. That's just what I mean. Everybody, I think, has seen that. I think a lot of the younger people. It's getting kind of worse, just from what I've seen. But you know, just I think, like you said, emphasizing the big picture and explaining you know why things need to be done, why they do, and then then you know, explain how important their job is to the whole ecosystem. Here, I think, is very um important.

Bryce Hanlon: 38:52

Like you know, payment design is one of the things here that it was kind of during covet it got um, we got a massive backlog just with the amount of um designs that needed to go out, so then we had to start subbing at that, subbing out that work to the consultants, and that caused a lot of other issues, because there's variance in training on how to do pavement designs between them and there wasn't proper. We didn't this is all the different things I'm working on but there wasn't proper, like manuals for how to do pavements. I mean, the processes aren't that difficult, but we don't have like a standardized Oklahoma DOT pavement design guide, and so we were asking these people to perform a service for us without being properly educated on what they need. So what was happening was they were doing this pavement design work submitted to us for review. They didn't do anything. So we were actually spending more time reviewing this thing, doing the back and forth with emails and phone calls, and it just ended up being a mess.

Bryce Hanlon: 39:49

So literally, starting this year, we're doing all pavement design in-house again and I basically I've told our engineers like this is going to work. It's going to require a lot of like you being proactive about your schedules and being organized yourself. I think self-organization and stuff like that is is hard for a lot of people. So my duty is basically, every week I give them these tasks, but I I give them like a big picture thing be like, hey, we need to keep up with this certain amount of stuff so that you don't develop backlogs and issues. And then I'm helping with their um, like with their process. I'm helping develop tools to where they can track things easier and streamline communication with consultants and like all these things to make it to where they don't feel like they're going to get as buried as easily.

Kim Swanson: 40:39

But like I don't know, I don't know, I don't know if there is.

Bryce Hanlon: 40:43

Whenever you hire people, it's kind of 50-50, whether you're going to get somebody that wants to take the extra effort or you get somebody that's very cool with just doing the bare minimum and leaving at 5 o'clock. That's kind of it. But I think selling the big picture is always helpful. I think the DOT is a cool. It's easier to sell the big picture here because you're not necessarily benefiting an individual who owns a company. You're benefiting the state, you're benefiting all these. You're creating a transportation system for I mean, you're designing I keep on bringing it back to the people that I manage but I always sell you're literally designing the pavement that the entire state is driving on. You're designing all the pavements for the entire highway system.

Bryce Hanlon: 41:31

So it's a cool. It's a cool job. So let's do it well, like let's do it as good as we can and make this, make this process as smooth as possible for everyone, because it's like, once every one of these projects are done, like here in, you know, 20 years, years, like that road still, people are still going to be driving on. You can, you can take pride in that and everything. So I think it is easier to sell here than it is like for consulting firms. I used to work in consulting it is. You get kind of miserable, you know, especially if you don't feel like you're making forward progress there. But here I think you it, you almost have to sell that part of it here because, because there aren't maybe particular other benefits to working here too.

Brian Johnson: 42:10

Well put, Kim. I've been dominating the questions. What do you have any questions?

Kim Swanson: 42:22

No, I think Bryce has definitely covered all of the aspects, like I don't really have any followup questions. I think it was very thorough and while you were were talking, I was had the thought of you know not how some people don't necessarily want to go above and beyond. I think when it comes to that's when I'd like team dynamic comes in, because if you like your co-workers yes, okay, I see that they're drowning I can step up, but 100 if if they're a piece of work and I don't like them, I'm going to do the bare minimum.

Bryce Hanlon: 42:53

So well, you know. So we, I think you know we can go into the whole remote work thing. I think there's benefits to remote work, obviously, but that you lose that dynamic of a team and a group, it's just hard to keep that going through a team's meeting. Like you, just, you just can't. You know, like I, you can literally see someone right next to you struggling and you can ask them for help. Like, if you have to, proactively, you know they have to either message you or whatever and ask for help. Like sometimes people are awkward, but if you can like see them be like, hey, do you need help? It's a lot easier.

Bryce Hanlon: 43:24

Like I, I just I'm trying to build that back. That's a big thing. Like I, like I said here, everyone was brought back in the office, um, two mondays ago. So, um, you know, the idea behind that is not just to be mean but is, like I, they felt like the leadership here felt like they were losing that, that part of the dot. So they're trying to bring everyone in to build up the camaraderie, build up the team and then also like be able to identify, like future leadership, like it's really hard to identify people's and be able to judge people's character and morals and stuff through like teams. I don't know.

Kim Swanson: 44:00

Like it's just very different.

Bryce Hanlon: 44:01

So, but if you see some of everyone day to day, how they handle themselves like, how they handle their work, how much pride they show in their work, um, in person, like I think that's how you kind of figure out who's going to be the next people to fill in these, these roles here. So they, it's a big thing, I, I, I, I don't know, I'm very old school, I, I, I'm, I don't know. I like the, the in-person work. But I get, I get certain people's situations for sure with remote stuff. But I think for our type of stuff it is helpful to, especially if you're trying to.

Bryce Hanlon: 44:31

You have all these different departments. I mean we're supposed to be in the same building, but whenever you get different departments, you know in different houses, like it's just really hard to keep that flow going, um, with with communication. But literally the last couple weeks even, I feel like it's it's it's getting better and um, you know the leadership is emphasizing like we all got to talk to each other to make this work and so that's I have my little role in it, but there's a lot of other people doing kind of the same stuff and different, different categories too.

Brian Johnson: 45:00

Yeah, I think the return to the uh, return to office discussions kind of ramped up last year around the country where you started hearing more of that and it's a painful process. You know, as a manager I like the flexibility of having options for my people, because some of them I think would be better off if they were working from home completely because they don't really care about interacting with people and they really do it anyway.

Brian Johnson: 45:29

They won't do it. Uh, there'll be productive, but that's not something that they're going to do. Uh, it's certainly not going to make certain people who are not interested in communicating in person start doing it. But there are people. Those people that really want to be there are going to flourish. You're going to develop leadership better. It's not a great long-term solution for an organization to have everybody completely remote, because it's hard to build up those relationships and leaderships.

Bryce Hanlon: 46:02

But there are certainly elements where it is very good and oh yeah, I think, I think, I think, I think the plan eventually is to have it as a tool, like as you know it's, it's just not like you, every week, get to be home.

Bryce Hanlon: 46:16

I think the idea is like, at least a couple days a week, you know to to have that to where you come in then. But, like for now, they basically had to make a hard line everybody's in, we're all here, and then, I think, here in probably a couple of months, they're going to relax a little bit till we were like, okay, we've weeded out the people that are just like, okay, this, I can't do it, I can't, I can't do this at all. Then the managers can use it, like you said, as a tool for, like, certain individuals where it makes sense. But then it's still on the manager to make sure that they can obviously, you know, manage those tasks, make sure their tasks are being performed and they're also working within the group dynamic and building the group dynamic up. But it's just like it is easier in person. But there are some people that literally are miserable in this office.

Kim Swanson: 46:57

So it is what it is.

Bryce Hanlon: 47:01

I think you got to be able to accommodate, especially like you can't be super picky at the DOT. It is hard, like it is hard to get people to kind of to come here anyway. So whenever you start taking away like benefits, like that it's it is, it's making it even harder to get to get bodies in here. But but I get the idea. I mean, it is a thing I think you almost had to be super drastic about it and then just see what, see what happens and just see what happens and then you know, over time you can kind of use that as a, like I said, kind of a nice. You know, say, this week you got some stuff that it makes sense for you to work Like you got stuff like hey, go work from remote this week, but you know we can't just you can't just assume that's where your week's going to be every week, I guess, right.

Brian Johnson: 47:41

So for sure, yep.

Kim Swanson: 47:43

I think it's kind of funny that we all represent, I think, very different viewpoints on this. I'm not going to get into my viewpoints about work from home, because it is definitely like remote work. It's the full spectrum, but as we're doing it, I feel like we all we represent the full spectrum here, because I definitely have other thoughts.

Bryce Hanlon: 48:04

But again that's the issue there. One thing I have seen with it and obviously there are individuals. One of the individuals I managed like she. That's the only way she can work. It is remote, so like it, 100 is, is is necessary, I think at the dot level, like I, I think this this was all kind of before I even worked here, but they, they had a certain they talk about it's like a culture, it's like a whole culture thing where they're like you know, like they wanted, and just a lot of people that work here. Obviously there's like older people, it's a lot of. It is a generational thing, just you know it's like I survived working in person for 40 years.

Bryce Hanlon: 48:41

You know why can't you show up? You know it's a lot of that, so don't it's that. But you know, like the overall thing, I get it, but I think, like this is almost like a, this is a temporary, like we're going, we're going old school for a little bit, but then we are going to be more modern and understand, because there's no way you're going to keep people like I mean, you'll, you'll be able to keep some, but you're going to lose probably a lot of good ones as well. So you got to be able to accommodate. You know, like, if all the consultants are allowing people to work remotely and make more money and do all this stuff, like how are you ever going to keep anyone here?

Kim Swanson: 49:13

So that's what cool titles. That's how you keep people. That's why people care about their titles. Full circle there to that the cool title will keep me there.

Bryce Hanlon: 49:21

Yeah, pretty much I mean that's, I mean that's the one thing you get here, is you get a fun title for pretty much for sure.

Brian Johnson: 49:29

All right, well, bryce, thank you for your time. Did we miss anything? Is there anything you wanted to talk about that we didn't touch on today?

Bryce Hanlon: 49:35

I don't think so you know there's just a lot of different. You know a lot of the big ge beginning of the project, like from project initiation all the way to like final plans, like how can the geotech stuff within that be done more efficiently? But we don't need to go in the weeds Like it's, it's. You don't want to go that that far.

Bryce Hanlon: 50:00

But, but I feel like we're making progress. I guess there's a lot of me kind of communicating with the consultants and the designers and we are figuring out processes that I think work for everybody. This year I am rewriting our specifications, so our geotech spec that all the consultants use to perform all the field work and lab work and reporting. I'm going to kind of be rewriting that with the. I'm getting a lot of like help from the designers, like figuring out exactly what they need. You know what information there is actually required, like. There's been a lot of different situations over the last two years that I've seen that present kind of gray areas, like they don't necessarily know what process to follow in certain situations. So I'm going to kind of use those situations to kind of add stuff into the spec and then basically submit it out to consultants Because one thing that so the consultants own a lot of equipment already, so it's not like I can propose all these random tests that nobody's ever heard of. It needs to be cost effective and all this stuff. But you know, if there is stuff that is changing like potentially like drilling methods or something like that, I'll um, I'm going to reach out to them and kind of get some feedback from them to make sure it's cost effective and the equipment's even available or people actually own it. You know that kind of stuff. It's just gonna be a lot of making sure that our future improvements are actually achievable when it comes to to field stuff, but that's it.

Bryce Hanlon: 51:25

And then, uh, payment design. We are um, so we are still a state that does mainly 93 Ash, toe. We are trying to work towards doing pavement in me. My goal is hopefully by the end of next year or kind of early 2027, we'll kind of have a full pavement in me design process. We are going through kind of a lot of these states are going through this, but it's all like these calibrations and making sure like what we're doing makes sense and also convincing these districts that this new method for payment design is actually going to benefit them.

Bryce Hanlon: 52:00

Because typically the sections that are recommended come back a little bit thinner, so they are cheaper. But they're scared to death that they're going to fail. But you have to explain the science to them and get them on board with it. A lot of these um, a lot of these districts and stuff like that. They have kind of minimum payment sections that they're very used to. So if you go away from that, you know red flags start going off. It's just kind of the thing. So it's going to be a lot of me and the pavement engineers hopefully educating them on how this can improve.

Bryce Hanlon: 52:31

Um, you know how this can save money in the future, like why it's okay to potentially reduce things, like talk about the materials and, you know, explain in more complex way how these pavements will fail in the future and you don't just necessarily have to throw a bunch of material at something for the last a long time. You can kind of analyze it. You know, kind of a more advanced way than what we're, what we're currently doing. But, um, yeah, whenever that's done, that's gonna be great. That's the big thing. That if I get payment me implemented here, that'll be. That's going to be the big one for me. But that's that's going to be a process for for sure.

Brian Johnson: 53:04

But well, that sounds like you've been off a lot for 2025 in the census processes and standards, writing and uh implementation, trying to get all the districts on board, uh wow yeah, like I said, I don't think it's.

Bryce Hanlon: 53:21

I mean it's some of it may be engineering, but my job is more not engineering. It's all get everybody on the same page with processes. I feel like a lot, but um it's good for sure yeah, well, that's cool.

Brian Johnson: 53:34

Uh, we have to circle back with you next year to see how that went, because that's it sure I? I have so many questions for you because we I'll be a recurring guest.

Bryce Hanlon: 53:42

As much as you, as much as you need me, I will. I will do do one. This is. This is, I think, a cool one, because it literally is a. It came from nothing, like. I mean, geotech has obviously always been done, but this whole group, like figuring out what this is going to be like, I think next year hopefully I'll have some additional staff working with me there's going to be kind of a whole. Hopefully growth is happening, hopefully it's not me coming in saying the exact same you know stuff next year. But there should be, there should there should be kind of noticeable improvement. I thought it was only one year but it was like two years, so there's been a bunch of stuff kind of happened in that time. But yeah, this next year we have some big ticket items that, if I can get these accomplished, I feel like we'll be in a pretty good spot. Go forward, for sure.

Brian Johnson: 54:28

So Sounds good. All right, we will set up a save the date for that one, and we will document your entire career.

Bryce Hanlon: 54:36

I mean I? You know what I need this? Yeah, I need my. My wife needs to listen to this, so she actually knows what I'm doing here.

Kim Swanson: 54:41

I think that'll be good for sure.

Bryce Hanlon: 54:43

Like she'll get a yearly update. I don't want to bore with my work whenever we go home too much.

Kim Swanson: 54:48

Listen to this every year, you'll be good. You'll be good. This is what I'm doing. Send it to your family instead of, like you know, a holiday card Like. This is what I'm doing.

Bryce Hanlon: 54:56

Yeah, you don't need to know the details. This is what you got.

Kim Swanson: 55:00

I love it. Well, thank you for thank you for joining us, and I wanted to let everybody know about our AASHTO Resource Technical Exchange happening in Bellevue, washington, march 17th through the 20th 2025. And, as of the recording of this, the registration is open, so we hope to see you there. Thanks for listening to AASHTO Resource Q&A or just submit a question. Send us an email at podcast at ashtoresourceorg, or call Brian at 240-436-4820. For other news and related content, check out AASHTO Resources social media accounts or go to ashtoresourceorg.