A Very OK Podcast
Episode 61: “Oklahoma Department of Transportation”
September 16, 2026
Episode Transcript
(upbeat music playing)
Trait Thompson: Hello, and welcome to A Very OK Podcast. My name is Trait Thompson. I’m the executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, and I would normally say here with me, as always, is Bob Blackburn, but not today, friends and neighbors. I have a different guest with us. I have Dr. Matthew Pearce. Matt is our state historian here at the Oklahoma Historical Society, and he has been on this podcast before. We talked about the Oklahoma state parks together. Have we done another episode together, Matt?
Dr. Mattew Pearce: We did the state flag.
Thompson: The state flag. That’s right.
Pearce: This is appearance number three.
Thompson: Number three for you. So, it is great to have you on the podcast once again, Matt, you had to tag in because Bob told me, Governor Keating has invited me to go back east near Philadelphia and tour Revolutionary War battlefields. And I said, where was my invitation?
(laughter)
Pearce: And if there’s any year to tour revolutionary battlefields, this would be the year to do it.
Thompson: The 250th, for sure. So I could not blame Bob for taking off and enjoying some time out of Oklahoma. I hope it’s cooler.
Pearce: It probably isn’t.
Thompson: Yeah, probably not, but I hope it is because, as you all know, it has been a pretty miserable summer here. As we’re recording this episode, we’re going into the Labor Day weekend, and we’re still looking at 100-degree temperatures for the foreseeable future.
Pearce: It’s been a good excuse to stay inside and read and do some research.
Thompson: Absolutely.
Pearce: That has been my summer, pretty much.
Thompson: Absolutely. Well, Matt, I’m really glad you could join us here today. I always enjoy hearing your perspective, and you’re a fantastic historian, and we’re very fortunate to have you here at the OHS. And so, you know, this year, all of our podcast episodes have centered, in some form or fashion, around Route 66, it being the 100th anniversary this year. And I thought, you know, we really need to talk about the Oklahoma Department of Transportation because, you know, all of the roadbuilding that starts in Oklahoma, not all of it, but ODOT has played a major role in it. And of course, today, ODOT is our road-building agency for the state. We also have the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, of course, but Route 66 and ODOT are really tied at the hip together. And so I thought it would be great to do a little bit of a deep dive, because I didn’t know much about the history of the agency. And it’s pretty fascinating, and so I thought we should talk about it a little bit. And coming up, we have a great guest. We went right to the man himself, the Secretary of Transportation, Tim Gatz, and he’s got some great insight to give us, particularly about how ODOT operates today and some of their recent successes that they’ve had. So, looking forward to that. Matt, I thought we could start off by talking, you know, the great American road trip is one of those, especially after World War II and route travel and Route 66, that road trip of just getting out on the road, discovering something new, going on vacation. Have you had a road trip in your lifetime, I’m sure you have, that you have just really enjoyed that is one of your favorite road trips.
Pearce: I do, and I think it doesn’t involve Route 66, unfortunately, but it’s one of those that you only had a chance to really do it once, something that you’re never going to be able to do again. It’s partly why Big Bend National Park is probably my favorite national park.
Thompson: Oh, I’m right there with you. Boy, I love Big Bend.
Pearce: It was my first year here in Oklahoma in graduate school, and it was myself and two buddies. We went to, it was going to be our spring break trip. We did a road trip to Big Bend, and so we left after a graduate seminar, it would have been like 9, 10 o’clock at night, stopped in Dallas to get a friend’s camping gear and all that, and then drove all night and the morning. And the best part of it was we were literally driving into the park as the sun was rising. So you see the sunrise and hitting the Chisos Mountains. And I think even more fitting, I think we had U2’s “Under the Joshua Tree” on the stereo. And so it’s just, you know, it was a just one of those, one of those moments that you’re just like, holy cow, this was a great opportunity. And that was a fun, fun road trip. There’s a number of, me with road trips to the west where we would, especially a friend and I, we just would have, especially my buddy of mine, he had an atlas where he would just highlight routes that he had taken or wanted to take, and then we just go out there and drive it.
Thompson: Yeah, I love that. You know, I grew up in Central and West Texas, and we weren’t close to anything. You know, the closest movie theater to where I grew up was 45 miles away, and that wasn’t even the best movie theater. If you wanted that, you had to drive to San Angelo, which was 80 miles away. And so, we just got used to driving. We drove, when we went on school trips to play other teams in sports, we had long drives, and so driving in my life has never bothered me. In fact, I went to school at Oral Roberts in Tulsa, which was a 500-mile drive from where I grew up in Texas. And similar to you, I would leave at 3 or 4 o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday after I was done with my classes, and then just drive through the evening to get home. And I did that more times than I could count, probably. I do remember sometimes I was more sleepy than I should have been. I remember rolling down the window just to get some cold air on me, to wake me up a little bit.
Pearce: And I think it’s a quintessentially Western experience. I think the road trip, and because, of course, when you’re traversing the American West, you’re having to conquer distance—distance and topography. And that’s something that the Highway Commission and Department of Transportation had to deal with. And so it’s how, you know, you’re traversing these, you know, these vast expanses of space. You know, the same thing with being growing up in Colorado. It was the same thing. The nearest Walmart was an hour away, at least, you just, you know, and then with the Rocky Mountains, of course, you have weather to contend with, with the mountain passes and things like that. So you’re having to figure all those things out. So and yeah, just those types of, you know, just the types of driving and the road trips are just, that’s just part of the Western experience. It helped to give Route 66 its mystique. And so it’s just all there.
Thompson: So, one of my favorite road trips, actually, the destination was not terribly far from your destination at Big Bend. This was three years ago, and my son was, had completed his driver’s ed training. But before you can get your license at 16, you have to do, I think, at least 50 hours of driving. And so, you know, we would go out and practice, and we would log his hours and all of those things. But I thought, you know, we should just do a road trip, and we can knock out a bunch of hours of him driving on a long road trip. So it was Thanksgiving of 2023, and we set out for Guadalupe Mountains.
Pearce: Oh, yeah.
Thompson: And I thought, we’re going to hike to the tallest point in Texas, Guadalupe Peak. And so we drove out west to Amarillo, and we did do a little bit of Route 66. We stopped in Erick and did the Roger Miller mural there, and took a picture. And then we stopped in Shamrock, Texas, at the U-Drop Inn and took some photos there. They weren’t open. But then we stopped at a couple of other places along the way, but we found this incredible campground, which I’m going to give a shoutout. There’s an app called Hipcamp where you can rent campsites on private property. And because all the camping sites in the park were taken up, and we found this absolutely gorgeous campsite with the mountains in the background, with the ocotillos around. It was isolated, and it was just absolutely beautiful. And we hiked to the top of Guadalupe Peak out there, but that, we did Carlsbad Caverns as well. But that is one of my favorite road trips, time with my son. And then also just the open road out in far West Texas was one of the finest. And I’ll also say, if you’re in Van Horn, Texas, and there’s a Mexican food place that buts up to a laundromat, you should go there. It was fantastic. I don’t remember it off the top of my head, but that’s another fun thing about a road trip is discovering great places to eat along the way.
So let’s get into our talk about ODOT. And we can’t really, you have to start the conversation with the Roads Movement. And the Roads Movement in the United States really starts as early as the 1870s, and it actually starts by bicycle enthusiasts because it is wealthy bicyclists, because back in the 1870s, if you’re going to buy a bicycle, you had to have a little bit of money. It was not a hobby for the common man, and they needed good places to ride their bicycles. And so they start lobbying Congress for better roads, and one of the things that comes out of that is the Bureau of Public Roads that’s created in the Department of, I’m sorry, the Office of Public Roads that’s created in the Department of Agriculture, which later becomes the Bureau of Public Roads, and they’re just basically a two- or three-man group of people who are there for advice and expertise, but they don’t actually build roads. We weren’t to that point yet. And so, in Oklahoma, Matt, let’s talk about the Good Roads Movement in Oklahoma a little bit.
Pearce: So I think it’s important to acknowledge the rural roots of the Good Roads Movement, and that’s partly why it would have such a profound influence in Oklahoma is because it was primarily rural people that were concerned with the condition of roads. It’s easy for us to take to, you know, not have to think about taking a drive between Oklahoma City and Tulsa, you know, or between Enid and Stillwater, because we know the road condition is going to be pretty much the same from one county to the next. But in the early, late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was anything but that. And so it could be the condition of the roads could have varied significantly just by crossing the county line, or when you have a particularly bad storm. And so I think, you know, the slogan, I think, for the Good Roads Movement was this was like a good road for both tire and hoof or something along those lines. So you’re acknowledging both, you know, the need for good roads to accommodate what were then luxury items like automobiles, bicycles, but also to facilitate a very basic need, which was to get crops to market and also in return to get goods from, you know, the railroads and from town out to your farm.
Thompson: The other part of that is that in the 1890s, the Postal Service started experimenting with rural mail delivery. And part of the impetus for being able to have rural mail was that you had to have a passable road. And that is another thing that spurs this Good Roads Movement in the rural parts, because they want to have mail that comes straight to their door, like they get in town.
Pearce: And this is also the time, this is the late 19th, early 20th century, so this is the advent and the beginning of the Progressive Era, where you’re seeing the federal government and state governments take a more central role in what are, in things that are being seen as public necessities, such as a good road. And so seeing governments step in to create agencies like the Bureau of Public Roads, and then, you know, with statehood with Oklahoma, you know, the Constitution designating a highway commission for the state. And so essentially, you know, dictating that the state, the government was going to have to play a role in facilitating and constructing good roads for Oklahomans.
Thompson: Yeah, and that was really a lot of forethought for the people that wrote the Oklahoma Constitution, because they’re writing that Constitution in 1906. This is two years before the Model T was invented, which means that the automobile was a very much a luxury item. The average automobile would cost between $2,000 and $4,000, which was as much as a house cost back in those days. But the Constitution did have the provision. It said, “The legislature is directed to establish a Department of Highways and shall have the power to create improvement districts and provide for building and maintaining public roads, and may provide for the utilization of convict and punitive labor thereon.” And so that was a provision in our Constitution. That may have been because of the influence of a man from Ardmore named Sidney Suggs, who was the publisher of the newspaper there, and he was one of the earliest advocates for good roads in Oklahoma. He was elected president of the Oklahoma-Indian Territory Good Roads Association in 1906 and had urged the delegates to the Constitutional Convention to allow for a highway department.
Pearce: And then I think he’s appointed highway commissioner in 1911, I think, by Governor Cruce. And, you know, like a lot of state officials at that time, you know, having the opportunity to build that agency from the ground up, it’s a skeleton crew at first, but especially if you have the chance, you know, if you go to say, like The Gateway to Oklahoma History and we have, you know, a lot of the old highway maps digitized and you see the system of state highways that they envision. Like it’s a very grand vision of what they have designated. And then seeing that take shape over time as they get the funding to do this, or in those types of things. So yeah.
Thompson: That House Bill 318 established the Oklahoma Highway Department in 1911. Once again, we were some of the first ones to the party when it came to creating a state highway department, not that we really had any roads at that point to do a lot with, but that bill also established a $1 license fee for each vehicle, but it didn’t appropriate any money to operate that department. And so, essentially paying for your license would help to fund that department. Not necessarily, we were still a little bit early for the thought of funding the construction of roads. At that point, the federal government is still in the giving advice business. And I think at this point, the Oklahoma Highway Department, that’s more where they are as well. It wasn’t until Senator Elmer Thomas wrote legislation in 1915 to reorganize the department, and at that, the Highway Commission was authorized to, they established construction and maintenance guidelines, provide engineering service for services for local units of government, and work closely with the federal government, and counties were to authorize 10% of their roads as state highways, and they establish fines and penalties for the failure to pay license fees because one of the problems was 60% of Oklahoma vehicle owners just didn’t pay the fee, and there was no enforcement mechanism.
Pearce: And then you have, of course, then the federal government steps in in 1916 with the beginning of the federal aid highway, the federal Highway Aid Acts, and I think the first act that was passed in 1916, I think over the course of 10 years, it distributed about $75 million to the various states. And so that’s the federal government stepping in, you know, providing funds. And then states like Oklahoma are able to match that money. And, you know, that really gets, you know, highway construction and improvement on county roads, on state highways, underway. And that, and again, it’s this is all, you know, it’s connecting rural areas to urban areas. It’s allowing, you know, to bring in Route 66. It’s allowing folks to then start to travel on a US highway system and starting to facilitate motor tourism and all of the businesses and activities that towns can benefit off of that. So it all comes together.
Thompson: There were two Federal-Aid Highway Acts a few years apart—the one in 1916 that established, that distributed the $75 million, and then the second one in 1921 was the one that really set the stage for Route 66 and for the federal highway system, and that 1921 law, they improved upon it because in 1916, it really didn’t have any, it really didn’t have any requirements for how the roads were to be built, any standards for width, materials. It also didn’t have any standards that the roads had to connect to each other. And so that 1921 law fixed some of those things and provided additional federal funding, up to $20,000 per mile, for highway construction. And, you know, that 1916 federal law was great. We got bogged down in World War I, and our attention was overseas and not here. We come back to 1921, and that really sets the stage for the federal highway system. In 1916, we have about 25 miles of hard-surfaced roads in the state of Oklahoma, and so we have a ways to go in terms of getting us back to where we need to be. Some of the first federal money after that 1916 law were for a bridge over the South Canadian River near Newcastle, and that was done in 1918. Along the way, we start to see the number of vehicles grow. Remember, 1908 changed the game in terms of vehicular traffic, because when Henry Ford invented the Model T, that brought automobiles to the masses. Instead of $2,000 to $4,000 for a vehicle, now it’s $850 for a vehicle. And Ford’s automobile was stronger. It had more strength in its frame due to the vanadium-alloy frame. It also was easier to operate. It had a higher clearance so it could get over the bad roads. And so now, people could afford them, they could buy them. And as they went through the 1920s, they just got cheaper and cheaper.
Pearce: By 1924, I think a Model T cost about $300, and so it just becomes much more affordable. And so you see an increase in the number of registered automobiles in Oklahoma and across the nation. And so, of course, that registration fee helps pay for highway construction and maintenance. You also see, you know, the states pass gasoline taxes. So there’s taxes on gasoline that also, you know, that also just went to a fund to to help, you know, to fund highway construction. So all these forces kind of work together to create a highway system that, interestingly enough, is, as you know, the Good Roads Movement started with, you know, with folks, with bicycle enthusiasts and farmers, and becomes a, you know, all this facilitates this because, you know, this creation of an auto-centric system. Essentially, everything is centered around the car and consumerism, and travel. And in the 1920s, you really see, I think the 1920s, we tend to overlook this interwar period, especially 1920s, and the consumption and consumerism and the prosperity that kind of gives credence to the car culture. And we see it explode after World War II. But it’s really, the seeds are set, the seeds are sown there in the 1920s with all these things.
Thompson: Most certainly, and in Oklahoma in 1924, we changed things again. Legislation has passed that establishes the State Highway Commission in 1924, and Governor Trapp named Cyrus Avery to be the chair of the State Highway Commission, which sets him up to be involved with the American Association of State Highway Officials, which is the group that the Bureau of Public Roads tasks to develop Route 66, or to develop the state highway system, or the national highway system. And I don’t want to belabor the Route 66 point too much, because we’ve talked about that in the Cyrus Avery episode, and you can go back and listen to that if you want to do a deep dive into that. But 1924, they also passed Senate Bill 44, which established the state highway system, and they also passed legislation to collect an excise tax of two and a half cents a gallon for gasoline. And this is going to help provide those funds so that we can match the funds being provided by the federal government for the building of highways. And so that really will catapult us into the 1930s. One of the interesting things, and you heard it mentioned in the constitutional act, a lot of early highway building, because the state highway department and the Highway Commission did not have the manpower itself, is they would use convict labor to build highways. And that was pretty prevalent. And convict labor would be used until 1937, until the developments, the improvement of roadbuilding machinery made using prisoners not so economical anymore. You also had the WPA in the 1930s that was really putting a lot of men to work to build roads.
Pearce: And especially the WPA was of instrumental and importance for infrastructure projects in general, not just highways, but sidewalks, you know, public service, any, you know, infrastructure project that had had some sort of a public impact. So, you know, not just roads and sidewalks, but also, you know, the National Guard armories, the school buildings, and gymnasiums. I did look up a few statistics from regarding the impact of just the WPA in terms of roads built and so forth. But, you know, the WPA was involved with over 29,000 miles of highway that was built, reconstructed, or improved. That’s highway, county roads, what have you. Twenty-seven hundred bridges built, and another 1,000 bridges that were reconstructed. And then here’s the kicker, 50,000 culverts constructed. And now you don’t think much about a culvert, right? But instrumental towards drainage and making sure that a road would stay passable, you know, during, you know, during the rainy seasons and so forth. And the other great thing about a lot of these WPA projects is that they were built to last. And so there’s still segments of of highway out there in Oklahoma that that retain those original WPA culverts. And so if there’s a stretch that I’m familiar with, it’s way out, and if you ever head to Black Mesa State Park. That I think is Highway 325 that zigzags up that way towards Canton. Those culverts you’re traveling on are original WPA culverts. It’s really just a fascinating aspect. And of course, it helps that they’re way out in Western Oklahoma, so they’ve been able to be preserved and still used. But I think that’s just, you know, a testament to the impact that the WPA had in terms of labor, you know, work relief projects that went towards the public good, such as infrastructure.
Thompson: In 1926, when they approved the state highway, or the national highway system, there are nine US highways in Oklahoma: Highway 64, 66, 70, 73, 75, 77, 81, 266, and 271 are all the national highway designations for the state of Oklahoma. Fun fact: Matt, do you know what year was the first year a center line appeared on a highway in Oklahoma?
Pearce: I do not.
Thompson: 1928, 1928. Friends, you can amaze all of your friends at your next party and throw that out as a bit of trivia, as a trivia question, if anybody knows the answer to that. As we get into the 1930s, we really do start to, with the influx of some federal money, we do start to develop more roads. In 19, during the Depression Era, the Highway Commission had more than $74 million in construction contracts throughout those decades of the 1930s. We also start to mechanize, as I mentioned, we start to get out of horse-drawn equipment, mule-drawn equipment, and we’re starting to get motor equipment for road graders, road builders, all of those kinds of things as well. In 1932, Sam Hanks was chairman of the State Highway Commission, and he announced plans for the Northwest Highway. You mentioned going out to Black Mesa. If you’re going out to Black Mesa, you’re going to drive a good part of it on the Northwest Highway, which essentially connected Oklahoma City to Guymon, Oklahoma, and there was no good way to get out there except by train before this highway comes into being. So we are starting to make some progress as we are growing and maturing in terms of the highway department.
By 1940, the State Highway Department controls over 8,500 miles of highways, 3,000 of which were paved. Over 1,700 of those highways were oiled, and then 2,479 were untreated gravel, 1,224 were dirt roads. It’s hard to imagine today, but a dirt road in the 1940s could be considered a part of the state highway system. And interestingly enough, if you listen to Governor George Nigh, the last state highway to be paved was in the 1980s during his administration. And I forget which, I think it was in the southeastern part of the state. But he talks about that as one of his proudest accomplishments. He was a governor who really focused on building roads, but he got the last state highway in the state paved.
Pearce: So I think that speaks again to what we were talking about earlier, about the vast amount of space, just the enormous amount of mileage that the highway system covers and, of course, our guest will talk about this later, that even today, the amount of work that ODOT does to keep track of the of highway conditions and the conditions of those materials. And so it’s just a, you know, the scale of the system is quite enormous when you stop to think about it.
Thompson: Yeah. A big leap forward for highways in not only Oklahoma, but across the nation, was in the 1950s with the Interstate Highway System, that comes into being. That’s passed, the Federal Highway Act of 1956 is passed and signed by Dwight Eisenhower, and that really opens the floodgates for this massive move. You know, one of the things Dwight Eisenhower, of course, he had been supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War II. He’d seen the German Audubon; that really impressed him, and he felt the need, we needed to have a highway system in the United States where we could move not only goods and people efficiently, but to move military equipment efficiently.
Pearce: Of course, because when Eisenhower becomes president, this is, you know, as the Cold War is emerging and the perceived threat of the Soviet Union. And so the need, the concerns of getting military equipment from the East coast to the West coast or vice versa, was of primary concern. And especially as the United States came out of World War II, because of the war effort, you know, a lot of highway maintenance and highway construction had stopped unless it had been deemed essential. Gasoline had been rationed. So you don’t see a whole lot of travel for leisure. And of course, that all changes after the war, and the highway system was kind of found wanting. And even a highway such as Route 66 was found to be not necessarily capable of sustaining higher amounts of traffic—commercial, leisure, what have you. And so the interstate highway system, I mean, they were built as superhighways. And so that was the intent, of course, yeah, Oklahoma is designated I-35, I-40, and I-44. And, you know, those highways fundamentally reshaped how goods get from one point to another and how folks traveled even across the state.
Thompson: In 1976, House Bill 1791 abolished the Department of Highways and the State Highway Commission and established the Oklahoma Department of Transportation and the Transportation Commission. So once again, this is that effort, this was a part of Governor Boren’s administration, to modernize state agencies, and this was an effort to modernize transportation department. And they become responsible not only for highways, but they become responsible for waterways, rail traffic, and also aeronautics. And they really do become the transportation agency for the state. And the first thing that starts to happen: 1983, Governor Nigh asked the Transportation Commission to produce a four-year plan that would constitute the largest road-building period in state history. They accompany that with a 2.42-cent gas tax increase and match that with federal funding of a five-cent fuel tax that really allowed for them to increase the expansion of new roads across the state. And so that is bringing transportation once more into the modern era in Oklahoma.
Pearce: And I think, you know, what we see is the, how highway-centric Oklahoma becomes through this rapid, you know, overview of the history of the Department of Transportation and highways in Oklahoma. By the late 20th century, you know, Oklahoma has been, you know, fundamentally reshaped by the highways that crisscross it, whether it’s the superhighway such as I-35 and I-40, turnpikes like the Turner Turnpike, the Kilpatrick Turnpike, and then even just the state highways and county roads, and all of which is reliant on automobiles, on car culture, and kind of interestingly how, you know, we start, you know, we started this conversation in the late 19th and early 20th century. We have rural folk really being interested in bringing, you know, in mechanized and having good roads for, you know, to get their crops to market and so forth. And, you know, really by the, you know, go, you know, fast forward to 100 years, and highways fundamentally reshaped rural America, facilitated urban growth, urban sprawl, suburbanization; aspects that we tend to associate that led to the demise of some of these rural communities or help facilitate why they’re struggling. You know, the construction of the turnpike between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, towns along Route 66 vehemently tried to fight that. And at the very least got exits, highway exits to still go to their towns. And so you see this kind of push and pull start to happen about highway construction that kind of brings us into the present day.
Thompson: Yeah, for sure. And one of the things we’ll talk with Tim Gatz about here in a few minutes is the eight-year plan, because this was instituted in 2003, and it was a way to prioritize projects based on need, based on costs, based on community input, and takes some of the politics out of road building, where it wasn’t just the loudest voices in the room that got their road repair or built, but it was based on a systematic methodology that looked at the true need and then chose to rank those. And so that was a major step forward in 2003 as well. Interestingly enough, the eight-year plan was just re-authorized in October of last year, and the Transportation Commission approved a new plan that covers fiscal years 2026 through 2033. It contains $8 billion in highway improvements. It also addresses 209 bridges, 12 of which are structurally deficient, and nearly 2,800 miles of pavement improvements. So the eight-year plan is still going strong and still helping communities and cities all across the state. So with that, Matt, I think that’s a quick-and-dirty on the history of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. And I think we should now talk to Tim Gatz, Secretary of Transportation, and he will tell us a lot more and fill in some of the blanks for us.
Announcer: In the late 19th century, Edward McCabe had an extraordinary vision— a state where Black Americans could own land, build communities, hold political power, and govern themselves. And he believed Oklahoma could be that place. On Thursday, September 24, join award-winning author Caleb Gayle for a special evening exploring McCabe’s story and the Oklahoma that might have been. Gayle’s acclaimed book, Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State, traces McCabe’s efforts to encourage Black settlement in Oklahoma Territory and build support for a Black-governed state. This free lecture begins at 7 p.m. at the Oklahoma History Center, with doors opening at 6:30. A Q&A, book signing, and reception will follow, with books available for purchase. The evening also marks the conclusion of the Oklahoma Civil Rights Trail Grant Program, which supported projects preserving and sharing Civil Rights history across Oklahoma. Visit okhistory.org/signing to learn more and register for this special evening in Oklahoma City.
Thompson: Well, welcome back, everybody. I am very excited to welcome into the conversation Tim Gatz. Tim is the secretary of Transportation and the executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. He began his career at ODOT in 1990 as a drafting technician. His dedication led him to the ODOT executive team in 2006 as the director of Administration and then the director of Capital Programs. He was instrumental in establishing ODOT project management methodologies and the eight-year construction work plan. He served as Deputy Director from 2013 until he was appointed executive director of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority in 2016. He has a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture from Oklahoma State University and is a registered professional landscape architect. He has received many honors, including the Governor’s Public Service Award and the Federal Highway Administration Partners and Quality Award. Tim, welcome to the podcast. We’re excited to have you with us today.
Tim Gatz: Thank you, Trait. It’s a great honor and a great opportunity for me to be here. I appreciate the invitation. Look forward to some good conversation.
Thompson: Absolutely. We’ve been talking about the history of the Highway Department and the Highway Commission, and the Department of Transportation, and I’m really excited to get your perspective on ODOT, as we’re looking at your time during your years with the agency. But I thought we would start off, I’d love to hear, I know you grew up in El Reno, and I’d love to hear about your growing-up years. What were those like? You grew up around Route 66, which has turned out to be an important part of your job now. Tell us what that was like.
Gatz: You know, growing up in El Reno was really a great experience. Small town, close enough to Oklahoma City that, you know, you could make a run over if you needed something really bad, but basically a rural community at the time. And, you know, my family’s been in Canadian County since before statehood. So, you know, it’s always been home. Still is. Crossed Route 66 twice a day on my way to and from elementary school, and just a great atmosphere. I wouldn’t tell you that I had the appreciation for, you know, growing up in a small town that I, looking back, do today. But, you know, that’s kind of where it all started. You start to think about transportation. Some of my very early memories are the construction of Interstate 40 going on right there around El Reno, you know, in the late ’60s, early ’70s. And, you know, some of that is, you know, things I look back on fondly today. And El Reno was just a great community, strong community base, always been a real tightly knit community.
Thompson: Right. Yeah.
Gatz: And really a great place to grow up.
Thompson: Now, I have to ask you, do you like onion burgers still or are you sick of them at this point?
Gatz: Absolutely not. You know, fried onion burgers in Oklahoma are an absolute staple, and El Reno is ground zero for fried onion burgers. And you know everything. I was at the at the inaugural Onion Burger Festival, and a matter of fact, I was there just this year, so I haven’t missed many of them. But fried onions, burgers, you know, whether you were, you know, during harvest, stopping by one of the fried onion burger places and grabbing a sack of burgers to take back with you to the folks on the combines. Always, you know, again, that’s something that is woven into the fabric of who El Reno is.
Pearce: So, what made you get interested in landscape architecture, and how did that lead you to the Department of Transportation?
Gatz: You know, I think I’ve always had an interest in design, and buildings, and the outdoors. Started out in the architecture program, got into the environmental side of it, just really more of a focus on horticulture and being outside, and then how do you integrate structures, you know, whether that’s a road or a bridge or a building into the environment and do that in a manner that’s, you know, aesthetic, that functions well. So I think as I got into college and started to go down the decision-making process of what you want to do when you grow up, that seemed like a good fit and just always enjoyed the work that brought in. And quite frankly, you know, the first thing people think about is when you think of landscape architects is plant material. And it’s much more than that. It’s, you know, we’ve got a lot of the same coursework, survey classes, strengths and materials, roadway geometry. So a lot of the same things that engineers get, just in a little bit different perspective.
Thompson: That makes a lot of sense. I haven’t thought about that before. Now, were you always an OSU person, or did you look around, or did you toy with the red school down south of Oklahoma City? Or was it always, I’m headed to OSU?
Gatz: You know, you know, I grew up at OU Sooners fan. My family, most of the family was OU Sooners fans and ended up at eventually at OSU. And you know, the Stillwater, as a community, reminds me a lot. I always tell people there are two places where I felt at home, and one’s in El Reno and the others in Stillwater. And again, I think it’s that community base. Stillwater is a true college town, and I really enjoyed my time there. And the university is just absolutely a great place. And the thing that’s really neat about Stillwater is, from the time that I spent there in school to now, you know, their philosophies haven’t changed. You know, it’s the cowboy code, you know.
Thompson: Yeah, it is. You know, I did my grad work at Texas A&M, and OSU and Texas A&M, very similar feels both in the college community and in the colleges themselves. So I can understand why you found a home there. I’d be interested, well, I know this, but I want to point out, you still live in El Reno today.
Gatz: Yes, sir. Again, born and raised there. Still got family out there, raised my kids there, and just never found a compelling reason to leave. You know, it’s home, and, I today only live about probably six blocks from where I grew up.
Thompson: Oh. That’s fascinating.
Gatz: It’s a, you know, El Reno is just a great community.
Thompson: It is, it is. Have to give a shout-out to my friend Lyndsay Bayne with Visit El Reno, because we’ve done a lot of work with her and Route 66 this year.
Gatz: Lyndsay is a great resource and does a fantastic job with El Reno’s tourism industry. And for that matter, just, you know, the increase in activity that El Reno has seen with the centennial celebration and, boy I tell you what. They’re putting their best foot forward.
Thompson: They are.
Gatz: And she’s been a big part of it. So, yes. Great deal.
Thompson: So let’s get into ODOT because ODOT is a big agency, and you’ve been there for quite some time. Let’s talk about the mission of the agency, and you know, it’s not just highways that fall under your purview. So let’s get into that a little bit.
Gatz: You know, just as you point out, ODOT is, you know, we’re highway-centric. And what I mean by that is is our jurisdictional authority, when you boil it down to the lowest level, is interstates, US-numbered routes, and the state highway system. That doesn’t mean that when main street’s got a highway number on it, that we don’t interact with the communities that we serve on a regular basis. And that’s a big part of what ODOT does, is partnerships. And, you know, whether that’s county government, county commissioners, you know, or whether that again, is working with the communities, make sure that we’re meeting their needs both with the service on the highways. But again, things like signal lights and sidewalks and, you know, bike-ped traffic. You know, when you look at the breadth of the ODOT mission, you also can’t forget things like the Arkansas River navigation system, you know, McClellan-Kerr. And, you know, that’s something that a lot of people don’t even know about. You know, that we have the furthest inland frost-free port right there at Catoosa.
Thompson: Yeah.
Gatz: And the value of that is significant when it comes to moving, especially like agricultural products. And, you know, how does that relate to the Department of Transportation? Well, we have what we call a super shed. It’s an emergency salt storage shed at the Port of Catoosa, and we barge salt in from Louisiana and keep that shed full.
Thompson: I didn’t know that.
Gatz: Yeah. It’s about a 60,000-ton shed, so it’s huge. But if we’re in the middle of a tough winter, you know, there were times when we couldn’t get salt. We typically buy it out of Kansas. But when it’s snowing hard here and northeast, most of the salt is going northeast. So we couldn’t get it delivered. So that’s been a great tool for us and just another example of how critical that port is. And they move so much freight in and out of there. And then you look at rail, you know, the the Department of Transportation in, really the late ’70s, as we started to see some of the the railroads have problems and started to abandon some of the rail lines, the legislature had the foresight to say, hey, ODOT, you need to go and engage with these railroads and acquire these rail lines because they were under threat of abandonment. If you ever abandon a railroad, you won’t ever get that quarter back. So we preserve that. Bought those railroads and those rail lines at salvage value to the tune of in excess of 900 miles of state-owned railroad. The legislature also said, and we’re not asking you to get in the rail business. We want you to work with the private sector and return those to private ownership as quickly as you can. And we did that over time through leases and lease-purchase agreements and things like that very successfully. And, you know, today we’ve only got about 100 miles of that 900 original miles left. A lot of that is just not very viable. It may be at some point in the future. So, you know, we continue to manage those short segments. And with that same philosophy, eventually there will be a need, and we’ll try to get that back to the private sector hands.
Thompson: Yeah. Do you still have aeronautics?
Gatz: Aeronautics is in the transportation cabinet. And, you know, aerospace and aeronautics is such a fast-growing segment of Oklahoma’s economy. And, you know, with Tinker Air Force Base, and the American maintenance operation in Tulsa, and things like that. And, you know, we have seen tremendous change in aviation, and always been a big part, you know, going back to Wiley Post and some of the vision that they had in the early days, and that continues. And I think what you’re really seeing speed up is things like unmanned aerial systems. And also, you’re looking at aerospace becoming a much greater niche, I think, for Oklahoma.
Thompson: Yeah, one of our fastest- growing industries for sure
Gatz: On a go forward, I think it only grows exponentially as we look to the future.
Thompson: Yeah.
Pearce: Can you talk a bit about your own path through ODOT? I believe you started as a draftsman in 1980.
Gatz: 1990.
Pearce: 1990, sorry. And then of course, now you’re executive director. So, can you talk a bit about how your path through ODOT up the chain happened?
Gatz: Yeah, absolutely. You know, when I got out of school, in 1989, times were not great in Oklahoma. You know, we were kind of still reeling from the from the oil bust that we had in the ’80s. Unemployment was, you know, 6, 7%. So jobs were hard to find. And, you know, I didn’t want to leave Oklahoma. I wanted to, I really wanted to stay in the state, and I think what you saw is an opportunity at ODOT. It was entry-level and, you know, it was going to be the job I had until I got my next job. And as I got into the work, the department, I really fit in well. My educational background fit in well. I love the people that I got to work with. And you have a sense of purpose with the Department of Transportation that you’re really you’re working hard to make a difference. And I think that’s something that appealed to me. And, you know, you don’t have to look too hard to find work that needs to be done at ODOT, and so that fit my personality well. And I had have had the the real privilege of working with some transportation icons, you know, the Neal McCalebs and the Gary Ridleys. And having mentorship like that is something else that kept me with ODOT. You know, great leaders are, they make it easy, you know, when you’ve got guys like that to work for. But when you boil it down to the lowest level, I think if you ask any of the fantastic men and women that work for the Department of Transportation, the thing that motivates them every day is that they’re making a difference for the citizens of the state.
Thompson: What are some of the biggest changes that you’ve seen during your, you know, 25, 26 years with the agency? Obviously, there have to, I know there have been some big ones, but from your perspective, what do you think they are?
Gatz: You know, I think technology and the changes we’ve seen in the technical realm, and what I mean by that is, you know, I grew up in ODOT in the, in the design sector on it, you know, started out in the engineering squad. And when I started, I sat at a drafting table with a T square and a pen set, drafting on either mylar or...
Thompson: Doesn’t that seem like an ancient history now?
Gatz: And I’m here to tell you, it absolutely does. But that was it. That’s how we did business. Leroy guide for lettering. And you know, those are good memories, but not great memories because things got exponentially better. While I was with ODOT, I watched us, and really was a part of, bringing the CAD technology into the department. And as that has evolved, we’re on the verge of being able to work in an environment where we have what’s called a digital twin for our infrastructure. So what that means is we’ve got a three- dimensional model of our highway system that we can do lifecycle management activities, you know, so we’re managing that infrastructure in a three-dimensional environment. And that model reflects the investments that we’re making into that system. So dramatic changes on the technology side. But I’ve also seen us become much more focused and transparent as an agency. You know, we’ve made it our mission to make sure that the citizens of the state, the traveling public, know how we’re spending the taxpayer dollars that we’re entrusted with, and to understand what our philosophies are, understand what our priorities are, and that’s something we take very serious. And then I think that’s changed over time, you know.
Thompson: Does the speed of executing a project, has that improved over the years, or is it pretty much the same?
Gatz: Oh, I think the, and again, technology-based, a lot of the things that we do today we can do much faster. You know, I always use the survey crew as an example. When I hired in with ODOT, a survey crew had, you know, five or six people on it. And today, really, you can do most everything with one. And again, that’s technology using satellites and so on. So that’s, I think, sped things up. The ability to gather that data and then translate it is exponentially faster. I think construction technology and everything from materials to techniques is far advanced from where we were in the ’90s. And I think our governors and the legislature from all my career has gotten, has become increasingly focused on investing in our infrastructure for the betterment of the state. That’s why we are who we are today. You know, we’re a growing state. People want to come here and live here because we’ve made investments in ourselves, and I’ve seen that really change over time. You know, you turn the clock back to the early 2000s. And, you know, I call that our Band-Aid and baling wire years because we just didn’t have the resources to be able to go do the things we needed to do, and that’s changed. You know, we’re going to have some challenging times ahead of us. But the speed with which we deliver projects today and, more importantly, the efficiency that we deliver projects with is changed dramatically.
Thompson: How many employees do you have now? Roughly?
Gatz: This is interesting because when I went to work for ODOT in 1990, and if you were wondering, that was under the Bellmon administration. So, to put that in a little bit of perspective.
Thompson: Second Bellmon administration.
Gatz: Yeah. The second. Yeah. So we had we had about 3,200 employees. And, and today we would like to be right around 2,300, 2,350. We can’t ever get there because our, you know, we’ve got turnover in the ranks. So we operate right at about usually about 2,275 to 2,300. And you know, again, the the majority of those folks are boots on the ground that work out in our eight field districts. And they’re the guys out there that are making a difference every day. You know, managing, whether that’s keeping the right of ways looking good, keeping the transportation system in a state of good repair. You know, they’re carrying a lot, especially when it’s September and 100 degrees outside. They work in a tough environment. And then here in the central office, you know, we’ve got about probably 600 people that are in the central office there with us.
Pearce: So, did you start in the central office or did you start in one of the field districts and work your way up?
Gatz: I actually started in central office and pretty much spent my whole career there. I had the opportunity, through some of the program management that I did, to work statewide. So I really got a good, and one of the things that I really treasure is that I was able to get out and work in the field and develop relationships with our field personnel. So I’ve got a good perspective on what they do out there that served me well throughout my career. But I started out in the central office and have always been there as either part of design, or administration, or the executive staff.
Thompson: So, how long have you been executive director now?
Gatz: I started in the executive director role with ODOT in 2019 when Governor Stitt came into office.
Thompson: Okay, yeah. And when you became executive director, what were some of the things that you wanted to focus on as some of your priorities?
Gatz: You know, the thing I would tell you is I don’t ever want to sit still, you know, and in the world we live in, especially with transportation, we get comfortable sometimes, doing the same thing over and over and over again. And you really have to pay attention, because if you’re not moving forward, you’re going backwards. And so I put a real emphasis on, you know, kind of really taking a hard look at ourselves and making sure we were using the technologies that were coming up as we should, making sure we were having some vision about our investment strategies and where we were putting our dollars. And, you know, just kind of reinvigorated the whole eight-year work plan process and what we were accomplishing, what we were trying to accomplish. And we’ve put a lot of effort into understanding what the needs are out on the transportation system. So that’s been a big, I think, focus under my directorship. And then, you know, workforce, gosh, you know, trying to build the workforce that we’re going to need for the future and make sure that we’re trying to build in some longevity. You know, that’s a challenge that I think all state agencies are facing right now is institutional knowledge. That institutional knowledge in an organization is hugely powerful.
Thompson: Absolutely. And especially with the Department of Transportation, because you’ve got to understand your infrastructure, and you’re not going to walk in the door and know everything you need to know about how to take care of it. So, you know, we’re trying our best to build longevity in the ranks and really look to the future.
Thompson: I think one of the challenges, and to your point, you know, here at the agency, I’ve said many times that we don’t want the moss to start growing underneath our feet. You know, we want to keep moving forward because it’s exactly like you say. The minute you’re not growing, you’re dying. And we don’t want to do that. We want to keep looking out on the horizon. We want to keep trying to find ways to innovate. It can be challenging in the public sector, though, because we have a lot of requirements on us that the private sector doesn’t have. You know, you’re going to do a project, we have bidding requirements, we have posting requirements. We have, you know, equal opportunity requirements, all of those kinds of things. And so the challenge is trying to stay nimble and agile and yet still meet those demands of being a public-sector organization.
Gatz: That’s exactly right, Trait. I mean, you know, and I try to tell our folks that if you’re, whenever you get comfortable, it should make you uncomfortable, you know, because again, we’re trying to leverage every resource that we can. We’re trying to work within, you know, and I’ll tell you without hesitation, I am a bureaucrat, but I hate bureaucracy.
Thompson: Yeah. You know, so how do you make sure that we are operating efficiently and meeting all of our statutory requirements? I mean, that’s first and foremost, but how do you make sure that we’re asking why, and we’re looking for that next better way to get something done. And we’re pretty good at it at ODOT.
Thompson: Yeah, I would say so for sure. You know, one of the bigger events within the last 25 years there. A major tragedy that happened in 2002 was the collapse of the bridge at Webbers Falls on I-40 after the barge hit it in that terrible accident, and the way ODOT responded and was able to get that bridge built in 40-something days. Record time.
Gatz: 47 days, 12 hours, and a few minutes, if I remember right.
Thompson: What do you recall about that time? I don’t know how much you might have been directly or indirectly involved in that, but that has to be one of the things that you guys are most proud of for being able to get that bridge back up and running and get transportation on this major artery through the United States going again.
Gatz: There are defining moments, you know, when you look at your, back across your career, and that is absolutely one of them. At the time, I was the project management division head in ODOT, and I’ll never forget getting the call on that Sunday morning, you know, that we’ve got a problem. And 14 people lost their lives in that tragic event, which, you know, as a transportation professional, I think the thing that hits you hardest in an event like that is, you know, the folks expected a bridge to be under them. You know, and that’s part of our infrastructure. And, you know, when that thing got knocked down by the barge, it was an all-hands call like you’ve never seen. So we went to work that Sunday morning to start to think about, okay, again, how do you deliver this project as fast as you possibly can? How do you get innovative? And again, I think every step that we took was deliberate, focused, and really centric around trying to get that artery open back up.
I-40, you know, one of the detour routes was 80 miles long. And I think what the realization, or the additional realization that came out of that, is how ill-prepared our non-interstate highways were to support that level of traffic. So you’re putting 80,000-pound trucks on bridges that were load posted. And you know, some of the most stressful times during that period were out there working on those bridges while they were under traffic, using any method that we could to keep them open and keep that detour functioning. We ended up spending, I think, more managing the detours on that incident than we did putting the bridge back in the air.
Thompson: Oh, interesting. But I think that’s a hard lesson to learn, and I think it gave us a clear perspective. And Gary Ridley was in the directorship at that time, and you could not have asked for a better leader to have in that role in a tragic occurrence like that than Gary.
Thompson: Gary’s a legend.
Gatz: He is absolutely a legend. He kept us focused and kept us moving. And, you know, we had so much good help. We had ODOT personnel. We had, you know, contracted personnel. The contractor that was brought on board was a company called Gilbert Central, and they worked with the local contractors. And everything went perfect. And, you know, you always, when you have an outcome like we had there, that is preparation, skills, and execution. And combine that with good partnerships. And but again, that is absolutely a defining moment in the department’s history. From that realization that our highway infrastructure was in such bad condition. So that was 2002, 2003 was when we did our first eight-year construction work plan.
Thompson: Yeah. So that’s, I didn’t know how much one might have had to do with the other.
Gatz: Everything to do with it. You know, the construction work plan is about making sure that the traveling public and that our leaders, you know, whether that’s governors or the legislature, understand where we’re at, what we’re trying to accomplish, and more importantly, what the needs are out there. And, you know, that’s something we are focused on even today. We talk about it all the time. Are we making progress and moving the needle? Are we breaking even or are we going backwards? And you know, we are such an analytical agency that I think once we understood very clearly the condition our system was in, and we saw the performance level we had whenever we turned interstate level traffic, especially the truck traffic, onto that system. It was a wake-up call, and we went to work immediately.
Thompson: Yeah. It’s interesting about the eight-year plan, because it’s my understanding that part of the reasoning for that was to try to take some of the politics out of roadbuilding, in terms of it wasn’t just the loudest senator, the most influential senator that got the road built in their district, but it was really looking at the need. And it’s quite a process that you guys go through to take into account, what are the actual needs out there and to get something put on the plan, right?
Gatz: Absolutely. And, you know, that’s something we’ve gotten better at over time. We’re an agency that’s got hundreds of engineers that work for us, and they love the numbers. They love to understand, you know, what the needs are and how best to fix them. So, that analytical nature. So we collect data on everything. So traffic volumes, crashes on the highway system, geometry, so steep hills, and sharp curves, and what happens at those locations. Conditional information. Every public bridge in the state of Oklahoma is inspected at least, and when I say inspected, it receives an engineering review at least once every two years. So we’re always looking at the infrastructure, documenting, again the conditional elements. We use LiDAR. So that’s you know, LiDAR is laser data gathering. We can collect pavement information at 70 miles an hour down the highway. So we do LiDAR on the entire state highway system once a year. And we take that pavement information that we collect and do comparative analysis on it so we can see where we’re deteriorating, understand better where our needs are. And then we rank that system good, fair, and poor. And, you know, when you consider the condition of the system, the volume and type of traffic gets carrying, and then the crash history. What are some of the safety concerns we’re dealing with? That’s foundational for our prioritization process.
And the metropolitan areas have got huge needs, very expensive projects. It’s the same in the rural areas. The rural areas, you know, our highest severe-injury and fatality rate in Oklahoma occurs on rural two-lane highways that don’t have safety shoulders. And that’s why we’ve put such a big emphasis on that. Those are engineering-based decisions, and I think that’s a critical part of it. They’re not about cutting ribbons. They’re about saving lives. They’re about giving Oklahoma the type of infrastructure that we need to support our growth for the long term, and that, you know, the department’s focused our energy on making sure we’re paying attention to that.
Thompson: Yeah, I’ll resist the temptation to do my Dr. Evil impression about lasers.
(laughter)
Pearce: Can you speak a bit about what else goes into the eight-year plan? You’re talking about the engineering focus and foundation for that plan. But can you speak about the consultation work that you do with communities? I mean, the Cultural Resource Management work that you do with what, presumably, we’ll probably talk about historic preservation here in a little bit, but can you talk about some of those other aspects that go into the eight-year plan?
Gatz: Absolutely. You know, public input is critical to us. Our districts, our district engineers that are out there in the field districts, they stay in constant communication with the communities they serve. You’re going to see these guys at Rotary Club meetings, at council meetings, at the county commissioner meetings. So they’re interacting nonstop. But we also have public engagement, public involvement, through our planning activities. And then that’s everything from we have not just an eight-year plan, but we’ve got a 25-year long-range plan. And we update that 25-year plan every five years. And that’s a massive public engagement effort where we go statewide and gather feedback from the public as to what they’re seeing out there, what they think the needs are, and that factors in. Also, one of our most important feedback avenues is the legislature. You know, the legislators, and I can’t tell you countless times I will get a call from a legislator because a constituent’s pointed something out to them that we didn’t know anything about. And, you know, we’re taking that feedback, and we’re going out okay, sometimes it’s a critical emergency type of a deal. Sometimes it’s just a need out there that we need to pay attention to. And I tell legislators all the time the value of the input that we receive from them is important to us. I mean, it’s something we’ve got to pay attention to because they’re hearing directly from the people, a lot of times before we do.
Thompson: Yeah, that’s an interesting point for sure. You know, I’m reminded too, speaking of major projects in the agency history. The relocation of I-40 in Oklahoma City, that has to be a big one. You guys picked up an interstate and moved it, what, about half a mile to the south? That’s a massive project.
Gatz: It, you know, the cross town, and it’s, you know, the area, and I say this all the time. There’s no instant gratification in infrastructure. So I’m pretty sure when I hired in, in 1990, we were talking about needs on the Crosstown. And, you know, it was a what we call a fracture-critical bridge—a couple of miles worth of bridge that if one element failed, the entire structure could come down. So, you know, when it was designed, it was a great design and a great structure, but it had reached the end of its usable life. So we were starting to think about, okay, what are we going to do with this? And through a multi-year process where we did that public involvement, public engagement, listened to what the City of Oklahoma City desired for the long term. We planned a route and got started on construction. I think that was a real game changer for the City of Oklahoma City. But even more importantly, we eliminated some of the choke points on Interstate 40 that affect not just Oklahoma, but the entire nation. You know, travel time reliability is a thing. That is a big part of our responsibility, to move freight traffic and passenger vehicles traffic, not just in and out of Oklahoma City, but across this country. And, you know, Oklahoma City is the crossroads of America with 35 and 40. And so that was a long-term investment in the future and a major project. Something that that some folks don’t know is, as we deconstructed the old Interstate 40 bridge, we were able to repurpose those beams. And a lot of those beams, those steel bridge beams, found their way into county bridge structures that they were very well suited for.
Thompson: Talk about recycling there.
Gatz: Yeah, we’ve been recycling long before recycling was a cool thing to do.
Thompson: Both saving some dollars and reusing materials. We got to love that.
Gatz: Yeah, absolutely.
Thompson: So let’s talk about Route 66, because you and I both serve on the Centennial Commission together, and we serve on the National Centennial Commission together as that goes, also. And I know, you know, most everybody we’ve been thinking about Route 66 this year because it’s the 100th year. You guys have been thinking about Route 66 for a long time. But talk about how you’ve approached preservation of the highway leading up to the 100th anniversary. And I definitely want you to talk about the Pony Bridge in Bridgeport, but talk about how you’ve approached all of that.
Gatz: You know, Route 66 is, you know, it’s part of who Oklahoma is. You know, going all the way back to, well, you turn the clock way back. And, you know, Sidney Suggs is our first real highway guy in the state of Oklahoma. Cyrus Avery, you know, the true father of the Mother Road that was so integral in planning not just Route 66 in Oklahoma, but across the, you know, from Chicago to California. So the department’s approach, we recognize the criticality of, you know, the history of Route 66. But at the same time, we’ve got to try to address the needs of the modern day. And, you know, sometimes, that’s very easy to figure out how to accomplish that; other times, it’s not so much. And it’s more challenging to really get into the preservation mindset. You know, because again, there there are some areas where it’s just impossible to do. But where you can do it, that should be in the front of our minds all the time. And you mentioned the Bridgeport Bridge. If you want to see a prime example of that in action, you know, it’s having a preservation mindset, the willingness not just to tear the old bridge down and build a new one, but to find a solution for a major problem that balances, you know, that preservation need. You know, what we’ve got out there now, and the way it was executed, used modern technology, modern materials that gave us a bridge that’s got another 50-year life expectancy, but maintained the historic character of that structure and a lot of the historic structural elements. So, you know, you’ve got to you’ve got to be willing to dig in and find that balance. I learned that from preservationists, you know, that really are passionate about this. You know, because again, ODOT and transportation in general is not always as focused on some of those issues as we should be. And again, that’s always a careful balance. And I think with the help of folks that knew what they were doing in the preservation world, we’ve been able to accomplish some very unique projects and where we’ve managed that balance very well. You know, I think the first project that we did actually predated the Pony, the Bridgeport Bridge, was Captain Creek on Route 66, where we did a very similar project.
Thompson: Is that Wellston?
Gatz: At Wellston. And, you know, it’s finding ways to be mindful of the past while we build for the future.
Thompson: Well, it’s balancing a lot of different priorities, too. I’m sure taking the Pony Bridge, for example, it would have been much less expensive. You just, well, why do we need to go put those pony trusses back up? It’s not helping anything. It’s not structural like it was for the original bridge. So why do we need to do it? Let’s preserve an iconic element of Route 66 and something that is immediately recognizable for, you know, hundreds of thousands of people who have driven that route over the years.
Gatz: And most importantly, will be for generations into the future. You know, so, finding that balance and because Bridgeport and projects like that, and we got them all over the Route 66 route, where we’ve tried to find that balance. You know, the Ribbon Road is another good example of that Miami. You know, so we’re we’re always trying to find that balance and make some improvements. But make sure we, to the extent that we can, are mindful of the historic integrity and preserve elements where we can find the right opportunities. But I think it is a willingness to sit down at the table, consider everybody’s different viewpoints, and then find a good solution. And, you know, even if it’s a little bit more costly. Bridgeport’s the gift that’s going to keep on giving. You know, generations into the future, they’re going to have that part and piece of Oklahoma, and folks are not going to quit showing up just to see that thing. Most recently, if you haven’t been out there lately, we’ve put an iconic piece of art there at the bridge that’s an engineering compass. And you couldn’t find a more appropriate place for an element like that, you know, because that bridge was a feat of engineering when it was constructed. It was, once again, a feat of engineering when we found that balance and used modern materials to build something there that’s going to service long into the future.
Thompson: For those of you who may not know, the bridge was completed in 1934, and it spans 3,000, over 3,900 feet across the Canadian River, which that riverbed can vary up to a mile wide. And you’ll drive across it now and think, especially this summer, why in the world is the bridge this long, because the water stream is probably 30 feet wide? But when it floods, it floods big, and there were many structures that washed out before that. Bridgeport Bridge was built in the 1930s, and it was a major part of Route 66 after it was built. And so if you haven’t driven it, you should go out there and drive it because it is an iconic bridge, probably one of the most photographed bridges on Route 66.
Gatz: Without a doubt.
Thompson: And it’s, you know, like you said, it’s still there. You still have that look and that feel of it. But yes, I had a chance last week to stop out there and see that new art structure, and the thing that makes it even more cool. First of all, it’s painted yellow like the pony trusses, but it’s made out of I-beams, just like the bridge, just like the structural supports on the bridge. So it all ties in very nicely. I don’t know who the artist was. Maybe you do, but it was, it’s really cool.
Gatz: Yeah, I don’t, off the top of my head, I couldn’t name the artist, but it was very well done and very well executed. And we were, you know, just another one of those things that we can be a little bit prideful, you know, that we accomplished something there. If you turn the clock back a decade, I don’t think any of us believed we would have had the outcome that we’ve got at that location today. But we found a way.
Thompson: Yeah. Well, and that’s what people appreciate about you and your leadership is that you are looking for not necessarily the most expedient solution, but the right solution. And I know you’re well regarded in the preservation community because of that.
Gatz: And when we’ve got a good team, and like I said, once everybody wrapped their mind around what we were trying to accomplish, I don’t think there’s any question that I don’t know how we could have done anything any better at that location. And that’s always something we’re going to try to do.
Thompson: This is a fun one. But you guys painted Route 66 shields on the roads in the 42 Route 66 communities in the state, and people have loved that. That’s not as big as a bridge project, but it’s another one of those things that just adds to that aura of Route 66.
Gatz: Sure, and things like that make a difference. And that was made possible by the Route 66 Commission. And so brought some resources to bear. We were able to get out and work with the communities. Again, you talk about community interaction. You know, working with those Route 66 communities to locate and put those shields on. And again, our people and the contractors that we work with, you know, that’s the coolest thing they ever get to do is get out there and do something like that, and then watch the volume of people that have come to Oklahoma in this year has been amazing. I think we all expected it, but I don’t think we quite wrapped our mind around how big an event it was going to be. And now they get to look back and say, hey, we were a part of that.
Thompson: Now about those painted shields. My friend Kerry Barrick, who is in charge of all the Route 66 activities out of the lieutenant governor’s office. She always says, don’t get smushed, which means don’t go lay down on the highway on those shields and take your picture. It’s very dangerous.
Gatz: I would encourage you to go take a picture with the compass out at Bridgeport Bridge, where it’s got a nice parking area where you can get off the road. But for the safety of you and the traveling public, please do not do that.
Thompson: A word to the wise there. Tim, I want to finish up our conversation just talking about, you know, your career. You have spent 25-plus years in public service with the State of Oklahoma. I’m sure you’ve had many opportunities to maybe go work in the private sector, become a consultant, all of those kinds of things. What keeps you coming back every day to doing what you do?
Gatz: You know, I think it is, just as kind of we’ve talked about it. It’s service to the citizens of the state. And, you know, to be able to get to the end of every day and look back and ask yourself, what did we accomplish, and really know that we did. You know, we made a difference for people, and we made a difference for the traveling public. You know, if anything, I have, I hope I bring some institutional knowledge to the table that helps not just us today, but, you know, the next generation. And, you know, I think that focus is something that I’ve enjoyed my whole career. And that’s what keeps me coming back. Gosh. You know, just you think about what the highway system does for the state, and you think about the improvements and the privilege that we get, the folks that work for the Department of Transportation, to be a part of improving it and managing it. That’s a big deal. And, you know, in my mind, it doesn’t get any better than that.
Thompson: Well, I just want to say we appreciate you. You’re a great public servant. You’re someone who’s been a friend to the Oklahoma Historical Society, and you’re someone who I’ve enjoyed getting to know as we’ve worked together on different projects over the last few years. And thanks to you and your 2,500-plus employees who work hard for the citizens of Oklahoma.
Gatz: Trait, thank you. And guys, it’s been a tremendous pleasure and an honor for me to come visit with you for a little bit. And I so much appreciate what you do because the Historical Society brings a, it doesn’t let us forget. You know, it brings a perspective, I think, that’s really, really important for the state of Oklahoma. And you guys, we interact all the time. You guys have our archives here. And we so very much appreciate that partnership that we have with your agency, too. So yeah.
Thompson: Well, thank you, Tim. Well, Matt, I really enjoyed talking to Tim. I learned a lot. He is an incredible public servant. He’s a good person. He really is a genuinely good person, and we are very fortunate to have him where he is.
Pearce: I’m glad he had a chance to talk about, I’m always interested talking to people about how they got into their position. So to hear, you know, hear him talk about how a kid from El Reno went to school in Stillwater, learned landscape architecture, and then joins ODOT and then has the career that he has and the contributions that he’s made, I think was really good for our audience to hear.
Thompson: I agree. Matt, thanks for stepping in this week and joining us for the podcast. And as always, I enjoyed talking to you.
Pearce: Likewise, happy to be here anytime.
Thompson: Okay. We’ll see you next time, folks. You have been listening to A Very OK Podcast, hosted by Trait Thompson and Dr. Bob Blackburn. The podcast is produced by the Oklahoma Historical Society. Visit us at okhistory.org, and find us on social media by searching for @okhistory. I encourage you to purchase a membership to OHS to help us continue our mission to collect, preserve, and share Oklahoma’s unique and fascinating history.
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