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Veteran MDOT leader reflects on a rich career in state government · Talking Michigan Transportation

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Jeff Cranson.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: This week I'm privileged to be speaking with Laura Mester, who has served as the Chief Administrative Officer at MDOT since 2011.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: She's retiring from state government in January.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: She joined the podcast to reflect on her career in state government, including the past 15 years at MDOT.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: She had a lot of interesting things to say, a lot of great observations.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: She's very thoughtful about transportation and transportation policy and what it means to the citizens of the state.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope you enjoy the conversation.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: So once again, I'm with Laura Mester, who will be retiring at the end of January as Chief Administrative Officer at the Michigan Department of Transportation.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: She came to MDOT after already having a distinguished career, a couple different roles in state government.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: And she's been a tremendous friend and counselor to many in the department, has weathered a lot of challenges, those ongoing challenges that we'll talk about, mostly tied to lack of adequate funding for transportation, which is not unique to Michigan, by the way.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, Laura, thank you for taking time to talk.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: So talk first about your trajectory and uh what you did before landing at MDOT.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it you know, I started out at the Auditor General's office um right out of college, and that was a great learning experience because I audited different departments, and so that really gives you a broad perspective of what government does.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then I went to the state budget office and I was there for uh what, 17 years working both in the budget office and in the accounting office of financial management, and so that's where I really was exposed to how government works and interacts with all of the state agencies to talk about well, what are your budgetary needs, and then how do we balance it from an accounting financial reporting perspective?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: And it just really when you deal with accounting policy and then there's legislative changes, we had to evaluate those.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: So at one time in my career, I read every single law that was passed by the legislature, and so that really helps you get a sense of how government works.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: So you're the one who read all the time.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I did.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: At what point in my career?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because we had to do an assessment of how would this impact budgets and how would this impact revenues and expenses, and then work with the Department of Treasury and the State Budget Office director to say, hey, if we're gonna do this in accordance with GAP, this is what we need to do.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was the one of the people that had to tell the state budget director sometimes that, hey, you don't get to do that the year that you wanted.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it was So that's interesting though, when you started at the Auditor General for the uninformed, that's actually an arm of the legislature.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And they are part of the legislature's oversight responsibilities.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: So when you moved from there to the state budget office, um, was there uh a a bit of a suspicion of you and what you were bringing to the to the task, or did they say, This is great, you know your way around auditing, so you'll be more of the hey, this is great, um, that you understand some of these processes already.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: So the transition to the Office of Financial Management and the State Budget Office was pretty easy.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And because I had worked with them during the year and closing process already as an auditor on the statewide um annual comprehensive financial report process.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so I had built relationships already with the people at the state budget office, and I was able to just seamlessly, you know, transition into my role as a liaison to the different departments in state government because we OFM would support the agencies in trying to close the books and you know just evaluate the impact of legislative changes and how it impact how they reported their financial activity at the end of the year.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that transition was seamless.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: But then in 2011, when you applied for and won the position of chief administrative officer at MDOT, um we know all State Departments are different, but I think MDOT, as I say and you know now better than ever, um is different than other State Departments in that it touches people every day from the minute they leave their house until they get home.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: No no other department can really say that.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: So what did you not know that maybe you thought you knew?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, what I think what what surprised you along the way, and obviously didn't scare you off because you've been here 15 years.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um what what you don't realize when you get here, even with the background that I had, because I knew a lot about MDOT from the sense of the how to how's it how is it appropriated, how does it spend money, what how does it distribute money across the board?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: I was very familiar with that.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: Plus you have a driver's license.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: Plus I have a driver's license.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um but uh what you don't realize is the impact that you have on the citizens of this state and all of the decisions that we make here.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: You don't realize that the modes are here and that we have a role to play with all of the communities on public transportation needs.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um you don't know the national presence that this department has to talk about transportation and the influence that that we have.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think one of the things at the time when I got here, Kirk Steidel was the director, and you really learn about what our role is and how we do influence national policy uh across the board, and you get that exposure.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing that you don't realize as coming from the outside is the amount of research that is done to support transportation and how that gets implemented, whether it's just in our state or across the country.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so that exposure really, I mean, it helps you grow as a person and as a leader because you see it the way it's done in Michigan, and then you see the way that it's done in other states and the the relationships that you build with all of those organizations, whether it's the other state agencies in Michigan, whether it's the you know, across the country, the different MPOs, the rural task force, the transit agencies, the airports, you don't you don't know until you get here that we play a part in all of the things that happen in those areas.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you knew probably just from being in state government, especially during a period of, you know, the we joke about how Michigan, you know, the the whole the rest of the country catches a cold and Michigan catches pneumonia when it comes to the recession.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you knew that the department was probably underfunded for for decades, but did you really know the degree until you got inside?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: To a degree degree, because at the time um when you know, I don't want to go down a rabbit hole, but when we implemented GASB 34 for and had to report all of the capital assets that MDOT had and the way that it would get reported and you would see this large number of investment, but the need that it was there, we were exposed to that because we had to do a certain accounting treatment to say, hey, what would MDOT need to do to use this methodology?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it that part was transparent.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then going through a coup, you know, back when Grandholm was in place um and looking at how revenues were impacted, that impacted transportation and to a great extent also.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so you could see the how tax policy would impact all of these, all of our state agencies.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so we always knew that the need for transportation investments was greater than the the available resources.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Which is why uh Michigan, and this is not a partisan thing at all, because governors from both parties have relied on bonding to finance the roads, but you like to say, and you will be member probably most famously for saying uh financing is not funding.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: That is absolutely correct, because we have to pay all of that back.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: So how's your perspective?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: How's your perspective changed on that since you've been with the Department of the United States?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: It hasn't changed.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: Bonding is a great tool, but you still have to pay it back.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the thing when you're in the midst of talking about investment needs and the strategies that we have, and you see that you can't solve all of the problems, that you use any tool available to you to say, how do we improve the system that we're responsible for?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: And how do we partner across our you know, with other asset owners to have the greatest benefit to the citizens?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: And it's you know, it's not always easy because it's always about trade-offs that what outcome are we looking for, and knowing that we can't achieve 100% is sometimes really difficult to accept and swallow.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so then when you talk about you know what what is the need, we're very focused on hey, we have the data behind this to say this is this is what the condition could be, or if we're talking about safety features, if we could put more of these safety features in places, we would save lives.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's difficult when you ne you'll never have enough money to address all of those things.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: We will continue the conversation right after a quick break.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, before you go, head on over to my drive to check out the latest on road construction and possible delays along your route.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: For a detailed map, head over to Michigan.gov slash drive.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, what's it like?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: You've served in the Transportation Policy Forum, which is all the state DOTs are represented, and they talk about policy and policy initiatives and what would be good policy.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you see these states, some struggling even more than Michigan with transportation funding, but some that are very well funded because they're growth states.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: They still have people moving in, they're still building out.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they have been successful at passing along, you know, various tax proposals.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um is that hard sometimes?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Are you jealous when you sit there and you listen to Texas and Utah and Florida talk about how, you know, we're building all this new stuff and you know, we can't spend fast enough.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's what somebody in Utah actually told me.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it is because you're like, well, how did you do that?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the good thing about you know, talking to other states is the lessons that we can learn from them, but at the end of the day, trying to move the needle on some of it and saying, hey, our goal is sustainable revenue to meet the needs.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it, you know, it's like when they are able to do that, you recognize that they have different policies, but they also have a lot of different revenue streams that aren't available to the state of Michigan because, like Texas, for example, there's a lot of oil in Texas, and that's where that they get that support.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: They get support for tolling, and that's not something that we've been able to implement here in Michigan yet.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's a viable solution.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: There's lots of solutions, but there's not enough answers or types of revenues that might be available to us.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: Florida is getting more aggressive with tolling.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Florida's been very aggressive with tolling.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we told you.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it it like anything, those are good tools to have.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: They don't fit everywhere, but they are good tools to have.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think we've we've got lots of options.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's just getting over the next the next step to actually implement them.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I followed these things, um, these policy things, you know, pretty closely as a as a journalist, as a uh, you know, an editor, an assignment editor.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I didn't even know the extent of the um the disparity between the various road systems in Michigan.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like for instance, before you came over, would you have known if somebody said that state trunk lines, while you know, not even quite 10,000 miles of road, account for 53% of all traffic and almost 80% of commercial traffic with no.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: I I made assumptions about the interstate, but other than that, and you know, until I got here, I didn't know there was really a distinction about the you know, in the counties who owned what.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um and most citizens don't care.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because we just want to get from A to B.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, fix my road.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: But now my family knows that interstates, M routes, and US routes are the responsibility of us, M dot.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: I had somebody uh in a in a policy role tell me recently, um he actually lives in Chessoning, and that somebody said, Um, I just want to see our local roads get more money, and he said, Well, what do you think are the local roads?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, We know like M52.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because if it's a Main Street in your community, you think that's a local road, right?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of state trunk lines are.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they have other names.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Main Street, yeah, or Elm Street, or that's Chicago Road, or yeah.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: So having having seen that and seeing how this has played out over the years, and like you said, you know, there's never going to be enough money.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: What what's your advice to your uh successor, Paul McDonald, who is recently named and has actually started at the department and is drinking from the f proverbial fire hose right now.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: But what's your advice to him about how to maintain your sanity?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: As you've always got people coming to you asking for more money.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it I think you have to be frank with people and then find alternatives for what you're doing.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then you also have to keep a sense of humor that, you know, we can't control everything.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: So you try to do what's right, and then you say, okay, well, this is this is what I can achieve, and then celebrate that because again, we'll never have all of the money that we need, but we make a big difference in people's lives with the investment levels that we do have.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: So sometimes you've got to step back and just focus on that, not about what you can't do.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me your take on you know what I've often said about the the bonding and the fact that it comes with debt.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I I say it's true and it's too bad, but that pales in comparison to the debt we're passing on to our posterity by not fixing these assets and preserving these roads and bridges.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and this is where I get to have the personal opinion, right?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm retiring in a month and a half or so.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: But I think there's a big difference between the technical debt that we have and whether the eye of the beholder determines whether those are acceptable versus financial debt that we have with the bonds, because it changes our decision-making ability when we off the top have to spend X amount of money.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: But there's great value in using bonding as a tool to help complete projects that we otherwise wouldn't have been able to complete with existing resources.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: So always be open to the different methods that we have available to us.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: And if we have something in the toolbox, use all the tools.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I think but know that there's going to be consequences to that.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And setting aside the discussion about you know whether debt is the best way to fix a lot of these things, the department did incredible work the last few years with those bonding dollars and fixing some of the busiest corridors in the state.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: And we wouldn't have been able to do those projects with existing resources that were available to us back in 2020.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so it makes a difference, but there are consequences because for the next 27 years we're going to be paying back a liability.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: So what else do you do you leave uh feeling good about at the department and overseeing you talked about the modes and you learned a lot about transit and rail along the way, supervising you know those aspects of the department, but um more there or anything else?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I mean, just I hope that I, you know, I did my job well and that I had an impact on the people around us.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um that you know, these are hard jobs, but you know, it's building those relationships and making sure that it, you know, it's like, do we know what do we know what we're trying to achieve and are we doing our best to get there?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: I hope that people believe that when I'm no longer here, that I had an impact and that it was positive, and that I, you know, that I was able to influence or help somebody along the way, because sometimes that's the most important thing is how did you help other people achieve what they were trying to do?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: So anything in particular that you feel um like sense of accomplishment about?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, we get so much done here that it's hard to say one was more important.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think you know, the exposure to the modes in our department and the influence that it has, and as we become a more multimodal organization and make decisions about connecting people more and more, I think that that's that was part of my discussion with our executive team and saying, hey, we we need to do more to accomplish that, that we're not just road and bridge builders, but we're connectors of all the people, and we should use all of the tools available to us, even if we don't own them.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: We can still influence how transit, rail, and airports are integral to connecting and moving people and goods across the state.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the difficult things.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was talking to somebody about this recently, how at public meetings you'll still hear advocates for uh multimodal services and for you know more walkable, more bikeable communities beating up on the department as if these young planners and engineers are responsible for decisions that were made 70 years ago about the roads that we built and where we built them and how we built them.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, knowing what we know now, there's a lot of things we would do differently.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I've been incredibly impressed with these people who went to school to be civil engineers and to learn to build things and how flexible and how adaptable they are to the communities and what they say are their needs.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's to me is one of the most impressive things about the department that they really try to work with the the local residents and communities to say, what is it that you want out of this, understanding the funding parameters.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's been impressive for me, and I know you've been part of that dialogue too.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's probably the the thing about this organization and is how dedicated and passionate people are for what they do here.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: And then recognizing the impact that it has on communities and how all of us play a part in that, and that's what's made it the most gratifying position I've ever had.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: And that it's just you know, when you talk to people throughout our organization and they they take it seriously, but they and they feel very strongly about what we're doing.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: So then it's reflected in the work that they do.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then that's a reflection on DET and the rest of us that make decisions but don't do the hard work.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: The people down in the down in the weeds and are that are actually engaging with the community, engaging with the the people who need our help, they're the ones that really make the difference.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that's you know, that's what i is important.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that's you know, that's what we all, in these types of jobs that we have, that's what we should be doing.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's really well said.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just it's a great organization, and it's um it's hard to leave, but it's it's time to let other people do what I've done.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: So what's uh what are your plans for retirement?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't have any specific plans because I have a husband and two dogs, and we need to negotiate what those plans will be.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: Family meeting.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: Family meeting.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we intend to travel some more.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's I have two states to get to before I'll have been to all of them.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: One's Alaska and one's Montana.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna do a national parks tour, we're gonna go on a cruise in Alaska, I'm gonna learn how to play pickleball.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm gonna play more golf.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna read more books that are mindless, that don't have anything to do with government policy.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm gonna write letters to the editor about what I think should happen with transportation.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's Facebook page.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna send this right to the national news and say, if it were me, this is what we should have done.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: But well, thank you.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for taking time to share this with us, and thanks for your service to the department and our state.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very appreciative of your work here and uh your legacy will be a good one.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you so much.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: I've appreciated it.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like I said, it's been a great job.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Machine Transportation.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or BuzzSprout.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Devler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who poops the content, Courtney Bates, who posts the podcast to various platforms, and Jackie Salinas, who transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.