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Employment : MDT Employees
 Dwane Kailey
Meet Dwane Kailey, Missoula District Operations Manager, Montana native, and MSU graduate.
Dwane grew up in Stevensville, Montana, a small, historic town in the Bitterroot Valley. After high school, he enrolled at MSU. Dwane was already working at MDT when he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. He reports, "I began working at MDT in 1992, while going to school." As a student, Dwane gained valuable experience working in MDT’s road design, hydraulics, and construction bureaus. Dwane admits starting at MDT because it was convenient and a good place to gain experience. But, he quickly discovered it was more than that—MDT proved to be a great place to work. At one point in his career, Dwane left MDT to pursue another opportunity, but he returned in less than 2 years. He explains, "I missed the challenges, the camaraderie, and the provisions MDT makes for balancing career and family life." When we asked Dwane to describe a typical day at work, we learned that typical doesn’t begin to describe his fast paced job. He explains, "The work is varied and interesting, and it requires me to interact with audiences ranging from school children to legislators." Dwane supervises 300+ people, balances more than 160 projects, and manages a $50 million budget. So what does it take to excel as an operations manager with this kind of responsibility? Not surprisingly, Dwane puts "the ability to manage" at the top of his list, followed by patience, empathy, logic, understanding, compassion, humility and confidence. Before closing, we asked Dwane what he likes best about working at MDT. He replied, "The great people I work with; the diversity; the opportunity to shape our transportation future; and the opportunity to improve the health and safety of the employees and the traveling public." |
