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Statement of Recent Experiences:
I have served as a Public Works Director for over ten years. In this capacity I work with various
elected officials dealing with variety of difficult challenges of technical, professional, and political in nature. I
have gained significant experience from the positions I have held over my career, and I am prepared for a bigger
challenges. Not everything went perfectly in my career but I succeeded majority of the times and learn many great
lessons to help me do better in future. I also held private sector positions for more than ten years. In that
capacity, I developed exceptional technical abilities and learned the business acumen of the company operations. I
directly interacted with government agencies including local, state and federal departments. In collaboration with
them I make sure the projects I am leading succeed on time and in budget. I hold an advanced level degree in
engineering and I am a registered professional engineer with credentials that are transferable to all states
in the United States. With several years working in the public and private sectors, this experience had developed
me as leader, motivator, and highly skilled Public Works Director that has prepared me for the next big challenge
like serving for a bigger community. I have excellent people skills, and I am honest and hard working. My
personal and professional experiences have prepared me well to serve city of any size and help that city
move forward and adapt to changing economic times.
McKenzie County, ND hired me in 2013 during the height of oil boom and service delivery was in disarray at the
time. McKenzie County was growing at the fastest rate in the Nation and the infrastructure was inadequate and
needed to expand fast to meet the growth needs. I was tasked to set up a Public Works Program and bring
order and improved efficiencies to County operations. I, along with the County Board’s support, spearheaded
the establishment of a public works department in concert with various departments to improve service delivery.
It was a difficult task. After one year, we witnessed dramatic success and eliminated several past failures; thereby,
developing a professional public works department to meet the challenges that come along with the extreme
growth. I had to hire, train, and retain professional employees at a rate faster than expected. McKenzie County can
now face, and will be able to embrace, the projected growth into the future.
Establishing a modern Public Works Department in McKenzie County was the hardest task I accomplished during
my career; especially finding skilled employees to work in rural North Dakota along with the constant oversight
of developing untrained employees. I had to be innovative and flexible in order to tackle this very fast changing
work environment. I started with three employees who were accustomed to dealing with less than a dozen clients
in a typical day and then trained them to respond and handle over 100 clients per day. At times, lines would
extend outside of courthouse! We had to put extra desks in hallways to create work stations for new hires! The
entire Department was created from the ground up, including developing fee schedules, new policies,
procedures, and standards in order to achieve improved efficiencies. The County mainly served companies from
oil industry which tends to be very demanding and difficult to deal with. I am very proud of the McKenzie Public
Works Department. The Department will be left in better hands upon my departure to the next big challenge in
my future endeavors.
I have organized multi-million dollar Capital Improvement Programs for last 10 years. It includes planning,
budgeting, public education and execution of contracts and bringing these projects from planning to construction
stage. You have to work with multiple agencies, parties and citizens who have a deep interest in the outcome of
the projects. You work with technical experts to common people and make sure you can communicate the scope
of the project and show them the outcome desired by the community leaders.