The ‘Extra Mile’ podcast produced by the Mississippi Department of Transportation sat down with Earl Glenn (above at center), the agency’s new chief engineer and deputy executive director, to discuss the recent winter storm response efforts of Mississippi DOT highway crews.
[Above photo by Mississippi DOT]
Glenn received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Mississippi State University in 1998 and began working for the Mississippi DOT that same year. In 2002, he began to work with the Whitfield project office before being transferred in 2008 to the Construction Division as an area engineer for District 2 in northwest Mississippi.
In 2012, Glenn became Assistant State Construction Engineer then State Construction Engineer in 2016, before being promoted to District 3 Engineer in 2021 and then to chief engineer and deputy executive director effective January 1 this year.
On the podcast, Glenn noted that he uses “every bit of the experience I’ve learned over my career” in his ongoing work for the state’s transportation system.
“There are always challenging infrastructure projects that require you to perform at your best,” he said.
Glenn then detailed how the agency handles winter and other severe weather events across the state.
“We got ready a week prior based on the forecast,” he explained. “Each district put their employees on notice, got equipment and supplies ready. We had to pull up lessons learned from a previous ice storm we faced in 2020. We pretreat some of the major routes – in particular interstate and U.S. routes – but you have to be careful not to pretreat too early because rain can wash the treatment off the roadway.”
Statewide, he said the agency spent $2 million and dedicated 37,000 man hours to handle this early 2024 ice storm event. “Without the road networks being cleared, the police and first responders, ambulances and fire trucks, can’t get to their destinations. They can’t do their jobs without us doing our jobs,” Glenn noted.
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