Apr 09 2024 27 mins 12
View park road status and seasonal opening/closing dates at go.nps.gov/YELLroads
View definitions and links discussed in this episode at go.nps.gov/WhatWeDoPodcast
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TRANSCRIPT:
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Jake: From Yellowstone National Park. This is What We Do. I'm Jake Frank. Miles: And I'm Miles Barger. Jake: Miles, how’s it going? Miles: Going great. Jake: Yeah? Miles: How are you? Jake: Good. How was your, how's your drive to work today? Miles: Very short. [laughter] Jake: Yeah. how are the roads? Miles: Very clear and in excellent condition. Jake: That's good to hear. Miles: Honestly. Yeah. Jake: So, speaking of roads to start, I have a trivia question. I'm curious if you. I would say this is on the easier of some of the questions that we've been hearing. Miles: OK. Jake: Do you know how many miles of road are in Yellowstone National Park? Miles: 475? Jake: That's very close. 452, I think, is the number that I've been given from facilities. And some of the reports that I've read. Yeah. 450 plus. That's roughly the distance between like DC and South Carolina, Charleston as the crow flies. So, it's like multiple states. So, it's a lot of, a lot of roads that are in the park that we maintain. Miles: In harsh condition. Jake: In harsh conditions. On a volcano. No big deal. Jake: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's either, it's either burning the road away or it's frozen and under snow. Miles: Or both. Jake: Or both. Yeah, so to talk a little bit about that, you know, I think when people come to the park, they just drive on the roads. You kind of take that for granted. But there's a lot of a lot of work that goes into keeping those up to date. So today we're joined, by Brian Batzloff. He's in the engineering equipment operator supervisor for the Special Projects crew. Did I get that correct? Brian: You got that correct. Jake: All right. Well, thanks for joining us. Brian: Thank you. Jake: Yeah. How are you? Brian: Thanks for having me. Jake: How was your drive to work today? Brian: It was wonderful. Yeah. Jake: When the roads are in bad shape and you're like, man, that pothole. What happens in your mind when you're driving to hit a pothole? Brian: I try to figure out why. Why it's there. Jake: Who do I need to call to get this fixed? Brian: Exactly. Jake: So, Yeah, we'll go ahead and get started. When and where did you get your start in the National Park Service? Brian: Here in Yellowstone, actually. I got my first job here in 1998. I was a carpenter's helper in the carpenter shop here in Mammoth. And then that was my last year of college. And then I went back to school, tried out some telecom work for a little bit in Atlanta, Georgia, and then decided I wasn't a city person. So, I came back here. My family's from the area. You're right outside the North Entrance, so I'm actually a third generation to work here in Yellowstone. Jake: Oh, that's awesome. Brian: My dad, my grandfather both worked up here in the park, on both. Actually, my grandfathers on both sides. Jake: What? Miles: Whoa! Jake: Wow. So, what jobs did they do? Brian: So, my grandfather, ironically, he at one time held my position for a short time. [laughter] I didn't know that until recently when I was going through some of my dad's stuff. And I've actually found his old nameplate from his door on there. So, I have it in my office now. Jake: Oh, that's so cool. Brian: But no, he started. He came, I believe, in the 50s, you know, shortly after World War II, after he got out of there and he came with his uncle at Yellowstone and started his career out in Grant village, and then kind of worked his way into Mammoth here. And then I think when he retired, he was the foreman for the carpenter shop. Jake: Awesome. And you mentioned him working at Grant Village. You are on special projects that's based out of Mammoth. Yeah. Have you worked at other areas? Yeah. my first full time position at Yellowstone was out at Old Faithful, and I was a heavy equipment operator out there for about a year. And then an opening came back with special projects, and they actually approached me for a lateral transfer for that position. Jake: So, between the job that you currently have and that first job, you mentioned that you had some movement in there to get where you currently are. Can you walk us through all the variety of jobs that you're at? Brian: Sure. So, like I said, my first year I was in the carpenter shop as a carpenter's helper. And then, I had that year where I was down trying to do the telecom stuff in Georgia. Jake: Your “Rumspringa.” [laughter] Brian: Yeah. And then, then when I came back, I actually applied for a labor position with special projects. And when I got that job, I enjoyed the work. And so, I just tried to take in as much as I could with the job and everything and saw what I could do. And then my next position with them was a seasonal truck driver, motor vehicle operator for them. And then, then eventually when I was able to get on at Old Faithful as a heavy equipment operator and then transferred into Mammoth, then worked my way up to be the work lead for special projects. And then here probably three years ago, I was hired as a supervisor for special projects. Jake: Awesome. Yeah, it's really cool. Like a lot of the jobs in the Park Service. this is like a theme that we've noticed, I think, is that you have you, people need to move around a lot to kind of, you know, have, to find advancement. But Yellowstone, because it's big enough that there is also that opportunity for a lot of people that there there's a more linear, there's more linear, ladder opportunities here than other parks. Like, a lot of times it's just you might be the only heavy equipment operator, and it's at a certain level. And if you want to promote, you got to go somewhere else. Brian: That's correct. Jake: So yeah, that's cool to hear. So, do you have a typical day? And like, you know, I know that there's seasons. Brian: Sure. But like, you know, for us, there's really not a typical day. I mean, we have our big projects or large projects in the summer, which consist of paving projects and chip sealing projects, which are road maintenance that we have to do every year. Certain sections of the road. But, you know, there's always the stuff that comes up and that seems to be a daily occurrence, especially with the higher visitation and use and everything more we see more and more, stuff that actually wouldn't normally, you know, be there as far as that goes. But a typical day, you know, I try to get into work early, about an hour before, before our team shows up and then get everybody rolling as my group likes to be out the door and work. And so, I try to have him out the door by 7:00 on the dot there so they can get after it. And, and then kind of whatever the day takes us where it kind of goes there. Jake: So, if, if not a typical day, do you have, you have typical seasons of, you know, you mentioned a summer season. So, like, what sort of projects do you guys do in different times of the year? Brian: So, like for the summer season, like I just mentioned, basically the chip seal and the paving projects and unfortunately, it's the time where we hinder the most with the public and the visitors, but with the way our work is, it's, depends on the weather. You know, I mean, we can't work in the real cold temperatures. We can't do this work if there's a lot of moisture, you know, so unfortunately, July, August is when we're the busiest. And, you know, we create we do create a lot of traffic problems out there in the park, but it is for the betterment so that they can have nice surfaces to see the park, you know. And then in the fall we start winding down a little bit and we actually start gearing up for spring opening, for open in the park in the spring, because that is a major. It takes us about three months to do all of our plowing. We start in to open the park after snowmobiles in March the 1st week of March, and we typically don't get done until about, oh, usually this Memorial Day weekend is what we shoot for, but the first week of June, a lot of years, Jake: Wow. Brian: That's because we have to cover all so the Beartooth Highway, which is outside the park, but it's, 11,000 almost, yeah, about 11,000ft, I think, is the elevation up there. So, they'll be they'll be snow 30 or 40ft deep up there in in early June. Jake: So, for somebody who's interested in, you know, getting into this, line of work, is there a skill set or a, you know, something that you'd, you know, that is the most important to have for. Brian: You know, like a lot of it's just you got to be willing to work hard, you know, and, and put in the time because we do our groups put in a lot of time. We use a lot of project money. So, in the summertime we have the ability to have overtime and it takes the overtime to get these jobs done. But it'll be typical when we're on our projects will work, 12, 13, sometimes 14-hour days by be 5 to 6 days a week if we need to, you know, for two to three weeks at a time. And then, you know, as we jump to the next project. So, you've got to be willing to, you know, put the time in and everything. And but it pays off in the long run. Jake: So, speaking of overtime, I know that your crew was responsible for the, you know, when we had the flood on June 13th, 2022, you guys were the basically the first responders, you know, more or less to the road that is now paved like it was an old dirt road. What, like your crews did that? Like how much time and effort did you guys? Brian: Oh, man. Miles: Seemed like you worked around the clock is my memory. Brian: Just about. Miles: For people who don’t remember the flood. The one developed road between headquarters and the rest of the world basically just got wiped out. So, I remember you guys were on it seemed like instantly. Brian: Yeah, they gave us the. Okay, I can't remember the exact date. I believe it was two days after, and we needed to get the old wagon road from Mammoth to the north entrance in Gardiner, shaped up to where we could get access because basically Mammoth was cut off, you know, and to everything. And at one point, both Gardner and Mammoth were cut off to everywhere because highway 89 was also flooded out in Yankee Jim Canyon. And so, yeah, we started on and, you know, talking with Cam and everything, it's like, do what you got to do to get it done. So, we started on 14 hours a day, seven days a week, and we just hammered it out until they kind of got things in place to have a contractor come in and, and, and take it the rest of the way to final completion. Jake: Yeah, you guys crushed that. Thank you again for all of that. For us that live in Mammoth. I think we can’t thank you guys and your team enough. That was really awesome. Miles: I couldn't believe how fast it was. Yeah. I mean, yeah, just if anyone had been on the OGR before that, it was basically like. Jake: Yeah, if it if it rained you couldn’t ride a bike. Miles: A little rain and it’s ice. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't ice, but it was just like just the way the dirt is around here is just so slippery. And so, to see it go from that to passable in a passenger car. Brian: You definitely wouldn’t recognize it now. You wouldn't realize what was under there. Miles: It's amazing. Sure. Yeah. Jake: So, what's your favorite part of the job? Brian: Yeah. You know, I that's kind of a tough question. I mean, there's a lot of things. Of course, when you've worked here as long as I have, there's so many different things you could jump into. But I just, like, just. Oh. More of the challenge, you know, of everything. And like, I, like I mentioned before with the higher visitation, so that creates its own challenges. And to try to not ruin the visitor experience for everybody. So, the challenges that go into planning the projects and making sure that everything's up and running, I think is, is probably what I enjoyed most of it. And it creates a lot of stress as well. Jake: But so yeah, like on the flip side, you're you have things that we all love about working in a national park. Are there any like what's your biggest challenge or the hardest part of your job? Brian: Again, I think it would be the planning phase because there's so many variables. I mean, between weather, between traffic, between just anything that I mean, just for instance, the OGR. All the sudden that through our whole summer into chaos because we still had to get our normal work done to that summer and it just. And that's kind of that's kind of the way we run a little bit is, is to get our stuff done, and then whatever else pops up, we'll try to fit that into and go from there. Jake: Were you guys able to take a break that winter? Once, like once it snowed in the road was there… Brian: Somewhat, we ended up having a fairly decent winter that winter also. So, this winter has actually been kind of a blessing for. Yeah. Jake: Yeah. so, you know, with the challenges, like, you know, obviously if everything's great all the time, then there's no, you know, reason to leave. But with challenges, like even with those, what keeps you here, what keeps you in the green and gray? Brian: You know, like, it goes back to the challenges. I mean, I like the challenge. I like I like to be able to push myself and push my team. And they like to be pushed in and me to be able to say that I went out and look at what we did for that project and be happy with what we did and have people to come back and even tell us and compliment. I mean, just like you guys just compliments with us, you know, here it's I mean, that the pride that we have in our work is. Jake: Do you have a, is there a moment in your in your park Service career that kind of stands out as like a defining moment or something that you did or like something that you look back on and you're like, man, we did that. Brian: Like, you know, I mean, there, if you put it that way, there could be so many just because of what we do with what we have and what we have to do. I could probably say that for a lot of things, you know, and everything there's I can't say that there's one specific thing. I mean, I just look back, there's a lot of years and I look back and say, well, we accomplished that much. I mean, I guess the OGR would be a great example, though, you know, for that, because that and that's not just us either. That's I mean, the whole team, the whole park came together for that. Yeah. You know, we had a major role in it, but there was a lot more involved than just us. Jake: Yeah. So, you know, do you we've had a lot of people talk about, you know, how they feel like, you know, the mission of the National Park Service and, you know, keeping this place in great shape for visitors and for future generations when we think of, you know, national parks, a lot of people think about the resource itself. You guys are working on roads, you know, how do you see yourself fitting into this mission? Like what is the, like, how do you feel that you are personally, and your team contributes to that larger mission? Brian: Well, the infrastructure is major. I mean, that's the major of what the visitors, you know, that's their main travel ways and that's makes the experience of their trip to the park. If the infrastructure is poor, they might have the most beautiful scenery. But if they have to drive over terrible roads and, you know, to get there and are miserable doing it, then you know they're not going to have a good time and enjoy themselves. So, it's important. And what we do and what we have to do here.
Miles: Do you have a lot of employees that come into the Park Service from like private industry contractors, things like that? Brian: You know, we get a few. Miles: I'm just curious what the experience is like, you know, like it's different, I’m sure. Like you said, planning around the visitors. Brian: Yeah. And it's so for with what we do, we're, we're so varied in the different tasks that we perform. So we'll get a few private, you know, people that come from private professional settings and everything. But a lot of people, I mean, for us, for a lot of years, it's been a lot of development. We've had to develop a lot of people and everything because you a lot of private sector stuff is more centralized. And I do this. You know, they don't have a maybe a wider range of what their skill sets and what their needs be. And it doesn't seem like we get as many applicants from the private sector. And I don't know if that is a pay gap difference or where that comes from. But we do. We do a lot of inner development for us. Jake: And so, is there like, like formal training or, you know, for somebody who is wanting to get into this, like, how does one get into your line of work? Brian: So, they're there is formal trainings out there. There's a lot of, like tech schools and things like that that we'll do the trainings, heavy equipment trainings, truck driving trainings for, commercial driver's license and things like that. We don't require necessarily any formal training. We do have obviously, the trainings that we do through the Park Service and that we do through our department, you know, and everything to keep everything up. And the in-house trainings we do to develop our people is kind of the direction we go. But, in order to get these jobs, obviously you do have to have some experience, you know, with the heavy equipment. Jake: You probably need a driver's license. Brian: And a driver's license. Yes, obviously. And yeah. And so, we require all of our heavy equipment operators have to have a commercial driver's license class A type one. And so, they have to be able to, to maintain one of those licenses to perform the duties. But other than that, for the most part, no formal training is necessarily required for it. Jake: Gotcha So this is, you know, for the people that are listening that are interested in this type of, career. And if they were to go on USA jobs and look for this, what is the series of your job like in the people that work for you? Brian: Actually, I wrote it down because I don't remember it off the top of my head. Jake: And we we're laughing with ourselves because it's like so in the weeds, you apply for it and then you're like, I forget what my job was. Brian: Yeah. So, the series is actually for the equipment operators. It's 5716. We actually do have a couple of other series that are for our seasonals, and I think 3502 is one. And that would be kind of our entry level positions there. And those are seasonal positions. And then I think, 5703 is for our seasonal motor vehicle operators that drive our dump trucks and things like that. Jake: And what grade are those entry level positions? Brian: So, the entry level for the labor positions are WG five, and then our seasonal, truck drivers would be WG eight. Jake: Gotcha. Cool. So, you know, do you have any advice for somebody other than, you know, obviously have your grandfather work in a park and you're born into it is, you know, [laughter] not everybody can do that. But right now, that you've been in, and you've been doing it for a while for somebody who is, you know, looking at, you know, transitioning, getting out of the city and wanting to come drive a truck in Yellowstone. What sort of advice? Brian: I would say, first of all, get your license. Yeah, obviously your commercial driver's license and apply, you know, just apply, get out there and apply for multiple jobs, you know, I mean, see what you can get because there's different things. What we do might not be best suited for what you want to do, but you don't know until you get there. Jake: You know how many how like, you know, I think I've heard that Yellowstone has one of the largest fleets of vehicles out of like all every park we have like 1200 or something like that. How many heavy equipment machines do we have that you guys run? Brian: You know, that's actually a really good question. We have probably just of heavy equipment. This isn't counting our dump trucks, our tractor trailers or pickups and our utility trailers and things like that. We have over 70 pieces of equipment just for special projects. Jake: Wow. So, for our, for all the five-year-old boys that are listening, that want to know all the different pieces of equipment, can you rattle off some of the ones that you guys have that you use? Brian: Yeah, I can so we use, road graders. We actually have five of those just on special projects. We have, front end loaders, bulldozers, rotary snowplows. That's usually everyone's favorite. Jake: I got to ride them on with you. Yeah. That was awesome. Brian: Yeah, yeah. And those are pretty amazing machines. The one we have, the ones we have right now, will move. I think 3500 tons of snow an hour, and. Yeah, and we have seven of those. Miles: Wow. Brian: Because as, like you were saying before, we have over 400 miles of road in the park and as what we plow in the spring, we have to plow over 300 miles of that in the springtime, over pack snow that's been groomed all winter and pack down like concrete, basically. So, and we have basically two months to get that done. Jake: Yeah, yeah that's crazy. Have you, have you seen the operation before, Miles? Like have you ever seen like in person? Miles: I haven't seen the full operation. I was just wondering what the I mean, I've seen pictures, but I was wondering what the full cadre of vehicles it is. Brian: It's pretty if you get a chance. I think if you can look on YouTube and look up minute out in it. Yeah. I think is what it's called and that gives a pretty good a pretty good show. It's a pretty good video. And of most of the equipment working and that's our park plowing here, which that operation is a little different than when we're up on the Beartooth Pass. The snow conditions are a little bit different, but in that operation, we have, we have one grader that has, V-plow on the front of it, and we hook two bulldozers to the front of it, and we have to pull it through the snow to break up the snow. Miles: WOW! Jake: Yeah. It's crazy. So, yeah. And then you got the cleanup crew that comes in behind. Brian: Yeah. And widens everything out with them. Miles: Do you have a mechanic with you? Brian: We run two mechanics with us the whole time out here, and then we have to actually separate rotary plows that run in the areas when they get out in the park. So, they'll split off from the main crew and they'll work in the areas, and they'll have a mechanic with them so that we can open up the areas while we're still open in the roads. Miles: Amazing. Jake: When my first year here that I came after winter and it was the spring plowing and I had the opportunity to go out, I think we're at Lake right? Brian: Between Lake and Grant. Yeah. Jake: And we're Brian was running the rotary plow and just like it like huck snow forever. It's really cool to see that. And then, I think two winters ago I went up to the Beartooths and it was like a lower snow year, but it still was like a 35ft wall of snow. What's in it? What's the name of that big famous curve? Brian: They call it the Bar Drift up there. Yeah. And it's I, I don't know the full history on it. But it has to do with years ago, back when the state of Montana and the state of Wyoming would meet because the state of Montana plows the Montana side. And then we take care of the Wyoming side, they would meet up there, and then they would cut a bar into the into the snow out there and, or whatever. Jake: Ahh! Brian: And then the town of Red Lodge would come up and they'd have a big party. And I believe I'd have to look this up to get verification. But I believe there's some pictures out there. One time they even had an elephant up there wandering it, [laughter]which is so random. Jake: Oh, yeah. It's really, it's really like, just unbelievable to see that operation. And again, that happens in closed areas like that. It's just another thing that happens behind the scenes. You know, you drive through construction in the summer, but you're not driving through with the plow operations. And so yeah, that's like a huge thing to and the schedule that you keep I've, I used to work in Glacier, and they also have a road that requires crazy plowing Going to the Sun Road. But they don't really put a time limit on it. It's kind of like it's open when it's open when we're done. You know, you guys are like, cutthroat. Like, we got to hit these dates. These are when the things open, Brian: And we're pretty proud of that. We haven't missed the park. We haven't missed an opening date since I've been plowing out here. And I think I've been plowing since 2007 or 2008. Jake: Yeah, yeah. Knock on wood. Yeah, there we go. So, yeah. Miles: Another thing I was wondering about is like, I assume you kind of get to know different areas of the park when it, you know, being on a volcano. So weird. Just like, is it, is it been interesting over all these years to get to, like, there's probably going to be a pothole there this year. Brian: Yea, sure. Miles: And like, because the weirdest things pop up on the road, you know, just one day I'm driving by, and I've come the next day and there's just like a three-foot tall, three-foot-wide bubble in the road. Brian: Yeah, and some of it's so unpredictable because the geothermal stuff moves so much. I mean, there could be an area that you've never had problems with before, and all of a sudden an issue pops up, you know, and it's I mean, we've like, I think Jake was kind of saying before we built roads on a volcano or what's not a volcano, we're on high mountain slopes and or over swamps, so we don't have the most ideal areas that our roads corridors are built on. [laughter] Miles: Yeah. And I hadn't thought too about the increased visitation. And also like, vehicles just keep getting bigger. Brian: Right. Jake: Yeah. You know, RVs are bigger. Miles: And then and then a lot of electric vehicles are really heavy. Jake: Yeah. Miles: Like it's amazing. Sometimes I read the weights on these things. I'm like, oh 7,000 pounds for a, you know, normal sized pickup or something. I hadn't thought about that, but yeah. Jake: So, before we go, one of the last things that we like to ask everybody is, you know, it's doesn't have to be work related. I mean, if it was, then that's great. But do you have a favorite story of, you know, in a national park, you know, whether vacation or on work time just like something where you're like, man, I like this is such a cool thing that I'm a part of that I get, Brian: You know, probably and it's not really a story because it encompasses a few years of time, but I was able to actually my when my dad's last few years here, I was able to work beside him a little bit. He worked in a separate crew. He worked for the North District maintenance crew at the time, but I was able to work alongside him on a lot of projects and stuff his last few years before he retired. So that's pretty amazing when you look at the scope of what the Park Service entails and everything. Jake: Yeah, that is pretty cool. Did, you guys have a, a father son friendly competition going on whose work was the best? [laughter] Brian: Oh, you know, there's always that. Whether it's even now. Jake: Yeah. So, yeah. That was awesome. Thanks for joining us today. And, Miles, do you have any other things you like to ask? Miles: No, I don't think so. Jake: Yeah. Brian: Well, thank you guys for having me. Jake: Yeah. Thank you so much. And we appreciate again all the work that you guys do and especially all the work that, you know, hopefully you guys can relax this winter a little bit from the winter two winters ago and OGR stuff. Brian: Yeah. Well thanks again I appreciate the time. And in getting the word out there on what we do is we are kind of one of the behind-the-scenes type of people. They might see us out there and everything, but a lot of people don't know actually what we really do. Jake: Well, that's it for this week's episode of What We Do. Thanks again to our guest, Brian Batzloff. If you like What We Do, write and review the show wherever you listen, because every positive review helps new listeners find the show. If you have questions or you want to learn more about a particular job, contact us using the form at go.nps.gov/WhatWeDoPodcast. Thanks for listening!
