By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
It's still summer, but the Missouri Department of Transportation is beginning to prepare for snow.
Northwest MoDOT Engineer Greg Bolon says currently the northwest district has about 20 to 25 open positions available for maintenance workers.
Bolon says they hope to fill those positions to get workers ready and trained for snow removal but that's not all MoDOT maintenance workers do.
"You know we do asphalt patching, we do ditching, we do mowing, and it's a year-round job," Bolon tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "And you're basically outside most of the time, sometimes it's hot and sometimes it's cold, but if you like being outdoors we've got a place for you to work."
Bolon says the need to fill positions comes as the department experiences more turnover than usual.
"We've got some employees who are getting older, and we have people retiring all the time, we've got people who move on whether their wife has a different job, or their husband has a different job, so it's just one of those things that we battle just like everybody else," Bolon explains. "But I think during COVID everybody started competing for the same folks it seems like."
Bolon says MoDOT is looking for energetic people to fill the positions but also people with a good temperament
"Because a lot of times when you're out in the public we're doing our work, but it always seems to inconvenience somebody, so you have to kind of be a little thick skinned because you may get some gestures by different folks," Bolon says.
But, most of all Bolon says the perfect person for the job is a person who likes working outdoors
"You're going to do some manual labor, so you've got to be in pretty good physical shape to do that," Bolon points out.
A hiring fair will be held on Wednesday at the northwest district office in St. Joseph at 3602 North Belt Highway from 10am to 2pm.
A tentative third hiring fair is scheduled for Wednesday August 23rd in Chillicothe.