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Have you ever thought about how we maintain park roads that are exposed to some of the harshest conditions in the country? Brian Batzloff joins us today to talk about the challenges of maintaining roads that are subjected to geologic and volcanic pressures, extreme negative temperatures, dense snowpack, and use by millions of visitors annually! 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 ---TRANSCRIPT:--- 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 visi…
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