Page 22 - ATR 6 2014 web

From Intern

To In Charge

GeTTInG To know ArkAnsAs HIGHwAy & TrAnsporTATIon
DepArTmenT DIreCTor sCoTT BenneTT

By Jim harris
Contributing Writer

Scott Bennett remembers a day almost 30 years ago, when he was working
summers as a surveying intern for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation
Department (AHTD) during his breaks from college, dealing with the oppressive heat
and ticks and chiggers in the rural parts of northeast Arkansas, when he told a full-
time highway employee to beware: He might be coming back one day as the guy’s boss.
Bennett, who likes to laugh a lot, surely meant it jokingly, as he never envisioned
his career path would continue on with the highway department after college.
But sure enough, not long ago, the easygoing Bennett reminded that very
employee of his joking promise: Bennett indeed was his boss. Bennett found
a career home with the AHTD as a civil engineer, made his way up the ladder
through the planning and programming department, and was chosen in 2011 by
the Highway Commission as the director of the department, succeeding the retir-
ing Dan Flowers.
He’s long since put away the surveying tools for administrative work over the
past two decades at the department.

a reaL dIStIngUISHed career
“We’ve got 3,600 employees and a budget that’s somewhere close to a couple
of billion dollars. It’s like running a billion-dollar corporation really, and trying to
deal with elected officials at the local level and state level,” Bennett says, describing
the job of director. “A lot of my time every day is just spent meeting, talking, telling
everybody what’s going on, trying to give the department direction so we can try to
be efficient, innovative and give everybody the support they need.
“I’ve told people before, it’s like being a coach of a team. You’re only going to
be good if you surround yourself with talent. You try to give them the best base
they can have and then get out of their way and let them go to work.”
Flowers, who was director for 17 years and an AHTD employee for 23 more, and
who like Bennett began his department career as a civil engineer, has known Bennett
since the Blytheville native began working for the Highway Department. Flowers said
he could see then the potential Bennett had for taking a leadership role.


photography by John david pittman

22 arkansas trucking report | issue 6 2014