Scott Marler, the Director of the Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT), believes in leading by serving.
“As public servants, we exist first and foremost to serve others in everything we do,” he said. “This is the essence of who we are as leaders of transportation in Iowa. When we get this right, everything else begins to fall in place.”
Over the course of his 27-year career in transportation, Marler said he has been fortunate to work with many “amazing people, and [he has] learned something from all of them.” One of the figures from history that he has studied and admires is the man referred to by some as the father of modern transportation, Thomas McDonald.
“He was one of the first commissioners of the Iowa Highway Commission in 1913, and he went on to become the longtime Director of the Bureau of Public Roads in Washington, D.C., until 1953,” Marler said. “He worked for seven U.S. presidents and left a substantial legacy in transportation for our nation.”
Another of Marler’s heroes has been Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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“In his ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail,’ Dr. King wrote these words: ‘Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability.’ Positive progress requires the tireless work and consistent dedication of a group of individuals committed to the mission,” Marler said. “When the Iowa DOT works closely with our construction contractors, we see this progress occur, and it’s a thing of beauty. It’s quite amazing what we can accomplish together.”
When he first became the Director of Iowa DOT, Marler admitted that he “didn’t do a very good job” managing his work/life balance.
“I was consumed by the work, which is constant and heavier compared with my prior roles,” he said. “At this level, all of the easy decisions have already been made. Over time, I learned to strike a better balance, take more ‘coffee’ breaks during the workday, and more intentionally focus on the family when at home.”
Marler said he remembers the days when he could work 40 hours a week. “It’s been beyond that for quite some time now,” he said. “One of the things I learned quickly when I became the Director of Iowa DOT was that I don’t really own my schedule. There are many demands on the Director’s time. If I spend too much time in our headquarters, then I’m not performing at the right level, because a high proportion of my job is actually outside of the agency. I interface with legislators, commissioners, boards, communities, chambers, business partners, and many organizations outside of the DOT.”
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In all cases, Marler is working to “cast the vision” for transportation in the state while representing the responsibility and leadership necessary in his position.
“Very practically, I try to reserve the first couple of hours each day as my office time because I am most productive early in the day and early in the week,” he said.
Marler added that he has learned to focus on movement. “My team often hears me say, ‘movement is more important than perfection.’ I believe this gets at the idea that things don’t just happen; we need to engage and continue pushing forward,” he said. “That’s when we begin to see the change we envision. If we rest on our successes, the world passes us by.”
He claims not to be a “big fan” of sending notes and emails on weekends, since it causes staffers to shift into high gear to respond as soon as possible.
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“I also try to be mindful of employees’ time frames, because an early meeting on a Monday morning often means that staff are working on Sunday to prepare,” Marler said.
The Iowa DOT’s stated mission is “making lives better through transportation,” and its personnel try to carry that out every day. To help the agency accomplish its mission, Marler remains focused on three areas: safety, funding, and partnerships. He had the following to say about the three areas of focus:
- Safety: “We had 354 fatalities on Iowa roadways last year, and while that was better than 2023, it is still far too many.”
- Funding: “We need to ensure stable and consistent funding for Iowa transportation infrastructure and services, especially as we begin to think about the next federal surface transportation bill.”
- Partnerships: “We can only accomplish our mission by working together. This includes local governments, federal agencies, construction contractors, consultants, businesses, and the traveling public.”
Marler and his staff have developed several strategies for supporting the state’s transportation workforce. One is commercial driver’s licensing (CDL).
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“We have expanded public CDL testing opportunities to include our 18 DMV offices, five county locations, and 23 third-party providers that include community colleges and CDL schools,” he said.
Organizations in the construction industry have “collectively built amazing projects over the years, and the partnerships with our construction industry are some of the most valuable public/private partnerships in Iowa,” Marler said. “We are stronger together. When the traveling public sees a construction crew, they don’t take time to see whether they have an Iowa DOT or private company logo on the safety vest.”
Marler occupies a seat on the board of the National Operations Center of Excellence, which helps develop the current and future workforces to be better equipped for transportation management and operations careers.
“We are also concerned about the physical and mental health of our workforce,” he said. “When we lost one of our employees, Matt Dickerson, who was hit and killed while working on I-80 last May, there were many questions about how to heal and get back to work, especially in the challenging conditions out on the highway.”
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To that end, he has supported the establishment of programs in the agency to help employees better prepare for crisis in their lives, whether at work or at home.
“I’m also pleased to mention that we are supporting a proposal moving through the legislature to ensure health insurance for families when a state worker is killed in the line of duty,” Marler said.
As in other states, federal funding is essential to Iowa’s highway program. While the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act created some new categories of funds, it also continued the regular annual federal highway apportionments to all the states.
“In 2024, Iowa’s base highway federal apportionment was $677 million,” Marler said. “Between state and local discretionary grants, we’ve been able to add another $472 million.”
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Discretionary grants are helpful, he added, “but they require a lot of work for applications and finding the right matches for different projects, and not all applications are successful.”
The months ahead will be busy ones, or as Marler puts it, “Iowa DOT could take up an entire magazine to describe our program for 2025 because we have improvements happening all over the state.”
Highlights include:
- $307 million for interstate stewardship
- $151 million for non-interstate pavements
- $161 million for non-interstate bridges
- $208 million for interstate capacity and system enhancements
- $172 million for non-interstate capacity and system enhancements
- $35 million for safety projects
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One of the major projects currently underway is the so-called Northeast Mixmaster in the Des Moines, Iowa, metro. The project is a continuation of reconstruction that began in 2008 to increase capacity and improve safety in the area where Interstates 80, 35, and 235 meet on the northeast side of the metro. The area was set to exceed traffic capacity by 2030. The project includes new lanes and bridges, bridge resurfacing, and new ramps. This includes the transition of one ramp from a left-hand exit that had been in existence for more than 50 years to a right-hand exit that creates a more natural traffic flow.
Another project, now in its beginning stages, is the bi-state (Iowa and Wisconsin) replacement of the Mississippi River Bridge at Lansing. Also called the Black Hawk Bridge, it connects Iowa 9 in Lansing, Iowa, with Crawford County in rural Wisconsin.
“The structure is an icon in the region, so we’ve needed to mimic the look of the existing cantilever bridge in the replacement bridge,” Marler said. “In 2024, shifting of two of the piers of the existing bridge was discovered due to construction of the new structure. The bridge was closed immediately, but a 60-mile detour to the nearest river crossing meant that keeping the existing bridge closed until the new one could open in 2026 was not an ideal solution.”
Within two days, Iowa DOT had proposed a solution to fix the existing bridge and activate necessary actions to authorize emergency funding for the repair. The structure was fixed and reopened in less than two months.
