After 11 years as Montezuma County’s Road and Bridge superintendent, Rob Englehart has retired. His last day was Friday, May 2.
And even though he tried to leave quietly and make no fuss, he agreed to speak to The Journal and share highlights of his time with the county.
He said, of retirement, “I’ve got plenty to do.”
“I live on a small farm. I’ll get to spend more time with my kids and grandkids,” he said.
And although he won’t “sit around and die” in his newfound free time, he’ll miss “getting up and getting something accomplished.”
“We took this business from something of a routine to ‘Let’s get things done and make the county better,’” he said, referring to the Road and Bridge crew.
“There’s a sense of accomplishment here now … it’s more ‘us’ than ‘me.’ Everything we’ve done around here, we did it, not me,” said Englehart.
He attributed the department’s drive to big projects they had going, like rebuilding the county’s truck routes, a roughly $7 million project.
Grants from the Department of Local Affairs covered $3 million of that – “I could thank DOLA again and again” – and the county covered the rest “in-kind,” with its labor and materials.
Projects like that, he said, accounted for 40% of the job.
“It’d be boring if all we did here was maintenance,” he said. “We built new roads, tore up the old ones and rebuilt them. ... I think my crew liked that.”
In his 11 years with the county, the department paved 73 miles of asphalt.
It also fixed erosion problems on Road G, built the Alkali Creek bridge on Road N, hauled a whole lot of gravel, streamlined snowplow routes and established a positive working relationship with the U.S. Forest Service, another aspect of the job he’ll miss.
“We always had strong revenue and support from the community and commissioners,” he said. “I’m happy to leave with the road department fiscally sound – we’ve never been in the red. We could take cuts and still make things happen.”
It helps, too, that Montezuma County is “rich with resources.”
Other counties, he said, are “envious of us” since we’re able to make our own gravel and chips.
Mid-May, the county will be conducting interviews to fill Englehart’s position.
To whoever secures the job, Englehart advised them to “take the good days with the bad.”
Working for the county, you answer to 26,000 bosses, he said, so “PR can be hard.”
“Don’t let people get you down, but don’t get too high, either. They’ll shove you back down,” he laughed. “Stay in the middle and do the best you can.”
