Darin Hamelink has been with the Missouri Department of Transportation (MODOT) for 22
years, but he calls his experience with the Operations Academy Senior Management
Program in 2019 personally and professionally transformative. The connections he made with
his counterparts and with others at DOTs around the country broadened his horizons, helped
him think beyond the box and showed him new ways to stretch limited resources and budgets.
Through his Operations Academy connections, he learned ways to find efficiencies within the footprint of his
agency to find other ways to solve problems and make better use of funds. In February 2024,
Darin advanced to a new role as State Maintenance Director for MODOT.
In his recent work in that role, he helped revamp their work zone plans using skills
and tactics he learned while at the Operations Academy.
“I learned how to improve traffic flow by thinking outside the box and learning how to use every
tool I could possibly throw at the problems,” he said. “Our chief engineer mentions
Transportation Management Systems and Operations (TSMO) and there are several of us at
MODOT who have now been through the Operations Academy and the ‘OA’ acronym is becoming well known.”
Thinking innovatively, reducing costs, and working to find the most effective way to work
together, just as Darin’s team did to create the first diverging diamond interchange in the U.S.
was a perfect example of how TSMO works.
“When you see a diverging diamond, it looks impossible, but it actually works very well,” he said.
“It is a way of moving traffic more efficiently using the footprint you have; and it’s a
reconfiguration of lane width. It is a great example of TSMO.”
If he went back to the Operations Academy today, he would use the diverging diamond as an example using
traffic modeling software to demonstrate the traffic backup problem before, and then after, show
the improved capacities, better traffic flow, and less delay.
The classes helped him look for just such opportunities to find ways to create change at his
agency. He interacted with those with the same roles in other agencies while at the Operations Academy, and
learned how they resolve similar problems, but also learned that they were available to him to
offer continuing guidance and support, even after its conclusion.
“The most useful experience I had while at the Operations Academy in Baltimore was to go on a ridealong with
emergency response drivers there, and to the Emergency Management Center,” he said. “I
listened and learned about how they manage crashes, incidents, clearing, and riding. I learned a
lot just from the sheer volume of traffic in Baltimore.”
He was able to compare his own experiences with these same problems and noted the
similarities and differences between how MODOT and Baltimore worked. It was a very valuable
thing for DOTs to share this kind of knowledge across state lines.
“I had never seen another state’s way of responding, and I didn’t understand how other states
staffed their emergency response teams,” he said. “It’s about connecting and sharing best
practices.”
Although it’s challenging to be gone for two weeks, it’s important to think globally and
remember there are 50 states and everyone does things differently, and that connections are
everything.
