Cye Fink, ODOT’s workforce development manager in the Office of Civil Rights and member of the APOST implementation team, joined the agency last July bringing valuable experience with him.
An interesting fact about Cye is that he grew up in Mexico on the Baja peninsula. He moved with his parents when he was 10 years old to build houses and help the community. When he was in his early twenties he returned to the states bringing with him a deep understanding of the Mexican culture and Spanish fluency.
“I started my career in the field of education and worked my way up to coordinating a summer school program in the Willamette Valley,” said Cye. “I coordinated about 30 different summer school sites, allocating funds and resources, hiring and training about 40 teachers each year. Through this process, we developed two different system builds that very much mirrored AASHTOWare Project.”
After 14 years in the field of education, he decided to broaden his horizons and move on to a new challenge with ODOT.
Last summer he joined the Office of Civil Rights to coordinate and oversee the Work Force Development Program. His educational background and experience coordinating multiple programs made him the perfect fit to work with high schools and colleges introducing young people to careers in the Highway Construction office. “Many students don’t know that having a trade skill is a career option,” said Cye.
He wears other hats as well. Cye is the Equal Employment Opportunity manager for the Office of Civil Rights and he oversees the OCR database and online systems, like the new ADA CQCR online system, and also represents Civil Rights on the AASHTOWare Project. Because of his experience and perspective, we asked Cye some questions regarding the implementation of AASHTOWare.
How will AASHTOWare affect the work that the Office of Civil Rights does?
For OCR, AASHTOWare is going to be incredibly valuable. We need to have an automated system that can process all the forms, all the Doc Express files and provide staff the ability to pull accurate information to monitor compliance and report to partners such as FHWA, stakeholders, the Governor’s Office, etc. It will also aid our staff in reporting on some of the larger projects such as Rose Quarter and I-205. Right now we have a system that is outdated and past its useful life. I’m looking forward to having a system that we can rely on, run accurate reports, analyze trends and process and record information.
This new system will streamline our work and allow my team to focus on supporting the firms and contractors that struggle with all the compliance requirements. Right now we spend a lot of time manually entering data and creating work-arounds within our current system.
We’ve seen our workload ramp up significantly over the last few years and we need a system that can handle this volume of paperwork. We are looking forward to having it go live and getting to experience the new capabilities.
What do you think is key in a successful rollout?
In my previous career, I’ve rolled out two different systems that are similar to AASHTOWare. The biggest things are going to be testing, training and communication. People need to be aware that this system is coming and prepare as best they can. If there is plenty of support and help through implementation, there will be a lot less frustration. I get that there are concerns out there, but if it’s done right and if people are given the time to learn it and process it, I think it can be very successful. I know from experience that every new system implementation will have its bugs and things that will have to get adjusted or amended, but this is going to happen no matter what. Understanding this ahead of time helps people prepare.
How easily do you think people are going to accept this new system?
As humans we are creatures of habit. Any change — good or bad — ruffles our feathers a bit. But if we can focus on the value the change will bring; the increased accuracy and consistency then maybe, consequently, our workload may improve. A successful implementation may mean that we can focus less on the paperwork and more on the people side of what we do. I see it as a positive change, but with growing pains.
To get more information about the AASHTOWare Project and read past issues of the APOST (AASHTOWare Project One Source of Truth) newsletters, visit the APOST website.
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