New Hampshire native Patrick McKenna soon will live in Missouri.
McKenna, 49, was announced last week as Missouri's new Transportation department director.
"I hope to work to earn your trust and work together to solve problems," he told a Thursday afternoon news conference in the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission's meeting room. "It's a tremendous challenge.
"It's a point in time in transportation throughout the country - I think we're really at a crossroads.
"We're faced with an infrastructure that was built by our parents and grandparents, and it's in a condition that we're at risk of leaving it to our children in worse condition than when we got it."
McKenna spent years working for the U.S. Senate staff and also has been head of a private real estate business and has worked for a not-for-profit agency.
He's been New Hampshire's deputy Transportation commissioner for the last three years.
McKenna told reporters, lobbyists, business people and MoDOT employees that - while he has lots to learn about Missouri and its transportation issues - he's not going to be unfamiliar with those problems.
"Many of the same problems are faced in New Hampshire as they are in Missouri, with regard to the infrastructure," he explained. "Not enough money for routine maintenance and upkeep has led to a declining condition of that very infrastructure that we all count on every day."
Like Missouri, New Hampshire funds its road system with a combination of taxes on motor fuels and motor vehicle licensing fees.
Missouri's tax on each gallon of gasoline and diesel fuel has been at 17 cents per gallon since 1996, and recent attempts to increase MoDOT's revenues have failed either in the Legislature or at the ballot box in statewide voting.
Until last year, New Hampshire's fuels tax was 18 cents per gallon and had been at that level since 1991. New Hampshire's lawmakers raised it 22.4 cents last year.
New Hampshire also has an 89-mile toll road, which McKenna described as "a nearly pristine system for business to thrive on and citizens to use, and for visitors to come to that state - which is very much a tourist state."
McKenna told last week's news conference: "That system was nearly bankrupt a decade ago. And there is not a single bridge on that system that is in poor condition today."
He said the turnpike "generates $120 million a year," while "the remaining 4,600 miles of road receive $250 million of revenue, between the gas tax and registration fees."
Stephen Miller, a Kansas City lawyer who chairs Missouri's Highways and Transportation Commission, said last week: "There are no options we take off the table with respect to how we're going to build a comprehensive transportation system.
"But we do have someone coming in who has the fiscal and financial knowledge and experience in a variety of different forms - and he's going to meld with what we're doing with our own "Road to Tomorrow' effort, to find innovative and creative ways to fund transportation going forward."
Miller said McKenna and the six-member commission will work together "to set what that course will be. And we're not prepared today to prescribe what that plan's going to be."
Reporters asked McKenna about the possibility of toll roads in Missouri's future.
"I think we really can't take any options off the table," he said. "I think we have to have that discussion and debate.
"The basis behind tolling is that the users of the system pay for that use."
Toll roads have been discussed off and on at the Capitol - and in meetings about transportation - over the last several years.
But they were rejected in statewide votes decades ago, and a 1968 state Supreme Court ruling says a statewide vote is required before MoDOT can build any toll road.
Some of the idea's opponents have included the Petroleum and Convenience Stores Association and the over-the-road truckers.
"I don't know that we can say there's consensus on that," McKenna said. "People don't, necessarily, want to increase their daily costs."
The "Granite State" maintains about 5,000 miles of road, and about 2,500 bridges, McKenna reported.
The "Show-Me State" has more than 32,000 miles of state roads, plus more than 10,000 bridges.
But, McKenna told the News Tribune: "Size and scale - it's really the same issues.
"Of course, size and scale matters. It affects more people. (Missouri) is, really, six or seven times larger than New Hampshire.
"But, I think there is a common bond."
The people in both states "are hard-working," he said. And the Transportation department employees in both states "are dedicated professionals."
Gov. Jay Nixon told Thursday's news conference: "(We will have) more traffic, less safety and fewer jobs if we don't act.
"Next year, we have another important opportunity to make a down payment on the future and begin the process of meeting our long-term transportation needs.
"Leaders of both sides agree - the need is clear, and the time is now, to pass a transportation bill that will boost safety, create jobs and grow local economies all across our great state."
The governor said McKenna "is joining MoDOT at a pivotal time, and I know that his experience in both transportation and fiscal management will serve him well in this important role."
McKenna said he's looking forward to the new challenge.
"For every citizen across the nation - one thing that unifies us all is our use of the transportation system, whether directly or indirectly," he said. "And those problems are the same (everywhere).
"And, I think, that's a trend that has to stop and it's one that the team here in Missouri, at MoDOT (understand). The conversation that we've had (during the search process) has really drawn me to this place in a way that I'm very excited about."