For the last six months, Roberta Broeker has been Missouri's interim transportation director.
But last week's announcement Patrick McKenna will move next month from New Hampshire to become MoDOT's next permanent director has Broeker anticipating going back to her "regular" chief financial officer's job.
"When I was a little kid, I was pretty sure I was going to be a teacher," Broeker recalled last week. "When I was in high school I took a bookkeeping class (and) I liked the orderliness of things where there's an answer, and it's a "right' answer.
"I liked that a lot and decided then that, probably, I wanted to go into accounting."
It was her high school speech-and-debate work that won her a scholarship to Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau.
"I'm the first kid from anywhere in my family that went to college," she explained. "I decided, "That sounds like a really cool idea - I'll go to college and then I can be this accountant and I can do this speech-and-debate stuff that I really, really enjoy!'"
She planned to find a job with one of the major accounting firms after graduating, but discovered that "1980 was not a good job market."
However, State Auditor Jim Antonio was looking for assistants, and Broeker accepted a position in Jefferson City.
"Even then, I thought, "I'll be an accountant for a couple of years, get my CPA license - then I'm going to go to law school - and I'll own the world because I'll have all these skills!" Broeker said. "But after I worked with the auditor's office a couple of years, I found that I really enjoyed it.
"I really liked the notion of public service (and) I got to do a lot of the "big' audits over time," including the statewide elected officials, school desegregation - and MoDOT.
"I liked doing audits that ended up on the front page," Broeker said. "But after awhile, I began to realize that's not really helpful.
"Because what people read in the headlines about the government inefficiency does not tell the story of all the good things that people do in government."
When Margaret Kelly decided in 1998 to retire from the state auditor's job, Broeker accepted an audit manager's job with the Transportation department.
"My thought was, if you are inside an organization and improve it from the inside - if you can fix it before the auditors come over - wouldn't that be better?" she explained. "And wouldn't that be, truly, what public service is about - doing good work from the inside out?"
After 18 months, Broeker was named audit manager and, a year later, added the inspector general's fraud, waste and abuse investigations to her job after a reorganization.
In 2005, then-Director Pete Rahn asked her to take the CFO's job temporarily - and she's had that post ever since.
The CFO and accounting staff help set the budgets for overall department operations and for the seven individual districts, always working to keep "the most that we can" into road-building and maintenance.
"You don't have to have a lot of money to be able to be clear about your vision (and) do good things, for the taxpayers" she said. "It's harder though, because there are always more things that people want than there is money to pay for them."
Being CFO is not just a "numbers" job, she said. At MoDOT, the CFO is "over accounting and human resources, information systems, insurance, motor carrier services, equal opportunity and diversity and general services - fleet and facilities."
All that work is accomplished because "I have really talented folks who do that - especially this year, while I was being interim director."
Broeker agreed to be the interim director because MoDOT's culture includes "stepping up" when there's a need. Still, she had no desire to take the top job, or apply for it when the commission was making its national search.
"The director of MoDOT is about setting and articulating a vision and direction, and then pointing to (department leaders) to execute this," she explained.
"I knew that it was a lot about the things that are external to MoDOT," like meeting with lawmakers, the governor and other state officials, and the stakeholder groups that support the department's efforts, "and not the things that are internal to MoDOT."
As McKenna moves into the director's job next month, Broeker expects to explain the department's history, and funding history, to him.
"I think, in particular, I want to tell him the stories I learned from people as I traveled this summer," she said. "We have, roughly, 5,000 employees as dedicated as anybody.
"And I want him to know what the challenges are - and I think I owe that to "my' people."
When not working, Broeker likes to read, travel and sing.
"I was in Cantorum for a number of years, and I still sing at church," she said.
She added: "I think people probably think I am incredibly no-nonsense, my way or the highway. ...
"I much more enjoy when you're collaborating and when you're approaching leadership as teamwork."