Brad Wyss' job is to protect the investment of the taxpayer.
An engineering technician, Wyss has worked at the Cole County Public Works Department for 18 years.
Wyss makes sure projects are built to required specifications or that changes don't damage the integrity of the job.
"It isn't always striving to get the cheapest product or most expensive; it's trying to find the best quality job for the investment made," he said. "It gets difficult to do sometimes when you only have a certain amount to work with, whether it's material or money. You have to operate within your bounds."
Wyss is involved with new construction in the county. His goal is not to make a new problem that will have to be dealt with right after the project is done.
"If someone is rehabbing something that has a lot of years on it, maybe we found a stormwater problem now that more construction is happening in other areas, that changes the waterflow so we have to do upgrades," Wyss said. "On my end, what we want to do is do a project in a way that doesn't make it a problem for maintenance any sooner than it absolutely has to. It eventually will have to be addressed because everything wears out over time, but the goal is to protect it for the long term as much as possible."
The Public Works Department has been looking to do more safety upgrades on county roads. Wyss said that's due to traffic counts increasing.
"They've increased on roads that had high enough traffic volumes years ago to get paved," he said. "Tanner Bridge Road is one of those. It may have been paved 20 years ago, but the traffic counts weren't as high then as they are now.
"It's a fun challenge to look at problems like that and correct them. We have a mix of making upgrades and taking care of what we have."
Wyss said he plans to stay with department until it's time for him to retire.
"It's the right mix of office and outdoor work, and you get to work with a lot of different contractors and see new ways of accomplishing the same goal," he said. "We've got a lot of really good contractors in Central Missouri, and they don't want something with their name on it turning out bad because they have a vested interest in the community."