KC Scout Shout!

Being the eyes in the sky for drivers within the KC area is a very big responsibility, and each member plays an essential role in that mission. Within KC Scout there are a variety of positions and opportunities for career growth. KDOT Liaison Neil Kornis is a great example of someone who has experienced this growth firsthand. “For over 20 years, I have been in Emergency Dispatch, 10 years with the City of Grandview as an emergency Telecommunications Operator and then nearly 12 years in KC Scout,” Kornis said. “My experience with KC Scout and with KHP/KDOT led me to this new position to assist KC Scout and KDOT into the future.” In this new position, Kornis is responsible for serving as the primary contact between KDOT ITS and the KC Scout team. This includes communicating discussions between KDOT, project managers, contractors, and the KC Scout team. Due to his long history with both organizations, Kornis has built a solid foundation of knowledge and strong professional relationships...

After KC Scout was struck with a cyberattack in April of 2024, security quickly become a much larger topic of conversation. With that in mind, Information Systems Technologists Terrance Stigler and Dominique Gonzalez recently attended training for the Integration of Cybersecurity Personnel into the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) for Cyber Incidents. “This was an eye-opening training,” Stigler said. “It mainly focused on how to integrate Cybersecurity into an Emergency Response event. In today’s world, we rely a lot on technology and this training dealt with how to respond to real world situations where the technology has failed or been compromised.” Throughout the course, participants learned several valuable lessons. For Stigler, one of the most important was the emphasis on having thorough documentation within an EOC.   “This training has taught me the importance of documentation and the importance of having a functional Operations Center when handling a crisis,” he said...

With each day that passes, the anticipation leading up to the 2026 FIFA World Cup grows. As preparations ramp up, some challenges have begun to emerge. “The unknowns. Without the experience of what to expect, it’s so difficult to plan for what you don’t know. Are we doing enough?” said Emergency Response Operations Supervisor, Scott Banes.   Due to those unknowns, KC Scout has gone above and beyond to prepare for anything and everything. “Over the past several months, we have been providing various trainings to other districts within MoDOT, KDOT, and both the Kansas and Missouri State Highway Patrol” Banes said. “We have also been preparing our fleet of ER trucks with maintenance needs and updated equipment, as well as building up an inventory of parts for the truck-mounted message boards in case any issues arise.”   With the increased number of visitors in our city, ensuring adequate support is essential. To help boost readiness, employees from districts across the state hav...

  It is important to be aware that with new opportunities constantly arising, our team here at KC Scout is ever-changing. It is even more important to get to know your new team members and make them feel welcome and part of the team. With that being said… meet the new Kansas City Scout Locator, Josh Stark! Josh joined the team at the top of the year, and from the very start he fit right in and got along with everyone. His easygoing nature is matched with a wealth of experience. Throughout his years in the workforce, Josh has worn many hats. He has worked in security and Debt Collection, been a medical courier and a school bus driver. Josh is excited to step into the role of a KC Scout Locator.  “I’m excited to learn a new job that has me both in the office and out in the field on a daily basis,” Stark said. “That’s a strange combo that I haven’t necessarily dealt with, however I’m more excited to be out in the field and less in the office when spring and summer hit.” Outside o...

When it comes to keeping people safe on the road, the smallest details can make the biggest difference. That is exactly what Emergency Response Operators, Kennith Robinson and Hector Ortiz set out to prove in their Fox 4 feature on how to properly inspect and install car seats. On Thursday, Dec. 18, Robinson and Ortiz spent their morning walking parents/caregivers through the importance of a properly installed car seat – and showing them how to do it right. “We had to get height and weight measurements for each child, plus their ages to make sure they were in the right seat,” Robinson explained. “Once we did that, the parents or caretakers had to fill out the form provided by us to register and at that time we were able to match the child with the proper seat and adjust to fit.” When used correctly, car seats reduce the risk of death by 71% for infants and 54% for toddlers, while booster seats reduce serious injury risk by 45% for children ages 4-8 compared to seat belts alone. ...

  Work Zone inspections are a very vital part in keeping crew members safe while working in the field. They may seem tedious and even extreme at times, but these inspections could be standing between a crew member making it home safe or not. The Kansas City District takes these reviews very seriously, and this year it paid off. Work Zone Inspections are comprised of multiple different categories. A few of these categories include advanced warning area, transition area, activity area, termination area, and additional inspection area. Each work zone is evaluated based off the Work Zone Inspection Grading Sheet and although crews do not receive a final “letter grade,” this sheet showed that the KC District improved quite a bit in comparison to the previous district inspection. Preparation for these evaluations takes lots of time and coordination. KC Work Zone Coordinator, Doneisha Wigfall served as the Work Zone Coordinator for the KC District this year. “I compiled the list of ...

Each year, MoDOT selects a small group of candidates to participate in the Operations Academy. This year, Traffic Systems Supervisor at Gateway Guide, Tawanda Bryant and Traffic Systems Supervisor at KC Scout in the Kansas City District, Kelly Alvarez, were nominated for this exciting opportunity. The Operations Academy is a professional development program focused on Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO). Throughout the virtual portion and in-person portion of this academy, individuals learned about topics such as performance management, systems engineering fundamentals, managing disruptions and corridor operations, capability maturity models, and workforce leadership development. Not only is it a huge accomplishment to be nominated for this program, but it is an even bigger accomplishment to be selected for the final presentations. “Out of 45 submissions, only six were selected for group presentations – including mine, which focused on the 2024 cyberattack on ...

  Our KC Scout team is always eager to expand their knowledge and to grow as a team. This fall, York Morlan did his part by attending Texas 811 Summit, a damage prevention conference, held in Galveston, Texas. While Morlan has previously attended the Missouri Summit twice, this was his first year attending the event in Texas. “The Texas Summit and MO Summit are very similarly organized. The biggest difference is that there are different presenters, topics, and viewpoints of the same issues,” Morlan noted.   Although his time at the Summit was brief, Morlan made the most of his time with a schedule full of different classes and workshops. Examples of these classes include the “Damage Investigation Workshop,” “Rethinking Trench Safety,” “Emergency Response After a Line Strike,” and “Mindset Matters,” among others.   In between classes Morlan took advantage of his downtime and spent it speaking to different vendors and exploring new innovations. “I spoke with the CEO o...

  This past month, KC Scout Incident Management Coordinator, Marcus Slaughter and the  KC’26 Transportation Director, Jason Sims attended the National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE) event in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss and collaborate with other transportation employees about the upcoming FIFA World Cup. This 2-day event hosted around 20+ transportation representatives from many major cities/states all over the country, including, Miami, Seattle, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Texas, Missouri, and Georgia. This past summer, prior to the event, Atlanta hosted six matches, serving as a precursor to the larger 2026 FIFA World Cup. “Although I didn’t attend any of those matches, there was still a wealth of information shared on what to potentially expect when Kansas City hosts their matches next year, both good and bad,” Slaughter said. During their time in Atlanta, not only did they learn lots of valuable information in regards to the upcoming FIFA World Cup, bu...

  They say everything’s bigger in Texas, and the 2025 TMC Pooled Fund Study (PFS) was no different. While this event is typically held in the spring, this year it was moved to the fall, providing the opportunity to pair the study with Texas DOT’s Transportation Systems Management & Operations (TMSO) Summit, making the event bigger and better. Traffic Systems Supervisor, Kelly Alvarez attended this year’s event in Austin, Texas. “ The range of topics for the TSMO Summit and the TMC PFS are so vast,” says Alvarez. “Everything from cyber security, to V2X (short for Vehicle-to-Everything referring to technology that allows vehicles to communicate with other vehicles, pedestrians, infrastructure, and networks), to TMC best practices, roadway and incident detection systems, World Cup, Dynamic Message Sign policy, Motorist Assist programs, Drones, etc. were discussed.”   Having an event such as this one, where individuals from various state DOTs and Federal Highway Association...

  With the 2026 FIFA World Cup approaching, KC Scout is brainstorming all the ways that we can make this worldwide event run as seamless as possible. One of those ways is by simplifying travel time messages on our roadside message boards. With visitors traveling to Missouri from all over the world, KC Scout thought of a way that we could make Scouts message boards easy to read and understand for everyone. With a single point target. For many years, Scouts message boards have listed several locations with the current time it takes to travel to that location. In the past, drivers have reported that these boards are difficult to analyze and understand when they are not familiar with the location. Adding additional information, such as distance, will help travelers be prepared for what to expect.  According to the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), “Travel time should be tied to the distance to a particular destination or junction so that road users can esti...

Preparing your city for an event that is viewed all around the globe is no easy feat, but KC Scout handles the pressure with ease. With the FIFA World Cup fast approaching Kansas City, our top priorities remain clear: keeping travelers safe and traffic flowing smoothly across the KC Metro. With hundreds of thousands of tourists flooding into our city traffic snarls are inevitable, but it is our job to minimize the damage as much as possible. With that goal in mind, Scout is creating Emergency Operations Plans (EOPs) for its four major functional areas to anticipate and respond to a range of situations that could likely occur to disrupt the tight schedules of getting teams, coaches and fans to the Stadium for their scheduled matches. There was no stone left unturned when coming up with these EOPs. With our teams’ years of experience and extensive knowledge of Missouri’s roadways, we collaborated to create plans covering everything from staffing needs to the most efficient way to rep...

James Banhart, KC Scout TMC Supervisor, conducted a training on Tuesday, July 1 for a Carter Kit which is a sensory tool designed to assist first responders when handling incidents involving individuals with autism, particularly children. Two sessions were held to accommodate different shifts. Additional sessions will be scheduled to ensure that any Emergency Response Operators who were unavailable during the initial training have an opportunity to participate. This idea originated after Banhart attended the Traffic and Safety Conference in Wichita, Kansas. During one of the breakout sessions, Banhart had the opportunity to speak with Mrs. Jessica Parker, the Program Coordinator for EMSC in the state of Kansas who shared what a Carter Kit is. Many individuals are not equipped to accurately recognize when someone is on the autism spectrum. Enhancing this ability is a substantial benefit to all agencies involved. This training not only provides the tools to identify individuals with ...

The Kansas City- Area is preparing for next year’s, 2026 FIFA World Cup in many ways. With the anticipated influx of people coming to Kansas City, a major aspect of preparation is Surface Transportation. “This past spring, representatives from federal, state, and local agencies in the Kansas City region came together at Sporting KC to participate in a regional transportation security exercise in preparation for the FIFA World Cup,” shared Traffic Systems Supervisor Kelly Alvarez. This transportation exercise involved a multi-staged incident involving a derailed train carrying an unknown chemical substance followed by a cyber-attack during a FIFA World Cup match in Kansas City. During the exercise, KC Scout was represented by Randy Johnson, Marcus Slaughter, Chris Engelbrecht, and Kelly Alvarez. “KC Scout is fortunate to be a daily witness to key transportation stakeholders' strength and collaboration in our region” stated Alvarez. “However, it’s still rather amazing what can...

This past April marked KC Scout’s one-year anniversary of the cyber event that resulted in months long system outage and there was interest in how the agency mitigated the aftermath of the cyber-attack. At the ITS Heartland conference, KC Scout’s Traffic Center Manager Randy Johnson and Traffic Systems Supervisor Kelly Alvarez presented about the cyber event, giving their firsthand account of the event and how KC Scout recovered. The presentation focused on the first eight hours after impact, our response over the course of the first few days, and the consequential months as KC Scout recovered.  “During that time, KC Scout received a great deal of interest on how our agency mitigated the aftermath of the cyber-attack. The ITS Heartland Conference provided an ideal opportunity to talk about our experience” shared Alvarez. While continuing to share about their experience, they shared what they learned. "We focused on lessons learned which included: limiting too mu...

KC Scout hosts many tours of its Traffic Management Center (TMC) for a range of different groups. This past April, KC Scout opened their Traffic Management Center to the ITS Heartland Chapter during their annual meeting that promotes ITS technology, solutions, and traffic projects. “We challenged our team to think of a more innovative way to host a tour and quickly landed on the concept of a technical tour which would focus on Scout’s ATMS (Advanced Traffic Management System)," stated Traffic Systems Supervisor, Kelly Alvarez. To have an engaging tour, attendees participated in a mock traffic incident where they were able to act as an ATMS floor operator. The tour was led by Operator III, Brian Brown, with the assistance of Amy Holt, Mary Bundridge, Scout Browning, Neil Kornis and Kelly Alvarez. “The feedback we received was remarkable and overwhelmingly positive. We even got an onstage shoutout during the conference from an individual who took the tour!” shared Alvarez. Wi...

Each year since 2007, KC Scout has participated in MoDOT’s Bring Your Child to Work Day. Through this event, kids learn about Scout’s role as the nation’s only Bi-State Traffic Management Center. Scout has traditionally highlighted a key element of Traffic Management by involving the Dynamic Message Signs. Scout Admin Technician, Nancy Powell, and IT technologist, Terrance Stigler, helps create a fun day! “We give each participant a blank Message Entry Form with instructions on the proper length of characters they can use to create their unique Safety Message,” states Powell. Event participants were given Scrabble tiles to assist with the creation of their messages. When there were less participants, their messages were shown on the window of the TMC. This year, Emergency Response (ER) Operator, Floyd Bessard, posted messages on an ER Vehicle’s display board outside the main entrance for the kids to look at and see how the system works. “This gave the kids an opportunity to see...

MoDOT KC District Engineer Chris Redline retires after 33 years, Feb. 28 On Friday, February 28 Kansas District Engineer Chris Reline retired. A registered professional engineer, Redline has spent his 33-year career at MoDOT. After graduating from Kansas State University with a civil engineering degree, Redline worked in a variety of engineering positions in the Kansas City District including construction inspector and resident engineer overseeing construction of area roads and bridges to the regional position of Area Engineer. He served as the Kansas City District’s Assistant District Engineer overseeing all the operations functions for more than a decade before being promoted to district engineer for MoDOT’s Northwest District. He then transitioned to DE for the Kansas City District in 2021. Koehn retires from KDOT after 30 years of service

Michael E. Rinehart – KDOT District Engineer (District One) Michael E. Rinehart has been selected as the new District Engineer for District One, Northeast Kansas.  Michael, a graduate of the University of North Dakota, was previously the Metro Engineer for the Olathe Office, a position he has held for the last 5 years. Prior to joining KDOT, Michael worked for the Missouri Department of Transportation for over 27 years.  Michael brings a wide variety of experience into this position, and we look forward to his leadership for District One.

The Kansas Department of Transportation offers a Rotational Training Program (RTP) and is intended for new Engineering Associates. This program gives EAs the opportunity to visit multiple sections of KDOT, to gain experience and insight into what each section does to bring a project together from start to finish. EAs complete rotations that last anywhere from half a day to twelve weeks each. The purpose of the RTP is to provide excellent on-the-job training and encourage job satisfaction and employee retention. There are currently 22 stops in the program and the stops account for 42 weeks’ worth of content, and the EAs are given 10 weeks of elective content to help them make their choice on where they’d prefer to work after their first year.  This program originally came about in the 1960s, and it has been offered by KDOT off and on over the years since then. Most recently, COVID brought the program to a halt, but it was brought it back in late 2023. Kylee Sims has been th...