As long as he can remember, Casey Martinez has had this quirk about designing things, brainstorming them, too. The former Santa Fe native says, matter of factly, “I like finding a problem and finding ways to solve it.”
Luckily, Martinez has found just the right place to refine and challenge his passion.
Martinez works for the Colorado Department of Transportation as a Project Design and Construction Manager. “We do bridge replacement, overlays, drainage design and earth work,” he says. He makes everyday things better, safer.
When most of the world sees a bridge, Martinez looks at its parts, sees its stress points, the imagination that went into creating it and, maybe, how it might be improved. That’s what people who call themselves design and construction managers do when they’re working. At home, though, and especially these days, things are different.
A new father, Martinez and his wife, Erica, just had a baby. Juliana, the newest Martinez, was born in January. So, while no less conscientious about roads and bridges, there’s a distraction, but a pleasant one, that now occupies what used to be his spare time.
But when he’s working, he and his fellow CDOT engineers and staff focus on how to make the most dangerous stretch of highway in the metro area a bit safer.
Martinez splits his time between the office and the field, an area between I-25 and Highway 36 stretching to 104th Avenue. It’s the connection between Denver and Boulder.
And one that, seemingly gets busier every day. Gridlock busy might be a good way to describe it. Any weekday rush hour is confirmation. But Martinez says, the road is more than just busy. “It’s considered the most deadly corridor,” in the region. There is an accident, a rear-ender or sideswipe each day. These accidents alternate from one side of the road to the other. It’s his and CDOT’s job to make things safer. It’s a constant challenge.
Growing up as the only child of Ray and Yvonne Martinez, he says he got all the support he needed. His parents were always encouraging, he recalled. They had no problem raising a STEM kid.
In high school at Santa Fe’s historic Saint Michael’s, his penchant for science, math, engineering and technology drew him to what was natural. “I was more into math, and I also took drafting classes.”
Saint Michael’s provided a solid foundation for college. But it was mastering the discipline of time management in college—a skill vitally important in his job today—that really helped.
At New Mexico State, the college he chose so he could be away and on his own, he took advantage of mentors who were generous with their time “We met once or twice a month,” he recalled.
Another bonus in Las Cruces, he said, was being around “a lot of Latinos in engineering…we were all a group working on projects together.” They pushed each other.
Today, what Martinez says he likes about his job is that there’s something new and challenging every day. There’s also the responsibility of doing something that impacts so many people. But even with his job overseeing a major roadway, he sees other projects that are intriguing to any civil engineer, especially a young, ambitious one.
One that comes to mind immediately is CDOT’s work on Floyd Hill, the steep incline west of Denver on I-70 that leads into the city. “It’s in the mountains and the terrain’s a lot different,” he said of the $800 million upgrade. The variables that must be considered can be mindboggling. The traffic flow and the drivers unfamiliar with the incline, he said, make the work a marvel, even if those whizzing by have no idea. “It’s just really complicated.”
The 32-year-old Martinez said that while New Mexico is in his blood and always will be, he and his family are planning to stick around Colorado. Both he and wife, Erica, have jobs they enjoy and a young baby to raise. They can always visit, he said, though baby Juliana is now a factor in how frequently they do that.
But Colorado has many of the same amenities, the outdoors, snowboarding and camping, that he’s enjoyed his whole life. Maybe one day, he said, the enchantment of his home state will call him home. But there is a lot of road—and bridges—between now and then.
