Gurnsey takes ITD history into 'retirement'
His official title is Engineering Manager for Engineering, but his real gift is storytelling. And he’s a master. Befitting his quirky personality, the stories are always illustrative of a point he’s trying to make, a point that often is as shrouded in mystery even after he tells the story as it was before he began. Maybe behind that smirk of a smile he displays there is another story.
Scott Gurnsey, who’s been with ITD for 29 years, saddles up and heads down the road today (Sept. 16) to do a little walkabout. Although he is leaving too early to call it an early retirement, he felt the time was right. He says he began to crunch the numbers about a year ago and realized that financially he could do it now. Providing care for ailing mother (Kitty Gurnsey, formerly a legislator and head of Idaho Joint Financial and Appropriations Committee for nearly 20 years ) factored significantly in his decision as well.
Gurnsey has filled many roles at ITD. He started as an Engineer-in-Training in District 6 in 1982, moved on to the District 3 Traffic section in 1986, and served as Traffic Engineer, Maintenance Engineer, Regional Engineer and Assistant District Engineer in charge of Engineering along the way.
Recent realignment provided his present title. In fact, his previous experiences are talents he has called on frequently in his job the last few years.
Gurnsey also is the “go-to” guy when it comes to background on just about any issue the district or department faces today. If you want the back story on “how we got to where we are,” Gurnsey’s your man.
“I’m simultaneously sad and glad to see Scott retire,” said District 3 Engineer Dave Jones. “Sad because he takes an enormous quantity of institutional knowledge with him, and that is impossible to replace. Glad because as I get older, retirement is something I’m really looking forward to, and I’m jealous that he gets to go so soon while I have to wait.”
“Scott was my first boss at ITD when I became a permanent employee,” Jones added. “While I only spent four months in D-3 Traffic, he left me with a career-long love of all things 'traffic', and it taught me the value of not only the engineering end of our business (design of traffic signals, capacity thresholds, geometrics), but he also instilled in me the value of the operations aspects of our business (proper speed limits, good signal timing, signs for good as well as evil).”
“Off work, I enjoyed riding motorcycles with Scott, playing in the golf league as his partner and going skiing on rare powder days at Bogus (Basin) while looking to see if Scott had done the same,” Jones said.
“I’ll miss his sense of humor and devotion to his profession.”
Most of Scott's workload will fall to Dave Kuisti, the Engineering Manager in charge of Operations. Tom Points will move up to a managerial role in Maintenance, reporting directly to Jones.
On the post-retirement docket, Gurnsey plans to “do something new every day for about five years, then repeat the best of those.” He said he’ll always have a special place in his heart for ITD and the people he has worked with, but that he’s looking forward to starting a new chapter.
Plus, he quipped, “my retirement will add to the department’s personnel savings, and may help everyone get raises some day.”
In the meantime, he said with a typical grin “I’ll be off on my new career as a natural scientist and resource manager, exploring highways, byways, geological features, vegetation streams, ponds, fish (on the end of a hook or just in their natural environment doing whatever fish do in streams) and Thalwegs throughout the West.”
A thalweg is a technical term for the deepest part of a channel. He enjoys the fact that not many people know the term.
That’s classic Gurnsey.
Photos: Scott Gurnsey took center stage at his retirement sendoff, posing for a photo and sharing a laugh with colleague Daris Bruce (top). Idaho Transportation Board Chair Darrell Manning was among the crowd of well-wishers (bottom).
Published 9-16-2011