Employee Spotlight: D5's Brian Poole

Family man, community man and a man with his hands in just about everything… Brian Poole is one busy guy!

The third of four children, Brian was born in March 1964 and raised in Rigby, Idaho. When Brian’s father, Clyde, came back to Stevensville, Montana from the Air Force, he met and married Lois Nord. After a few years in Montana, Clyde and Lois moved back to Ririe, Idaho and worked on Lois' dad's farm. When Brian turned one year old, they bought a farm about five miles north in LaBelle, which is operated today by Brian’s older brother, Mike.

Growing up on the ranch, Brian and the family farmed and raised cattle, pigs, chickens and horses. While he was in middle school, he met Melanie Moser, who would later become his wife. Dating throughout the rest of their time in school, Brian and Melanie married in August of 1981. 

Theyhad their first child, Krystal, in January 1982. After graduating from Rigby High School, they moved to Pocatello that fall. Brian attended Idaho State University and studied Engineering, following after his brother Kevin and his dad, who also worked for ITD in D6 and D1. And yes, he bleeds Orange and Black…Go Bengals!

After 5 ½ years at ISU, Brian graduated with his Bachelor’s in Engineering in December 1987. During college, the couple had two more children, Joshua and Ashley. Working numerous part-time jobs, driving Pocatello Urban Transit bus, and working summers surveying and inspecting for ITD during college, Brian kept busy.

He also has a long history with ITD.

Once he passed the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, he was hired on as a full-time Engineer-In-Training in March of 1990 working in D5. In 1994, he passed his Proffessional Engineer's test and was offered a position in Coeur d’Alene. Brian and his family spent four years in CDA, then moved back to Pocatello and became the Operations Engineer in January 1998. Brian became a Resident Engineer in 2004 and then promoted to the Assistant District Engineer position in 2008. He is now called the Planning, Engineering Services Manager. Brian has been working at ITD for 32 years now, with plans to retire in January of 2022.

Enough about work now!

If you talk with Brian, you know family means everything. He and Melanie have four kids — Krystal, Joshua, Ashley, and BreaAnna.

The oldest, Krystal, is married with six kids and lives in Rigby. Krystal’s husband, Keith, flew an Apache helicopter for the Army and is now training to fly a different helicopter stateside. Keith is a full-time pilot, flying helicopters for Air Idaho Rescue in West Yellowstone, Montana.

Their second-born, Joshua, lives in Pocatello with his daughter, Kaylee. Joshua owns and operates a local home-inspection business. During the winter months, Brian and Joshua teach snowboarding classes at the Pebble Creek Ski area just East of Pocatello.

Living in Pahrump, Nevada, Ashley is a very busy lady working as part-time cosmetologist, and stay-at-home mom for her five beautiful kids. Ashley’s husband is a pharmacist and they own and operate a health and wellness store.

Their youngest, BreaAnna, had quite the battle early on in life. At just six months old, BreaAnna had to have surgery for a bilateral hernia. She bloated after surgery and was sent to Primary Childrens hospital in Salt Lake City. After much testing and an exploratory surgery, they found she had a severe liver deficiency. Listen to Brian tell her amazing story! Today, BreaAnna is married and attending the University of Utah to become a school teacher.

Outside of their wonderful family, Brian and Melanie are involved in so many things it’s hard to keep up. Melanie is the secretary for Edahow Elementary, loves to quilt, and is involved in a local bowling league. They enjoy camping, the outdoors, skiing/snowboarding, bowling, golfing, hunting, fishing, snow machining, and throwing horseshoes. Brian also referees for local high school sports. Needless to say, there is very little down time for the Poole family!

Since 2004, they have been pitching horseshoes; Brian was the Idaho Horseshoe Pitching Association President from 2008 – 2018. He recently became a board member for the National Horseshoe Pitching Association. Along with horseshoe pitching, Brian is a seasonal snowboarding instructor and volunteer ski patroller for the Pebble Creek Ski area. He started teaching back in 2002 and became a patroller in 2006. He truly loves patrolling and enjoys helping people. He has been patrolling for a number of years — listen to a really neat story of one of his days patrolling.

Brian also is a well-known referee for local high schools in the area and has been refereeing for the past 23 years. He refs year-round — basketball in the winter, softball and baseball in the spring, and football in the fall.

“It’s a tough occupation." Brian says. "No matter what you call, half the folks love you and the other half disagree with your call. There’s no win as a referee. It’s a hard position to be in. The rules are always evolving, so I have to be constantly up-to-date, but I love it!”

Brian and Melanie have a unique church calling. They teach an addiction-recovery class every other Tuesday night at the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center. It’s quite interesting and neat to listen to what exactly they do for this class. Between 10–20 inmates attend the class. Brian and Melanie enjoy teaching the class and doing what they can to help others succeed.

In Brian’s large amount of ‘spare time'— just kidding— he loves hunting. In 2018, Brian and his son-in-law went hunting north of Ririe for moose, just a few miles from the family ranch. They had been keeping their eyes on a speficic bull, but had been unsuccessful in numerous attempts with a bow. Brian gave up on the bow and used his father’s old 16-gauge, single-shot shotgun. Low and behold, that was the answer, and he was able to fill his tag. Stoked and proud, Brian has the bull moose head mounted in his office, which is quite the conversation piece.

If you are ever in the area or run into Brian, which is pretty likely with all he is involved in, say hi and ask him to show you his latest trophy….he would love to show you and tell you the full story!

Published 02-07-20