Kovach retiring as district executive after 37 years with PennDOT District 12

Area highway and bridge projects were tracked primarily with paper documents when Bill Kovach signed on in 1986 as a civil engineer and construction inspector with PennDOT District 12.

Now, as he prepares to retire Friday as the district executive, the staff he has led is beginning to shift to a digital planning platform.

“Instead of using hundreds of sheets of plans for a big construction project, pretty soon it will be all digitized, with 3D models,” Kovach said. “We’re in the early stage of that transition.

“The changes in technology have been tremendous over 37 years.”

Kovach lives just two doors away from the house where he grew up near Carmichaels, Greene County. Greene is one of four counties — along with Westmoreland, Washington and Fayette — that fall within the scope of Uniontown-based District 12.

“I always had an interest in construction and engineering,” said Kovach, who majored in civil engineering in college. He joined PennDOT after being employed with a contractor that performed work for the state transportation department.

Working directly for PennDOT District 12 “gave me the ability to get involved in many more projects than what I would as a project manager for a contractor,” he said.

Kovach has had various roles with PennDOT through the years, including working as a maintenance support and services engineer and serving as the assistant district executive for design.

“I’ve moved around to various positions,” he said. “That really helps you learn about the district as a whole. I encourage other employees to do that as well.”

Kovach became the assistant district executive for construction in 2009 and was promoted to the top role of district executive in June 2020.

He counts work to update state-owned bridges in the four counties among the top achievements of PennDOT District 12 since 2009.

“It’s been nice to see the progress we’ve made on all sizes of bridges,” he said, with the portion of bridges rated in poor condition dropping from 30.5% then to just 10.6% today.

“I’ve been involved with either the rehabilitation or reconstruction of all the district’s river-crossing bridges except for four, and those four are all planned,” Kovach said.

Rehab work is expected to begin next year on the Crawford Avenue Bridge across the Youghiogheny River in Connellsville. Bids are pending for replacement of the historic 1906 Salina Bridge that crosses the Kiskiminetas River, connecting Kiski and Bell townships.

Design work is underway for rehabilitation of the 1909 metal truss West Newton Bridge and replacement of the Layton Bridge in Perry Township, Fayette County — both spans across the Youghiogheny.

Work on smaller spans also has been important, Kovach said, including an in-house program where PennDOT employees design and build replacement bridges and box culverts.

“These projects have been very helpful in reducing the number of poor bridges in the district, as well as being completed at a significant cost savings,” he said.

The most massive transportation undertaking Kovach has been involved with and the one he’s found most interesting is the ongoing modernization of Interstate 70 in Westmoreland and Washington counties. It has included widening narrow medians and shoulders and improving interchanges, bridges and on- and off-ramps.

That effort has been underway, in sections, since 2009, when work began to revamp the Smithton Interchange. With 15 sections completed, Kovach said, the overall cost of the I-70 work is approaching $1 billion.

“It was such a large area, there was no way it was going to be feasible except to break it down into small sections,” he said. “We have one project under construction and four more sections under design.

“Every project is a little unique. It’s been a very rewarding experience.”

Some of the I-70 projects have incorporated innovative designs, Kovach said.

That includes integrating roundabout intersections into some of the updated interchanges; two interconnected roundabouts were installed as part of the New Stanton project.

“We’ve found them to be very successful,” Kovach said of the roundabouts. “They improve safety and efficiency. There are less traffic delays compared to other types of intersections.”

In 2017, District 12 completed Pennsylvania’s first Diverging Diamond interchange, at I-70 and Route 19 in Washington County. In that design, traffic on the noninterstate route switches to the opposite side of the road and back again, through intersections with traffic signals. That allows drivers to turn left to enter the interstate without crossing opposing lanes of traffic.

The same design is being used in reconstruction of the I-70/Route 51 interchange underway in Rostraver.

PennDOT planners were studying various formats for the reconfigured Route 51 interchange before settling on the Diverging Diamond.

“That one kind of rose to the top very quickly based on our success with the previous one,” Kovach said.

The arrival of the covid-19 pandemic provided an extra challenge for Kovach in 2020, shortly after he assumed the top position at District 12.

“The pandemic was definitely the most unique work assignment I’ve had in my career,” he said. “We changed our whole way of doing business overnight.”

The office staff, he said, “immediately pivoted and started to do all of our work virtually,” while those out in the field “had to incorporate social distancing and many health and safety changes.”

“The most important takeaway is we learned we can do a lot of our (staff) meetings virtually,” instead of traveling to gatherings as far away as Harrisburg, he said. “We can save both the trip and the time associated with all of that travel.”

Another challenge was recovering from a Memorial Day 2019 fire that destroyed PennDOT’s Greene County maintenance facility in Franklin Township. No one was inside at the time, but staff and equipment had to operate from temporary locations until a new $22 million facility opened last month.

“All of our employees rose to the occasion to do whatever it took in order to continue and get all of our work completed during that time,” Kovach said.

As Kovach bids farewell, he noted District 12 is continuing to deal with another challenge — recruiting workers — that has been an issue for many employers since the pandemic.

“We have 785 employees when we are at full complement,” he said, “but we practically never are. CDL operators and mechanics are where we have the most vacancies.”

For Kovach, the time is right for retirement.

“I have a couple of grandchildren now, so I’ll be doing some babysitting,” he said. “I’ll probably be spending some time on a number of projects that need done. Some are on my kids’ houses.”

Kovach said he is confident that he’s leaving District 12 in good hands. “I know it’s going to continue to be very successful,” he said.

Until his successor is chosen, district bridge engineer Jeremy Hughes is slated to serve as acting district executive.

Hughes was among PennDOT staff honored with a 2022 Star of Excellence award — in his case, recognized for outstanding performance in managing the District 12 bridge design and inspection unit. He was praised for promoting diversity, mentoring other engineers and embracing public outreach while completing accelerated bridge projects and “maximizing the use of every dollar.”