MnDOT's Bray accepts engineer's job
Tim Bray is the new Crow Wing County highway engineer.
Bray, Crosslake, currently is a senior engineer and a project manager with the Minnesota Department of Transportation in Baxter. He expects to join the county on Oct. 28.
After the county board session Tuesday, Bray said he wanted to be a highway engineer when he graduated with a bachelor's degree from North Dakota State University.
Bray said he was attracted by the responsibility and was encouraged to apply for the post by outgoing highway engineer Lyndon Robjent. Bray plans to wrap up a few projects with MnDOT before settling in the county job.
Bray plans to meet individually with commissioners and talk with department heads to learn more before his official start day.
Tim Bray
With MnDOT, Bray's primary projects included work on the proposed four-lane Highway 371 project from Nisswa to Pine River. Previously, Bray was a district soils engineer with MnDOT and he was a civil engineer intern with the DNR in Brainerd.
A Navy lieutenant, Bray served on active duty and in the Navy Reserve with the civil engineer corps. He was deployed to Anbar Province in Iraq in 2006.
Finalists for the highway engineer position included Bruce Hasbargen and Chad Hausmann. Finalists were named after 15 preliminary interviews, which were selected from a pool of nearly 50 applicants.
Robjent, who was county engineer nearly two years, left the position in July. Rob Hall, assistant county engineer, is serving in the interim.