Stacey Glass wasn’t always at the top of the food chain.
Glass, the Alabama Department of Transportation’s State Construction Engineer, is one of only a handful of employees who have served as a Bureau Chief for two separate bureaus.
But Glass’ ALDOT career started long before he sat at the top.
Growing up on roughly 10 acres of land in Friendship, Ala., Glass wanted to start his career in forestry. Then at 17-years old, he changed his mind.
A land surveyor visited Glass’s family’s land, and the tripod and field book quickly intrigued Glass. He started asking questions, and by the end of the day, Glass wanted to go into surveying.
“I always had a good aptitude for math, so I mentioned that as a possibility to my dad and he told me to come down to the Alabama Department of Transportation, then known as the Highway Department,” Glass said. “That’s how my career started.”
Fresh out of high school, ALDOT hired Glass as a seasonal laborer for the summer of 1985. He mainly worked on the Highway 229/I-85 job in Tallassee.
In the fall, he started college at Auburn University at Montgomery. ALDOT allowed Glass to both work and attend school, and he’d work nearly every hour that he wasn’t in class.
ALDOT continued to employ him as a seasonal laborer until February of 1987.
“I was seasonal and was only supposed to be working until the end of the summer, but they kept paying me, so I kept showing up for work for almost two years,” Glass said.
In February of 1987, ALDOT laid off Glass and all other uncertified laborers. Subsequently, Glass began working for Brassfield and Gorrie. There, he served as a carpenter’s helper and helped build the Gordon Persons building in downtown Montgomery.
He served in that role for six months before transitioning back to ALDOT in December of 1987. While in school at AUM and Auburn, he continued as an engineering assistant in the Design Bureau.
After Glass earned his degree, he continued to diversify his role with ALDOT.
He moved over to the Multimodal Bureau for two years starting in 1998 and transitioned to the Transportation Enhancement Program. Following that stint, he was asked to head up the engineering portion of the Aeronautics Bureau.
“I asked if I could have overnight to think about it because I didn’t even like to fly,” Glass said. “I wanted to think about it, but I knew what my answer needed to be.”
Two years passed in Aeronautics, then Glass transferred to the 6th Division as Division Traffic Engineer. The 6th Division Maintenance Engineer at the time, Butch Mann, approached Glass about taking a job as Montgomery’s Area Traffic Engineer. Nine months later, he promoted to the Maintenance Bureau where he began working his way up in the Bureau. He transferred within the Maintenance Bureau to be the State Traffic Engineer, then appointed to Deputy Bureau Chief.
Glass served as the Department’s State Maintenance Engineer from 2014 to 2022, a position he thought he would retire in. Little did he know that a new opportunity would come calling.
In 2022, Glass was asked to consider moving to the Construction Bureau.
Though he was hesitant at first, Glass thought more about the transition and knew the Maintenance Bureau would be in good hands if he accepted this new role.
“The department has been nothing but great to me in my career, and I knew the bureau would be in good hands,” Glass said. “This was the easiest transition for the department, so I did it in November of 2022. I don’t regret the move at all.”
Many sleepless and anxiety-filled nights sat in front of Glass during the move because he didn’t feel he could fill the shoes of past Bureau Chiefs before him. The only construction experience he had was from 1985-1987 when he was a laborer.
But then he quickly realized all the years and bureaus he worked in helped prepare him for the role.
“I still had a lot to learn, but I was surprised at how much I could actually contribute to the bureau,” Glass said. “I’ve really enjoyed this part of my career, and the department has been good to me.”
Glass has seen more than most during his tenure with ALDOT. After starting as a seasonal laborer in 1985, he has been part of a handful of bureaus and continues to give back to the department that gave him so much.
He has signed up to be a mentor and is spreading his 37 years of knowledge to the younger generation.
“I feel like it would be irresponsible of me not to be a mentor with everywhere I’ve worked in the department. I have knowledge to share.”
