Mariah Wagner
Embracing Change (Management): My Time With CDOT
By Mariah Wagner, Innovation & Improvement Intern
April 11, 2022
As my internship is quickly coming to a close, I reflect back on all the opportunities my time at the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) has brought me. I began my internship in June, 2021 and since then my time as a Process Improvement and Change Management intern has absolutely flown by.
Within the first week of my internship I was introduced to the first project that I would be working on, Concept to Project (C2P). At the time, things with C2P were picking up and I quickly realized just how large this program was and the lasting impact it would have on all of CDOT. After a few weeks I participated on four of the five sub teams and helped with developing wireframes for the now launched C2P hub, create infographics, strategize communication plans, give presentations and ultimately really get a feeling for what it means to be part of a collaborative work environment. Now at the end of my internship, it is awesome to be able to see C2P swiftly move into the implementation phase of the project!
Mariah Wagner with mountains in background.
A major benefit of this internship and working with CDOT, was the availability to a variety of training and workshops, all of which are taught by experts in the subjects (SMEs) with a wealth of knowledge to share. A few months into my internship I participated in the Prosci 3-day Change Management Course, in addition to other CDOT trainings, including Intro to NEPA, Context Sensitive Solutions, and a Categorical Exclusion training. All of the trainings and workshops taught me some extremely valuable skills that I am sure to take with me throughout my professional career, as well as my personal life.
Some of the other valuable experiences that this internship brought, was the opportunity to tour the Eisenhower Johnson Memorial Tunnel and some of the bigger CDOT projects like the Central 70 Project, which was a tour that I put together with other CDOT interns and even some students from MSU Denver. Looking back at the internship, this was probably one of the highlights as it was a great way to not only connect with other CDOT interns but also learn about some of our assets and all the work that goes into building and maintaining our transportation system.
Perhaps the best part about this internship is the opportunity to work with an incredibly fun and hard working team and learn from the Office of Process Improvement’s humble leaders, Gary Vansuch and Michelle Malloy. With years of experience under their belts, their empathy, patience, and passion for embracing change was contagious and I have no doubt that it will stick with me throughout my career and personal life alike.
As my internship is coming to an end, I am thankful for all of the people I have had the pleasure of working with and all of the various opportunities I was given to learn new things. I am grateful for the opportunity to uphold CDOT’s values of safety, people, integrity, customer service, excellence and accountability, and respect, values that I will carry with me into my next chapter.
Mariah Wagner with fellow interns Ginger Kloska, Stacey Stoffregen, and Victoria Farberov at the Eisenhower Tunnel.