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Highlands Today

Travelin' Man Now Keeps County Road System In Motion

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By JIM KONKOLY

Highlands Today

Published: August 25, 2008

SEBRING - After graduating from Sebring High School in 1988, Kyle Green went off in search of fame and fortune on the rodeo circuit.

At least, that was his plan when he enrolled as a freshman at Sulross State University in Alpine, Texas, on a full scholarship for rodeo riding.

Green, though, only stayed a year and a half before he came back to Sebring to help his grandfather run his trucking company.

Today, Green is the new superintendent of Highlands County's Road and Bridge Department. He joined the county's road work crew nearly five years ago, when he stopped traveling the United States to settle down, and was promoted to the top job earlier this month.

It was also nearly five years ago when, shortly after becoming a county worker, Kyle and wife, Page, married. Page, the assistant principal at Cracker Trail Elementary School, and Kyle have two children, a girl, 3, and a 2-year-old boy.

Green comes to the job of leading the 90 road and bridge employees with many years of experience in most facets of construction, including public works projects.

After working for his grandpa in the trucking business in Sebring for five years, Kyle took the job that took him across much of America. He joined Michaels Corporation, headquartered in Brownsville, Wis.

Kyle continued living in Sebring but spent most of his time far away from home. From his company's headquarters in Wisconsin, he was assigned to fly to construction projects in many states, including Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

The furthest west he worked was on a project in Portland, Ore., while Cincinnati was the farthest he went east.

Most of his work was in road construction and laying down utility lines, including fiber optic cables. One of his bigger jobs was laying the fiber optics for an expansion of the Greater Cincinnati Airport.

Green knows the road building process inside and out, as he worked at both the hardest physical labor jobs, ran every piece of machinery you can have on a construction project, served as safety director for the construction crews, and even worked with village, city, county and state officials in several different states.

"That's how I got into working on public service projects, and I was always interested in the operations of Highlands County government," Green said.

Five years ago, he left his traveling construction job to take a job with the county's road and bridge department. He moved up to superintendent of the department's Sebring garage before being promoted to superintendent.

For years on his traveling construction job, he would work 10 straight days out of state, then return home for four days off, then fly back to 10 more days work in another state.

Green was frequently a job site foreman, so he knows how to supervise people. He said his biggest challenge may come next year when he'll have to put together his county department's budget for the first time.

"I'm not worried about that," he said, "because, with the good people here, I'll get whatever help I need."

Green replaced Eddie Yarborough, who held the top job for only three months before retiring with more than 30 years with the county. Yarborough, in turn, replaced Bruce Van Jaarsveld, who retired May 1 as road and bridge superintendent after more than 30 years with the county.

County Administrator Michael Wright has said he plans to change the mission of road and bridge, to get less into road building and more into maintaining neighborhood roads. Green said Wright has given him that big-picture goal, but hasn't yet started discussing the details of the change.

After Phase Two of the parkway, which extends the four-lane, limited-access highway from Ridgewood Drive to U.S. 27 where Highlands Avenue currently ends at U.S. 27, is finished, Wright said, Phases Three and Four of the parkway will be put on hold indefinitely.

The reason is money, or, more precisely, a lack of it. The third and fourth phases of the parkway will have to wait until the county can pay for them, Wright said.

Wright said road and bridge workers will be working for at least one more year to finish phase two of the parkway.

At 38 years old, Green is believed to be the youngest person in the county's history to become the superintendent of the road and bridge department. It's a challenge he said he was encouraged to take.

"Moving up as a county employee is something that they encourage," Green said. "If it's possible, they do try to promote from within."

Jim Konkoly can be reached at 863-386-5855 or e-mail jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com

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