Road Construction Director, Mario Gomez

The road department is one of the great titans of county government, maintaining and upgrading the road infrastructure throughout the County to make it more accessible to outlying areas for transportation and all other services.

The McKinley Road Department maintains 570 miles of road in this county of 5,461 square miles, the largest county in New Mexico. Mr. Gomez is proud of the improvement from dirt to pavement, but his biggest satisfaction comes when members of the public hold a party for one of his road crews, or sends a plaque, or he receives a letter signed by school children. He places a special priority on improving and upgrading school bus routes, which he believes can help to decrease the school drop-out rate in the county.

Mr. Gomez’s job is complicated. Of the 570 miles of road maintained by the county, only 202 miles have right-of-way clearances, which can take up to eight years to obtain. Deeds of easement can require archeological studies and almost always involve a variety of agencies in the checkerboard area of multiple jurisdictions, including private, federal, Bureau of Land Management, forest, and Indian allotment land. Each agency has a different clearance process. Rather than focusing on acquiring new rights of way, Mr. Gomez’s priority is to improve to paved standards the 202 miles where he already has right of way.

Mr. Gomez supervises 24 employees in an employee-oriented department with very low turnover. He prides himself on providing good equipment and keeping workers safety-conscious, resulting in 700 days without a lost-time accident. Mr. Gomez’s department never has had a major accident, serious injury, or fatality.

In inclement weather, Mr. Gomez is responsible for the clearing of all roads with the department's two snow plows for the paved roads and 10 motor graders to accomplish the remaining snow removal.

Another of his duties is working to obtain money for road projects from a variety of funding sources such as the New Mexico Local Government Road Fund Program, county arterial program, co-op program, school bus program, Navajo Nation tribal process, and special legislative appropriation requests for projects such as road improvement, acquisition of rights of way or archaeological clearances.

Charles Kendall - Road Maintenance Director

Melissa Martinez - Operations Support Specialist

Donna Fambrough - Office Operations Assistant

Julia Alonzo - Receptionist