Political Quotes

“I like to think that infrastructure is in my DNA. My father was Jerry Strobel, a civil engineer who spent his entire career with the Nebraska Department of Transportation. Now, that was back when it was still called the Department of Roads. He eventually became director/State engineer and served under two different Governors, Kay Orr and Ben Nelson, one Republican and one Democrat. My dad used to take my two brothers and me on weekend road trips across Nebraska to check up on our infrastructure--trips that he would call ``inspection tours.'' Many of the photos that I have from my childhood are of my brothers and me standing on partially finished bridges, in front of bulldozers, and next to highways that were under various stages of completion. He taught me how to drop a plumb line and showed me how to handle his surveying equipment. Those trips with my dad taught me that infrastructure takes a long time to plan, it takes a long time to permit, and it takes a long time to build. Even short stretches of a single highway can sometimes--well, it can take years to finish. To get the most out of our limited taxpayer resources, we must condense that process to save both time and money. I learned that reliable infrastructure doesn't happen by accident, and when I was elected to the Nebraska Legislature, I brought that appreciation with me. As chair of the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee, I introduced bills like the Nebraska Build Act.…”