the oldest of the Bennett boys, lives in Dallas. Danny, third among the four boys, settled in Little Rock and also is a civil engineer, part of the group along with William Clark that started Clark Contracting after they formerly had worked for CDI Contractors. Scott’s wife, Heather, is the editor


of Little Rock Family, a monthly pub- lication owned by Arkansas Business Publishing Group. Heather is a familiar face on Little Rock television touting events for families. Before that, Heather worked for the Nature Conservancy and the Centers for Youth and Families, nonprofits that Scott Bennett said are important to them. But even before that, Heather, who


coincidentally was the child of a retired Air Force employee, too, was working at Clear Mountain Spring Water part time while going to college at University of Arkansas at Little Rock. “She sold me water,” Scott laughed,


describing how they met when he had only been with the highway department for a couple of years. He had a married friend from Blytheville who was work- ing as the plant manager locally for Clear Mountain and thought Bennett needed to be married as well. He hap- pened to send Heather out to the high- way department to push those large, Clear Mountain water dispensers. “I was on a big health kick and all


that, was living with a couple of other guys, and that’s all we did was work out and play sports,” Bennett remembered. “I bought one of those great big water coolers for our house because she came and sold it.” They have two children who attend


Little Rock Christian Academy. The youngest, Matthew, plays football. Scott coached him in all sports until junior high, “and I really miss the coach- ing part.” Madeline, 14, was recently named a cheerleading All-American, and the family was invited to Houston so Madeline and another cheerleader at the school could participate in a Thanksgiving parade. Family is a major focus for the


Bennetts. On his wall in the director’s 26


office is a collection of those magnetic photos from the children’s activities that adorn a homemade sheet of metal that Heather crafted. Also in his office are Razorback football mementos and books, another big interest. A lanky 6-foot-3 and with the


appearance of still being in playing shape, Bennett looks like he should have been a basketball star, but base-


REWARDS OF THE JOB But, in 1989, spending his career


with the highway department was fur- thest from his mind. “And I think if you talked with a


WE’VE GOT 3,600 EMPLOYEES AND A BUDGET THAT’S


SOMEWHERE CLOSE TO A COUPLE OF BILLION DOLLARS. IT’S LIKE RUNNING A BILLION-


DOLLAR CORPORATION REALLY, AND TRYING


TO DEAL WITH ELECTED OFFICIALS AT THE LOCAL LEVEL AND STATE LEVEL.


—SCOTT BENNETT


ball was his biggest extracurricular focus through high school. Meanwhile, a mind that was geared more toward math and science, “and always trying to figure out how things worked and how to put things together,” is what directed him toward civil engineering. “We’d get something at home that


needed to be put together, and Dad would get frustrated with it. I’d sit down and do it, and I was a kid,” he said. “I think that’s the part of civil engineer- ing that attracted me was, you can see it. It’s not like electrical engineering, you turn the light switch on, and if the light doesn’t come on, you check to see if the light bulb is burned out. It was all things that were logical.”


lot of people who have been out here their whole career, a lot of people came out here thinking they’d work here for three of four years, they’d get their pro- fessional engineering license and they’re going to go to work on their own, start their own company or work in the pri- vate sector,” Bennett said. “It ends up being such a good place to work, a lot of them stay. . . . It kind of gets in your blood just a little bit.” What changed his path solely from


civil engineering to one of leadership at the department started when he was the first highway department employee chosen for a graduate school program at the University of Arkansas in the Mack Blackwell Transportation Center. The federal program’s money was matched by the department using an employee’s salary, so Bennett worked in Fayetteville while getting his master’s degree. While there, he worked on projects that, he says, are just now coming to fruition such as the flyover near the mall north of Fayetteville and the expansion of Razorback Road south of the university, as well as the coming Springdale bypass. “Lot of that has been in planning quite a while. It takes a while to get the money when you’re dealing with hun- dreds of millions of dollars,” he said, “I got to be on the ground level of the planning of a lot of things that we’re doing up there now.” From there, he began to take on


supervisory roles and dealing with long-range planning and the financial side of highway construction. Under Flowers, Bennett was assistant chief engineer for planning before succeed- ing his mentor. “That in itself prepares you for one of the most important parts of the department, handling the contracts and getting them up and running,” Flowers said. “He had a lot of exposure not only to the [Highway] Commission, but to the members of the General Assembly, mayors, county


ARKANSAS TRUCKING REPORT | Issue 6 2014


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