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BIG FOREST: The courtship of Sierra Nevada

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in Mills River. [PHOTO BY PAULA ROBERTS]

By Bill Moss, Published: April 7, 2014

PART  7: DOT engineer: 'Make it happen and get on it'

Step by painstaking step, Tate and his team pushed the rock up the hill.
If Schjeldahl, Cooper or the Grossmans had a question, they got an answer. If a barricade cropped up, they tried to move it. They tried to anticipate problems. That led to the Department of Transportation, an agency whose name is synonymous with turf battles, siloing and bureaucratic inertia. The situation on Old Fanning Bridge Road, the local officials believed, invited the worst of these delay-causing inefficiencies.
From Highway 280, the two-lane road starts in Henderson County, crosses into Buncombe County then goes back into Henderson County. Worse, the roadway lies not just in two counties but also in two different DOT divisions.
This time, though, would be different — stunningly different.
Tate and the Sierra Nevada team met with the two division engineers on Old Fanning Bridge Road to talk about intersection improvements.
The division chiefs, Jay Swain, of Asheville, and Joel Setzer, of Henderson County's division, agreed that Setzer would handle the project.
"Joel took the lead, and we basically said (to Sierra Nevada's team) you won't need to communicate with two different divisions," Tate said. "We're going to streamline this, we're going to make it easy. This is not a company that is accustomed to having a positive working relationship with state agencies at all."
Jones, the county engineer, was impressed.
"You think of the dogmatic, bureaucratic DOT and that wasn't happening," he said. "It was the division engineer coming out in the meeting and telling his district engineer, 'You need some overtime, don't you, for your road crew?' He said, 'Make it happen and get on it.' Everybody quickly realized the importance of getting those folks tuned in together. There were not your typical boundaries or borders that got in the way."
Setzer hatched the idea of an industrial roundabout to separate beer trucks, employees, visitors and through traffic where Old Fanning Bridge Road reaches the industrial park.
"They were flabbergasted at DOT's response," McGrady said of the Californians. "They were pleasantly surprised and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Again, it was the stars aligning. Everybody seemed to be on the same page. The quarterback, though, was Andrew Tate. He kept us on track. If there was an impediment or slowdown somewhere he jumped in. He was very adroit and sort of set the professional tone."
The Sierra Nevada team encountered the same cooperative reception when the general contractor, Gary Fowler, who is from Chico, sat down with Mills River town officials.
"I remember one comment that was actually huge," Cooper said. "One of the questions he asked was, 'So when I submit plans for a permit how long will it take?' And the team from Mills River looked at each other and they go, 'three to five, we might be able to do it faster.' And Gary goes, 'What?' because he's thinking three to five weeks. So they say, 'OK, maybe a couple days then. We might be able to do it in two days, three at the max.' And Gary's jaw dropped. 'OK, that'll work.' That's the kind of team support that we got from Mills River."
Yet, the county was not home free.
"Every day we're getting more and more encouraged because we're marking things off the list," Tate said. "We're getting over hurdles but there's still things that can go wrong to the point that would eliminate us from consideration. They were doing similar things in the other communities at the same time."