5 minutes with Zach Gunsolley, Union County Engineer

AGE: 37

FAMILY: Wife and three kids

HOMETOWN: Diagonal

ALMA MATER: Iowa State University

COOLEST THING ABOUT BEING AN ENGINEER: Cool and engineer, I’ve never been asked that in the same sentence before. Give me a second. The math and science that goes into the design work for the road and bridge construction, the projects that we work on. That’s my opinion of cool, so that’ll make people fall asleep to that.

MOST BORING THING ABOUT BEING AN ENGINEER: I can safely say I’ve never been bored at this job.

ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING THINGS ABOUT THE JOB: Interesting is trying to stretch a taxpayer dollar with some different surface treatment types that are less conventional than your typical concrete and asphalt paving projects.

COOLEST TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION IN YOUR FIELD: The technology going into survey equipment and drafting software has changed leaps and bounds even since I was a college intern at Howard R. Green Company here in Creston in 1998. So seeing the stark improvement of the power of that equipment and software is astonishing.

IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY SUPER POWER TO HELP WITH YOUR JOB, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I’d like my left hand to be able to print money and my right hand to be able to pave roads.

IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY OTHER JOB, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I’ve always liked trains, so maybe a conductor.

IF YOU COULD LIVE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, WHERE WOULD IT BE? I can tell you my wife likes things warmer, but I don’t like things warmer. I get hot easy. So I would go someplace colder. So that’s probably why Iowa fits both of us, because it’s too hot for me some times and too cold for her other times.

FAVORITE PLACE YOU’VE TRAVELED TO? A few years ago, we went to Jamaica, my wife and I did, and that was a fun time. Great people. Great culture.

CAKE OR PIE? Both. That’s not fair.

WHAT HOBBIES DO YOU HAVE? We are avid Iowa State fans, which is rewarding sometimes and difficult other times. ... I like fishing with my son, my oldest son, now, who’s old enough to go fishing with a Spiderman fishing pole. Then, also, I like to golf. I get out twice or three times a year, and it shows with my game. But I do enjoy that.

FAVORITE KID’S MOVIE: I have a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old, so we don’t get to watch sci-fi scary stuff. So probably “The Lego Movie.” That was very tastefully done.

WHO HAS INSPIRED YOU THE MOST AND WHY? My parents. Like anybody that lived in this area or even the Midwest in the 1980s with the farm crisis, it was really tough to be a farmer, but it was even tougher if you were a small-town retailer depending on that struggling farmer. My dad owned a lumberyard in Diagonal that my sister now runs, and there were days even nobody came through the door. Not a soul. No one had any money and farmers were going under. When I was this tall, I never appreciated that. The older I get, the more it scares me and what they were able to go through. And they survived, and that’s admirable.