DOT doodler creator of 'Burl the Squirrel'

YAKIMA -- Eric Snider has always been a doodler. Only now, he gets paid for it.

While taking notes in class as a high schooler at West Valley, he would invariably fill the borders with sketches of whatever happened to be occupying his mind. When he began studying engineering at Yakima Valley Community College, "I was even worse," he recalled.

"I was always drawing all the time, constantly," said Snider, now 31. "Teachers would be saying, 'Eric, you've got to get going on your work,' and I'd be like, 'Yeah, but I'm almost done with this drawing.'"

His gift for sketching melded well with his engineering degree when he was hired to do computer-aided drafting by the state Department of Transportation. When he was promoted into the DOT's Interstate 90 project office on 24th Avenue two years ago, his drawing
talent immediately paid dividends.

I-90 project director Brian White was looking for a user-friendly way to explain the safety improvements planned for the interstate east of Snoqualmie Pass, between Hyak and Easton. Between 2010 and 2015, DOT plans a $545 million project to eliminate that stretch's sharp curves, expand protective measures against avalanches and rockfalls, and build wildlife crossing corridors over and under the freeway.

Finding a way to illustrate the latter point effectively to the public had already led White and his staff to kick around a "Burl the Squirrel" cartoon character to use in its community relations. But the concept had gone nowhere until Snider joined the I-90 project team.

"I knew he was a doodler," said White, for whom Snider had created a couple of artistic renditions on a different project. "I said, 'If you've got some spare time, maybe we could do a coloring book or something, maybe bring Burl to life.'

"An hour later he's in my office with some drawings saying, 'OK, what do you think of this?'"

Snider's rendition became the "Burl the Squirrel," the smiling, informative DOT "spokes-squirrel" who has shown up on DOT publications, at DOT information booths at county fairs, in the "BurlThe Squirrel Activity Book" and
in comic-strip panels sent out monthly to
people requesting project updates.

The Burl the Squirrel campaign has earned plenty of kudos, including the Transportation Research Board's "Communicating with John and Jane Public Award" and the Ad Club of Yakima's Chinook Gold Award, awarded last month at the Capitol Theatre.

"Occasionally you'll meet people who say, 'It's great you have this cartoon character, but shouldn't you be spending your time designing?'" White said. "But it's just a way to talk to folks about the project. A lot of times we tell people we have this engineering project, and it'll be 'Oh, engineering ...' and they shy away."

Not from Burl, though. Whenever kids grab up the activity book at county fairs or other outreach locations and show it to their parents, White said, that's just another way for the DOT to get its point across.

In the first Burl the Squirrel panel, Burl explains to an audience of animals that construction on the I-90 improvements will begin in 2010.

"So until then," he tells his listeners -- a rabbit, deer, elk, beaver, turtle and even a bear lugging around a salmon in a bucket -- "we have to ... RUN!!!" And we see the wide-eyed animals racing to escape the visible "HONK! HONK!" of oncoming traffic.

As for Eric Snider, well, he's still drawing as part of his job as a transportation planning specialist, creating brochures and doing artistic renditions of various projects.

And, yes, he still doodles.

"If we're in a meeting," he said, "I'll write a short note about what we're talking about and I'll throw in an illustration about what we're doing. People might assume I'm not listening or retaining anything, but I've trained myself to use it as a sort of shorthand for notetaking."

* Scott Sandsberry can be reached at 577-7689 or ssandsberry@yakimaherald.com.