ENGINEERING WAYS TO NAVIGATE CALTRANS' BUMPY FUTURE COURSE.

Byline: Bob Sylvan Scripps-McClatchy Western Service

On the huffing cruise ship that is Caltrans, Joyce Hirano occupies a small cabin below decks. On occasion, she peers out her porthole and tries to fathom where, and in what direction, the ponderous agency is heading.

Or if it's moving at all. From her vantage point, it's hard to tell.

Mostly, she diligently labors on, reconfiguring lines on a narrowing sea of asphalt.

At one time in its celebrated history, the California Department of Transportation - Caltrans - was considered one of the pre-eminent engineering firms in the world. Its ribbony network of sleek freeways, soaring concrete spans and monumental clover leafs set a global standard.

Today, that epic era of highway construction is over. With the notable exception of the $1 billion seismic retrofit of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge - a project worthy of the pyramids - Caltrans engineers are engaged today in a tedious process of repairing, of upgrading, of performing a kind of spotty angioplasty on clogged arterials.

As the cutbacks continue, as the work is contracted out, as Caltrans' mission downshifts, there is concern that the agency has come to an inglorious dead end.

Joyce Hirano is a Caltrans engineer, one of about 7,000 working at the agency. In many ways, she personifies the profession. In other ways, she is a hard-driving exception. She has dreamed since she was a schoolgirl of donning a hard hat and one of those fashionable orange Day-Glo vests.

On a pleasant afternoon with light traffic, Hirano is heading south on Highway 99. She is the senior engineer for a $10 million Caltrans project that will add HOV (high-occupancy vehicle) lanes in both directions along an eight-mile stretch of Highway 99. The diamond lane will add capacity and relieve peak congestion. Work should commence in the fall.

Since she lives in Elk Grove, Hirano will be able to monitor the yearlong project on a daily basis. But because she rises early and commutes to work alone, she will not be eligible to drive in the diamond lane of her own design.

Hirano is back in her office now. She is less than enthused at the prospect of surveying the current condition of the agency - of being led out into traffic to dodge oncoming media queries.

At one point, Hirano declares: ``I'm just average. Just an ordinary person trying to get through life.

``But I'm very comfortable with who I am. And I have survived adversity before. So I know I can survive.''In a high school summer program, she worked as a clerk-typist in the city of Fresno's engineering division. The experience was an eye-opener. ``I saw what the guys were doing was much more interesting than typing,'' she says.

At California State University, Fresno, she majored in engineering. Of the three women in the program, she was the only one to finish. During school, she worked as a Caltrans intern and was recruited by the agency upon graduation. She worked for Caltrans in Fresno for a short time.

Then, eager to leave home, she took a job with a private engineering firm in San Francisco and was assigned a road-building project for a copper mine in China.After two years, she was laid off abruptly. That crisis tested her foundation.

``It taught me about me,'' she says. ``How resourceful I can be.''

In 1983, Caltrans was hiring again, and Hirano eagerly returned to the familiar, white-striped terrain. With the exception of two years spent with the Department of Health Services, Hirano has been with the agency ever since.

Today, a senior transportation engineer in District 3 (an area that encompasses Sacramento), Hirano supervises a design team of seven engineers and three support staff members.

Her success notwithstanding, there are disturbing signs on the Caltrans horizon - among them, a layoff last year of 100 engineers, a reduction in staff and duties in some district offices, and a contracting out of engineering services to private firms, especially in the sensitive area of seismic inspection and structural retrofit. That is being contested in court.

Most galling, from a staff and public image standpoint, was the job notice last spring for chief engineer. Posted by Caltrans management, that notice stipulated that no engineering background was required for the position. Even to a lay person, that seems odd.

On the issues of district downsizing, of outside contracting, of just where Caltrans is heading these days, Hirano struggles to draft an answer. Finally, she says, ``There is concern about what's going on. But it's not all-consuming. We're professionals here. We have jobs to do. We have deadlines to meet. We are trying to finish our projects.''

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Photo: At one time in its celebrated history, Caltrans wasconsidered one of the pre-eminent engineering firms in the world. Today, Caltrans engineers are engaged in a tedious process of repairing and upgrading.

Terri Thuente/Daily News