Message from our President
I want to thank all those that participated in Bike to Work Day on May 16th. We co-sponsored the pit stop with the City of San Diego and SANDAG at the Downtown Concourse. I want to talk all those members that manned the pit stop. Mark Jugar, Marc Mizuta, and Brandon Jacobsen aided those thirsty bikers in the morning and in the afternoon by handing out bottles of water along with other goodies. Thank you!
A very special thank you goes out to Maureen Gardiner, who organized our sponsorship, bought all of the waters and other goodies , setup the stop in the morning, and also manned the pit stop both in the morning and in the afternoon . Maureen did it all. Great Work!
I also want to thank Brad Thornton, who helped make this year's ITE Golf Tournament a success. Maureen Gardiner and Tim Strow volunteered to help with the pictures of the foursomes and the putting contest. The student chapter did an outstanding job helping setup and checking people in for the event, and was also able to raise over two hundred dollars by having an "inside the ring" contest on one of the par three holes. We had close to ninety golfers this year, and sponsorships were up, thanks to the generosity of several companies.
Holiday Party Changes!
Several of our members have indicated that they would like to attend our annual Holiday Party but cannot due scheduling conflicts because we typically have the party on a Friday night. We have taken those comments into consideration and have decided to change the day of the Holiday Party. We have also changed the venue. Mark your calendars our annual Holiday Party is scheduled for Saturday November 15th. We moved the party to November in an effort to avoid scheduling conflicts with other holiday parties. The event will be a dinner cruise on the Harbor Excursion Bay tour. We have also decided to move the swearing in of officers to a new December lunch meeting in an effort to make this more of a night out for our members. It should be an excellent event.
June Meeting
Maureen has arranged for us to take a tour of the Oceanside Transit Center and the Sprinter. Please plan on attending and asking questions about the design, construction and operation of the Transit Center and Sprinter. See the information in the newsletter for more details.
Annual Meeting
Just a reminder to everyone that ITE’s Annual meeting is August 17th -20th in Anaheim at the Convention Center. Please plan on registering before July 18th in order to take advantage of the early registration. Remember this is the joint Western District and International meeting so book your hotel rooms early if you plan on staying up in Anaheim.
Upcoming Workshop
We are planning a workshop on Transit Signal Priority (TSP) applications, operations and the effectiveness of TSP. More details to follow as Samir Hajjiri, our workshop chair finds presenters.
Webinar on ITE Lobbying Activities
Maureen Gardiner, Marc Mizuta, Kim Romano, and I attended the ITE webinar on lobbying activities on May 14th. The webinar focused on the tax implications associated with our non-profit status if we were to lobby for potential candidates in upcoming elections. Although it was informative, we were hoping that the webinar would provide us guidance on taking a certain position on more local transportation issues such as the potential Regents Road Bridge or the proposed toll road in North County. Kim is following up with ITE headquarters to gain their insight on the appropriate way for us as a local section to provide an opinion on a local transportation issue.
Endowment Fund
Background - The Student Endowment Fund was created in 2005 to support the District's Student Initiatives Program. The Student Endowment Fund will ultimately provide District 6 with a continuous and stable source of funding to finance specific and proven student initiatives that are aimed at attracting and retaining the most talented students into the transportation profession. Student initiatives funded under this program will be overseen and managed by the District, and 100 percent of the funds will go to student and faculty initiatives.
History of Student Initiative Fund Development - The District 6 Student Initiatives Fund was created in 2002 with a goal of attracting university Civil & Environmental Engineering students to the transportation profession. By encouraging active student chapter advisors, increasing student access to the profession (and its professionals), and developing improved liaison between the profession and emerging engineering students, we have achieved substantial progress in increasing the number of quality engineering students choosing transportation as a career option. ITE and our profession also benefit from these interactions since students are not only our future workforce but our future members and leaders as well.
Funding Goal - The current funding of student initiatives is approximately $25,000 per year. Many of the initiatives are presently only partially funded (for example, outstanding student awards with no stipend or travel support to attend the meeting where the award is issued). An estimate was made to identify the cost of fully funding the student initiatives that are currently in place. This estimate is approximately $40,000 per year. On an annual basis funds would only be allocated to those initiatives/activities that are worthy (for example, awards will not be made unless qualified applicants are available). The initial goal is to raise $300,000, though an ultimate balance of $500,000 is desired so that we can double the amount of funding allocated for Student Initiatives, which is currently set at about $20,000 per year.
Status - The balance of around $12,800 took an immediate jump when the Board voted to transfer $20,000 from the District's general funds into the Endowment Account in February. This money represents the proceeds from the Honolulu meeting in excess of expenses, and is attributable to the tremendous turn-out for this great meeting. It would be great if we could hit the $100,000 mark in 2007!.
Donations are always appreciated and encouraged! Edgar Perez has volunteered to serve as our Student Endowment fund liaison. Please send any donations to Edgar so that we can track how much our section is donating. Edgar will be contacting our members to encourage them to donate to the fund. He is also developing a special form of recognition for those that donate.