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After 300 days and 10 months, my term as President
of ITE District 6 came to a rewarding end in Sacramento thanks
to a great Annual Meeting hosted by the Northern California
Section. Bob Grandy and Steve Brown did an outstanding job
of organizing events and people and I greatly appreciated
their support and contributions to ITE this year (as well
as the entire LAC - listed later in this issue).
Strategic Plan:
While I summarized to our members
the status and completion of the 12 point plan in Sacramento
which we worked together to accomplish this year, the most
enduring effort of the last year has been the development
of a strategic plan for ITE District 6. I would like to share
with you the outcome of the District 6 Boards discussions
on development of a Mission Statement and goals. The work
on this plan will continue this year as we align our current
program, volunteer positions, action items and funding with
these goals. This will be work in progress through this year,
so please do not hesitate to call on any District 6 Board
member to share your ideas about the vision of ITE in District
6 and our role in enhancing our profession.
Mission/Vision: Our members are making
their communities a better place - safer, more efficient and
livable - through meaningful careers in transportation
Goals:
Student Initiatives: Encourage, support and provide
opportunities to attract retain and develop the most talented
students into transportation professionals
Career Development: Provide opportunities
for professionals to advance their transportation career development
by promoting the growth of mentoring and professional liaison
programs in the District and engaging young professionals
into Institute activities
Technical Excellence: Generate opportunities
and support for the development of technical excellence in
the profession
Social/Networking: Create a platform
for the transportation professional to interact outside the
work environment to share information and create relationships
that are both profession and family friendly
Promoting the Profession: Enhance the
transportation profession by increasing awareness of accomplishments,
recognizing professional achievement and developing better
skills to communicate with the public frequently, effectively
and proactively
Data Collection Fund Update:
All five universities completed their data collection
efforts on time and several delivered summaries to our members
at the Sacramento Annual Meeting. This data will be placed
on the WesternITE web site under "News" for those
that are interested in the efforts completed by the students.
These data sources should be viewed as seed data for others
to continue research and complement with other studies to
help us all build a better understanding of our profession.
So if you are interested in bicycle clearance times at signalized
intersections (UC Davis found 12-14 feet per second was a
useful number for bicycle speed), vehicle occupancies in new
HOV lanes (Utah found that HOV lanes carried 2.4 persons per
vehicle and general purpose lanes carried 1.1 persons per
vehicle), parking demand at universities prior to LRT (they
found 0.32 vehicles parked per student/faculty/staff member
at peak times on the San Diego State University campus), queuing
and delay at a rail crossing approaching an Interstate freeway
prior to a pre-signal installation (after data to be collected
this fall) or how much people slow down when speed trailers
are present vs when the trailers are taken away (Montana State's
data shows the percentages of drivers 5 mph and 10 mph over
posted speeds plummet with the trailer but rebound quickly
when the trailer is taken away) - please go to the District
6 web site and look over the data that has been collected.
My thanks to the students for an outstanding effort.
Call for Nominations and Award Candidates:
It is not too early to be considering leadership and accomplishments
of ITE members. I will be chairing the 2005 District 6 nomination
committee and would like you to forward any names (including
your own) of people interested in serving as an officer (Secretary-Treasurer
or International Director) to your Section/Chapter Past President.
I will be working with them to coordinate our nomination process
for the 2005 elections and you should express interest to
them by October 2004. Candidates for the individual achievement
and lifetime achievement awards should also be brought forward
to your Section's or Chapter's Past President. The Past Presidents
will be assisting me in developing the list of people that
we should consider for this recognition in Kalispell, Montana
next year at our Annual Meeting.
Status of District 6 Finances/Dues Increase:
While District 6 is in an enviable position financially at
this time, with reserves that meet operational targets, the
completion of the strategic plan now points us in clear directions.
We have spent the last two and a half years developing and
testing student initiatives. This demonstration process indicates
an unmistakable trend - student support is making a difference,
attracting more and better students to transportation. One
simple indicator - involvement in our annual meeting - has
rocketed from less than 10 to 80 in Sacramento - and these
are young people that are being hired by our agencies and
firms in record numbers. Student/faculty initiatives require
financial support to be effective. We conducted this demonstration
project in student initiatives without a dues increase to
determine which programs have the most long lasting value.
Student chapter travel support, the data collection fund and
task oriented funding (creation of historic CDs for our WesternITE's
and Annual Meeting compendiums) have all proved very successful.
And our work is not done yet in the challenge to attract the
best and brightest to transportation.
The District 6 Board has been very patient financially
in developing approaches to fund these programs, utilizing
the stability of our financial position and reserves to help
underwrite these initiatives. By testing the approaches to
find out which investments produce the best results, we can
assure to our members that any long term funding support is
well worth the investment. We have now reached that point.
There are clear signals that our programs are producing the
results that our profession needs to thrive in the future.
At our mid-year meeting (January) the Board
will be looking to establish long term funding to offset the
costs of the most successful programs. While there is a range
of options, a dues increase is clearly an alternative that
will be considered seriously. Since 1993, our District 6 has
been $20. I want to encourage that you contact your Board
members this summer and fall and voice your opinion regarding
your ideas for funding alternatives and if you have concern
regarding a dues increase. A $2 increase would raise $7,000
to $8,000 annually and would fund the successful student programs
we have established.
As for the future, it is in good hands if we
continue looking forward and not standing still. I am thankful
to have Zaki Mustafa replace me as ITE District 6 President
for the coming year. I believe you will find that he has some
exciting ideas about how we can move our student programs
forward from this beachhead of accomplishment and I plan to
fully support his initiatives.
One Final Thank You
It has been a great year serving ITE District 6 and I would
like to thank all of you for supporting me in my term as President.
I thank my family for all their support this past year and
look forward to a little more time with them this year.
As new leadership for ITE emerges, I want you
all to know that if you inspire one person in this profession,
you have had a huge impact. Let me tell you about Eric Maya.
Eric is a Cal Poly Pomona student that did not have a life
long dream to be a transportation engineer or planner - but
through his education has become attracted to transportation
and was our Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award winner
this year. He told me that he wanted to be just like me. I
would be proud if he sees the positive contributions of service,
the passion for transportation and love of my family that
I have tried to share with others this year. I know if he
does, I have done my job.
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