September-October
Message
District 6 Members,
I am very honored to serve as your President this year!
There are many who have come before me from whom I hope
I have learned.
My term started with our Annual District 6 meeting in Anaheim,
California, which was held in conjunction with ITE International.
Many regular Western District attendees were able to see their
ITE colleagues from all over the world. Over 2300 members
from around the world attended this meeting. There were many
District and International awards given at the meeting. I
want to congratulate Wolf Homburger and Eugene “Gene”
Wilson for receiving the Lifetime Achievement Awards this
year and Richard Nassi for receiving the Individual Achievement
Award for his body of work including the “HAWK”
hybrid beacon/signal. Please join me in congratulating all
of our fine award recipients who make our District shine!
I also want to congratulate our Traffic Bowl Winners which
include First Place: Colorado-Wyoming Section; Second Place:
New Mexico Section; and Third Place: San Diego (formerly known
as Border) Section!
I want to thank Zaki Mustafa, the Local Arrangements Committee
(LAC) Chair and all of his volunteers for their hard work
in making Anaheim a successful meeting. Their preparation
and efficient behind-the-scenes efforts made the meeting run
smoothly. I also want to thank our many sponsors and exhibitors
for their participation in making this meeting a success.
Special thanks goes to our Sponsorship Chair, Janna McKhann.
The Student Endowment fund has more than doubled since last
year’s meeting and is nearing the $150,000 mark! Our
Student Endowment Fund Chair, Cathy Leong, is leading the
effort to achieve the District’s goal of $500,000 in
order for the fund to become self-sustaining. I have no doubt
she’ll keep up the great work and come up with additional
tattoos, tee-shirt and teddy bear incentives for members who
contribute! Perhaps the next round of tattoos should be permanent,
which could be an interesting situation for many participants
as shown in the photos!
Many thanks go to Past President Jennifer Rosales and to
all past officers and chairs, as well as the section and chapter
leadership for their dedicated volunteerism over the years.
Everyone has contributed to the many successes achieved in
our Western District.
There are many opportunities for members to receive the full
value of their ITE membership. For example, District members
had the opportunity to attend international council and committee
meetings in several areas at our joint international/district
meeting. These ancillary meetings included topics such as:
LED signal maintenance issues, yellow-time intervals, freight
mobility challenges, proposed new or modified informational
reports (IRs), recommended practices (RPs), and updates to
various ITE handbooks. All members are welcome to attend these
meetings each year and join various list-serves in their topic
areas of interest. Recently, the Expert Witness Council distributed
their latest “Expert Witness Notebook” on CD.
Other councils have on-going relevant projects in which members
can participate. Subject areas of each council can be found
on the www.ite.org website. One free council membership is
included with your annual dues.
Members can also become more involved in their areas of interest
as council members, committee members, technical contributors
or reviewers, and/or at their chapter, section or District
levels as a committee chair or officer. These experiences
broaden your transportation “network” and knowledge
base. When a transportation professional discovers something
new, it is helpful to share this at a local, District or International
meeting or take the extra step of memorializing it in a paper.
We are all very busy with work, family and social commitments.
However, the more we share, the stronger our profession becomes!
All those ITE reference books from which we have learned were
the result of the hard work and many volunteer hours of ITE
members.
Another easy way to contribute and benefit ITE is to provide
information from after conducting a traffic count or parking
study for a unique land use. This data will be used to enhance
the next edition of the ITE Trip Generation or Parking Generation
Manuals. You and your employer will benefit from the additional
data being shared in these manuals!
This year, lowered registration fees were provided to encourage
professionals under 30 years old to attend the Anaheim meeting.
This was a good step toward bridging the unique attributes
of each generation within our profession as we work together
to achieve transportation solutions for the public. Additionally,
ITE is initiating a younger member forum this fall to glean
the perspective of younger members to be sure that we are
in the forefront of the industry in our communications approach
and portfolio and to ensure that our membership benefits are
useful across all generations.
Anaheim’s opening session covered the very important
topic regarding the breadth of generations that exist within
our profession. As the “traditional” and “baby
boomer” generations near retirement (though fortunately
many continue to serve well into their golden years) the gap
will widen in the “brain drain” of knowledge-base.
As a result, it is ever more critical that we do not lose
that knowledge, wisdom, and experience and that “Generation
X” and the “Millenials” (aka “Generation
Y and Z”), are quickly groomed and trained to fill some
“very big shoes”. I continue to “tease”
my esteemed mentors: Ed Cline, Wes Pringle, and Bob Crommelin.
You can run but not hide! We’ll find them, and others
like them, since we still need their expertise, depth of knowledge,
and assistance. Their know-how continues to be invaluable.
Where would our profession be without all of our founding
fathers, and a few founding mothers too, who very strongly
represented our profession? Under their leadership, our profession
was treated with high regard. In part, I believe this is because
of their very strong ability to communicate why transportation
recommendations were important.
As we enter the fall of this year, there are many ways we
can enhance our “softer” skills to be sure we
are best able to communicate, and even “sell”,
the “why” behind our important transportation
and/or technical recommendations. The better we clarify this
to the public we serve, the more likely the elected officials
will support our recommendations. While we may not have entered
transportation for this reason, our success depends upon our
ability to communicate our relevance to others. If not, those
who may not share our transportation and engineering values
will speak for us instead! As a result, it is critical that
we enhance our overall ability to communicate/ sell and occasionally
even advertise the positives of our recommendations and our
work in transportation. In fact, our viability as a profession
depends on this, which is why communicating with the public
and public relations have been a mega issue for ITE International.
It affects all of us and transportation safety outcomes for
the public which is why improvement in this area is one of
my Vision and Goals previously shared in my candidate statement!
I want to thank Walt Stringer, Legislative Chair, for his
volunteerism and three year term (of nine total years) is
completed. Please join me in welcoming Patty Camacho De Cano
as our new Career Guidance Chair, and Larry Wymer as our Student
and Faculty Initiatives Vice Chair. He is enthusiastic to
continue his innovative contributions to ITE and to join the
District team! There will be additional volunteer positions
available for enthusiastic members to expand their contributions
to ITE for the District. Please contact me if you are interested
in participating.
Please join me in welcoming our newest elected District 6
Board Members: Edgar Perez, Secretary-Treasurer and Ken Ackeret,
International Director-Elect. I look forward to bringing my
unique perspective to the District during my tenure. I also
look forward to visiting several sections and chapters throughout
the year. Please contact me or any officer if you have any
suggestions for us to better serve you.
Next year’s Annual Meeting will be held in Denver,
Colorado on July 12-15th. Please mark your calendars now!
As summer closes and green leaves change, let’s capture
fall’s golden leaves and make it a great year!
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