TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE

Board Liaison: Paul Meehan, HDR

2017-2018 Chair: Paul Jacob, Moffatt & Nichol

2017-2018 Vice Chairs: Jason Peterson, S&ME; Keith Skinner, RK&K

Past Chair: Josh Dalton, Sungate Design Group

Description: This committee serves as a liaison between ACEC/NC and the North Carolina Department of Transportation and other Transportation oriented public agencies dealing with all areas of transportation including highways, railways, airports, waterways, mass transit, and other forms of public transportation.

Goals from 2016-2017:

Select a Task Force to provide recommendations for the number, type, and direction for all subcommittees to best align with NCDOT’s new organization structure.

Investigate using alternative methods to better achieve industry agreement on critical issues.

Continue TAB Meetings and maintain communication with NCDOT leadership.

Further growth of the Joint ACEC/NCDOT Conference held at the Raleigh Convention Center.

Encourage membership by ACEC Future Leaders graduates and current class members, as well as expanding membership of younger industry leaders and corporate representatives

Continue to Increase level of activity of the Transportation Committee members in Legislative Forums (CCD, Engineer’s Day at NC General Assembly.)

Successes from 2016-2017:

  • 2016 Joint ACEC/NCDOT Conference was largest to date. The conference continues to show steady growth.
  • Successfully re-structured the ACEC/NCDOT subcommittees to fit the current structure of the Department

Challenges:

  • Difficulty in achieving industry agreement on critical issues and maintaining a unified voice from member firms.
  • Legislative impacts on NCDOT staffing and outsourcing goals.
  • Long Term funding issues
  • Meet the current forecast for NCDOT workload

New Goals 2017-2018:

  • Grow communication between NCDOT Division personnel and ACEC
  • Continue to meet with Division Personnel at the Project Delivery Subcommittee Meeting. Paul Jacob attends these meetings to improve ACEC’s visibility in these meetings.
  • Continue to monitor the direction for all subcommittees to best align with NCDOT’s new organization structure.
  • ACEC is looking at adding a new subcommittee to aid the Department in exploring emerging technologies and their impact on the transportation industry
  • Expand conversation within our organization about other modes of transportation outside of roads and bridges.
  • Little progress has been made on this goal at this time.
  • Continue TAB Meetings and maintain communication with NCDOT leadership.
  • We have scheduled our next TAB meeting with the new Chief Engineer this coming Monday, December 18th. The meeting was originally lost in the transition of leadership but we successfully re-scheduled.
  • Try to engage younger industry leaders and corporate representatives in the ACEC Future Leaders program.
  • ACEC Future leaders is sold out for 2018
  • Increase level of activity of the Transportation Committee members in Legislative Forums (CCD, Engineer’s Day at NC General Assembly.)
  • On-going
  • Analyze the current active membership on the Transportation Committee and encourage participation of more member firms in the Transportation Committee.
  • Moved transportation meetings to the PNC Arena in order to provide more space for participation. Attendance has been increasing over the past two meetings.
  • Evaluate the structure of the Transportation Committee meetings and explore options to increase participation.
  • We continue to evaluate the format of the meetings. Active participation in the meetings continues to be relatively non-existent (little feedback from the membership on current topics, few questions of our speakers that are not originated by the Committee members).
  • Continue to use the Procurement Task Force until current issues are resolved.
  • The Procurement Task Force continues to operate on an as needed basis. We have called upon them and will continue to do so as the need arrises.