Like many transportation engineers, Jenny L. Grote had her
goals set pretty high early in her career. After graduating from the University
of Colorado, Grote took on a brief stint in transportation consulting. From
there, Grote’s career took her to Phoenix where she was hired as the
city’s first female traffic engineer—a position she still holds
today.
Gradually, her participation in the Institute of
Transportation Engineers (ITE) evolved, and last year she was elected
international president of the institute.
Grote recently took time out of a busy schedule to discuss
how her career has matured from that of a self-proclaimed “unknown
commodity” into her current role within ITE.
How did you become involved in transportation
engineering?
Without a doubt, I can say transportation was my favorite
area of the civil engineering curriculum at the University of Colorado. My
transportation professors, Daryl Fleming and Bill Pollard, were not only
experts in the transportation subject matter but they had practical experience
they shared with the students. When I graduated in 1983 with a bachelor of
science degree in civil and environmental engineering, I sat and waited for the
job offers to pour in. After all, I was considered a ‘minority’ at
that time. Like most students, I took the best job offer—not solely based
on salary—that came my way and it just happened to be in transportation.
Dick Wolsfeld and Arnie Ullevig took a chance on a fresh
graduate from the University of Colorado to work in the Denver office of BRW
Inc. I worked on a variety of projects, like all good consultants, and learned
much in the two years I was there about the ‘real world’ and how to
work as a team to reach the common goals of getting proposals written and
projects delivered on time and under budget.
After those two years my husband, Wulf, was offered a job
with the city of Phoenix Public Transit Department. He had been working
indirectly for Dick Thomas at the Regional Transportation District (RTD) in
Denver, and when Dick left RTD to become the director of the city of Phoenix
Public Transit Department, Wulf thought it would be a great opportunity to
follow Dick and work for him directly.
I began my job search in the Phoenix area and was offered a
plethora of opportunities. I accepted a position with the city of Phoenix as
well, but as a traffic engineer. The city of Phoenix street transportation
director, Jim Matteson, hired me in 1985 as an unknown commodity and I became
the city’s first female traffic engineer. Today, Wulf and I have worked
for the city of Phoenix for 17 years, and it has accelerated both our careers.
It has given me the experience of municipal traffic engineering and the
opportunity to get involved with ITE, while Wulf has been promoted to project
manager of the billion-dollar light rail project. So we are living out our
dreams; mine as International President of ITE and Wulf’s of building a
light rail system in Phoenix.
It’s been a year since you were named ITE
international president. What have you done in your role as international
president since being elected?
So much activity has taken place since my term actually
began in January. As president, I have assembled several committees, or teams
of ITE members, to support today’s hot topics in transportation:
A new advisory committee was formed, the Transportation
Security and Evacuation Advisory Committee, to assist the institute in defining
its role in transportation security and evacuation issues and to help to
formulate a program to fulfill that role. They will address the potential
impacts of increasing transportation security measures on transportation
systems operations and planning, along with defining the tools traffic
engineers need to assess and improve operational efficiency.
The Traffic Signal Timing Advisory Committee was created to
help the institute define the issues associated with improving signal timing
nationwide. From increased efficiency to intersection safety to addressing
red-light running, the profession has a lot to do. The committee will define
training needs, topics to be included in a synthesis of current practice,
topics on which to seek peer input and encourage dialog and debate within the
profession.
In order to get international members more involved in our
technical products, I created a new position on the Technical Council as a
liaison between U.S. activities and the rest of the world. Peter Elsenaar, from
the Netherlands, was eager to fill this position and has extensive experience
in global road safety programs. He will serve in this role for a three-year
term, and then it will rotate to a representative from Canada.
For those readers of TM+E who are not involved with ITE,
why would you recommend they join the association?
Being a member of ITE for the past 19 years has opened doors
and given me opportunities to network with other professionals whom I would not
have met otherwise. I learn valuable skills from my ITE colleagues through
participating in electronic peer-discussion listserves, attending conferences
and reading the latest technical publications. My involvement in ITE also has
contributed to the professionalism of my employer, the city of Phoenix, which
was recognized as one of the ‘best run cities’ in the world.
ITE is one of the largest and fastest-growing educational
and scientific professional transportation organizations in the world. ITE
members are transportation professionals meeting society’s needs for safe
and efficient surface transportation across modes, through planning, designing,
implementing, operating and maintaining the surface transportation systems of
the world. They are employed in the public sector at the federal level, at
state and provincial departments of transportation and at hundreds of municipal
governments, counties and metropolitan planning organizations. In the private
sector, ITE members are employed by hundreds of consulting firms, universities
and equipment manufacturers and suppliers throughout the world. ITE is a link
to this network of people who can help get information needed to do your job,
advance your career and serve your profession.
How would the readers of TM+E benefit from attending the
ITE Annual Meeting?
More than 2,000 transportation professionals will attend the
ITE Annual Meeting and Exhibit in Philadelphia from Aug. 4-7. The meeting offers
66 technical sessions divided among six tracks: community issues;
transportation management; safety; systems management and operations; traffic
engineering; and transportation planning/transit.
Attending this annual event provides access to dynamic paper
presentations, technical tours and professional development seminars. You can
also earn Professional Development Hours and/or Continuing Education Units by
attending the institute’s high-quality, in-depth professional development
seminars and technical sessions taught by experts in their fields. Or stay
abreast of the newest technologies and services at ITE’s Transportation
Products and Services Exhibit where displays from the public and private
sectors—from pavement marking trucks to computer software displays to
planning service providers and much more—will be on hand.
Awarded at the ITE Annual Meeting, the Burton W. Marsh
Distinguished Service Award and the Theodore M. Matson Memorial Award are two
of ITE’s highest honors. Who are this year’s winners of these
awards?
The Theodore M. Matson Memorial Award recipient was
announced in January in the Matson Associates Luncheon, as part of the
Transportation Research Board activities in Washington, D.C. The 2002 recipient is Dr. Philip J.
Tarnoff, director of the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology at the
University of Maryland in College Park, Md.
The 2002 recipient of the Burton W. Marsh Distinguished
Service Award is Dr. Wolfgang S. Homburger, P.E., who is a transportation
professor at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of
California, Berkeley.
Both recipients will receive recognition at the Annual
Meeting in Philadelphia in the opening session. Later this year, they will be
given the opportunity to share their thoughts and experiences on service to the
profession and the institute in articles published in the ITE Journal.
How do you see the role of the transportation engineer
evolving five, 10 and 20 years from now?
This is an exciting time to be a transportation professional.
Never before have there been so many opportunities to change the way people
interact and conduct business. Traditional travel patterns are changing and
will continue to change in the next five, 10 and 20 years.
Status quo is no longer acceptable, and I see our
professional organization as the vehicle to help lead the charge to take on the
challenges of the 21st century.
We have not yet seen the true impact of emerging
technological advances on the transportation industry. As global communications
continue to improve and computers continue to revolutionize the workplace, we
will see changes in travel demand patterns as well as how transportation
professionals use technology to better manage facilities to improve their
efficiency and safety. Management and operations of transportation systems is a
key emphasis area for ITE, and we see this as being a critical issue in the
foreseeable future.
Next year, TEA-21 reauthorization legislation will be acted
upon which will greatly affect the future of the transportation system. We will
share with Congress our thoughts on the importance of investing in safety and
efficiency to support the U.S. economy and the quality of life of our citizens.
In the coming months, the leadership of ITE will focus on
updating and revising the ITE mission statement and strategic plan to make it
consistent with the current and future of the transportation profession.
What are your plans for the future of the association?
Through my involvement in ITE, I am given the opportunity to
play a key role in developing a new approach to meeting our customers’
travel expectations. That’s what ITE is all about: providing a mechanism
to learn from the work of our colleagues, and at the same time to contribute to
the professional knowledge base. As transportation professionals, we are
continuously learning more about how our transportation systems work, or about
how people make choices about their travel, and it’s our job to remain
relevant to the members regardless of their specialty area.
In the coming year, ITE has committed its resources to
develop products, programs and services that contribute to these common
emphasis areas:
• Safety
and security;
• Management
and operations;
• Workforce
development;
• Public
relations/public awareness;
• Volunteer
management/recognition; and
• Member
service enhancements.
Expect to see this year’s accomplishments expanded to
include: additional online training modules in the areas of traffic operations
and transportation planning, a public relations video showcasing neighborhood
traffic programs and more web-based certification exam sites worldwide. TME
Jenny Grote can be reached at jenny. grote@phoenix.gov.
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