Resilient Roads Roundtable Announces Spring 2023 Innovators and Influencers List
Transportation Infrastructure Sector Leaders Recognized for Advancing Road Resilience
(Atlanta, GA, April 11, 2023): The Resilient Roads Roundtable has released its Spring 2023 list of Resilient Roads Innovators and Influencers. The purpose of the bi-annual Resilient Roads Innovators and Influencers list is to spotlight those whose efforts and advocacy have driven the development and adoption of new materials, methods, and models to enhance transportation infrastructure resilience. The program is intended to inspire others to pursue similar leadership actions.
The Resilient Roads Roundtable is a council of transportation infrastructure luminaries and their organizations with a common interest in improving the resiliency and longevity of North American roadways. Membership is drawn from across the transportation infrastructure ecosystem – from transportation agency officials, road materials manufacturers, and technology pioneers to top academic researchers and industry association executives.
The Spring 2023 Resilient Roads Innovators and Influencers list showcases those “first among equals” who are paving the way for successful road resilience initiatives and results.
- Roger Millar – Secretary of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and 2022-2023 president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). Millar has been a vocal advocate for resilience initiatives in his roles at WSDOT and AASHTO. At AASHTO, he has helped to broaden the transportation sector’s view of resilience stating, “Many think of resilience in the context of climate change and natural disaster response, but to me, it is also about the need to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions such as shifting demographics, an aging population that will drive fewer cars, and economic changes such as moving from extraction industries like forestry and mining to technology and software companies.” He has incorporated this view into WSDOT’s strategic initiatives which take an expansive approach to resilience including improving seismic resilience, enhancing resilience-oriented asset management and improvement of operational resilience including emergency preparedness.
- Dr. Brian Wolshon, Edward A. and Karen Wax Schmitt Distinguished Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Louisiana State University and Director of the Gulf Coast Center for Evacuation and Transportation Resiliency. With deep expertise in highway design and traffic engineering, particularly related to the management of transportation systems during mass evacuations, Dr. Wolshon has been a prolific resilience thought leader. His recent publications include co-authoring the book, “Creating Resilient Transportation Systems,” co-authoring the “Resilience Primer for Transportation Executives,” and a study on transportation system disaster preparedness for coastal and river valley communities.
- Dr. Aimee Flannery, Global Technology Leader – Transportation Risk & Resiliency, Jacobs. Following successful terms as a transportation engineering professor at George Mason University and a surface transportation analyst with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Dr. Flannery joined the global engineering firm, Jacobs in August 2022. At Jacobs, a firm which has worked on over 1,000 resilience-based projects in the Jacobs portfolio around the globe, Flannery supports agencies in their assessment of system performance and resilience from relevant threats. She has been a long-time, active presenter and author on integrating transportation resilience into asset management including published research like “Risk and Resilience Analysis for Highway Assets,” speaking engagements at public forums such as the Asset Leadership Network’s “A Culture of Value – Sustainable Infrastructure” event and leadership roles with groups like the Transportation Research Board’s Committee on Transportation Asset Management.
- Dr. Rawlings Miller, Vice President of Climate Advisory and Resiliency, TRC Companies, Inc. TRC is a leading, global consulting, engineering and construction management firm that provides environmentally focused solutions for the transportation sector, among other infrastructure markets. Miller has more than 27 years’ experience in climate science, risk and resiliency, and an additional 2 years’ experience as an engineer. She has led a range of transportation-focused climate vulnerability risk assessments and adaptation planning efforts supporting communities in evaluating their climate risk and related economic and equity consequences. She has provided climate-focused technical and project management direction and support for myriad government agencies including the EPA, DHS, DOD, USDOT and NHTSA and has also served as a subject matter expert in climate resilience for the federal government. Miller is an avid champion of road resilience, co-authoring publications like, “Mainstreaming System Resilience Concepts into Transportation Agencies: A Guide” for NCHRP, speaking on resilience at major summits like the upcoming Climate Change Preparedness Conference and contributing thought leadership on behalf of TRC such her recent post, “How to Develop a Climate Resiliency Plan for Extreme Weather Events.”
- Stephen E. Flynn – Professor of Political Science; Founding Director, Global Resilience Institute, Northeastern University. Dr. Flynn’s Global Resilience Institute (GRI) is an interdisciplinary institute committed to developing and deploying practical and innovative tools, applications, and skills that strengthen the resilience of individuals, communities, infrastructure, systems, networks, and societies. Flynn is also a key faculty member of Northeastern University’s Masters in Security and Resilience Studies program. Dr. Flynn has presented expert congressional testimony before the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives on 31 occasions. He has delivered keynote addresses at more than one hundred international and national conferences. Dr. Flynn is a frequent media commentator and has appeared on Meet the Press, 60 Minutes, The News Hour, The Today Show, the Charlie Rose Show, CNN and on National Public Radio. He is co-author of the textbook, Critical Infrastructures Resilience: Policy and Engineering Principles, and author of The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation, and the national bestseller, America the Vulnerable.
- Allie Kelly – Executive Director, The Ray – The Ray is a nonprofit organization that has built the nation’s only publicly accessible, living laboratory for transportation innovation. While The Ray’s primary focus is on building net-zero highways, they also work on improving the resilience of highways along their 18-mile stretch of I-85 in Georgia. Kelly has helped the organization to implement and build more than a dozen projects from concept to construction on The Ray Highway and is scaling innovations from its I-85 testbed across the country. Kelly is a frequent public speaker and delivered keynote remarks about The Ray from the main stage at transportation, environmental, and technology industry conferences around the world including the U.S Transportation Research Board, AASHTO, and the climate tech event VERGE.
- Jack Dangermond – President and Co-Founder, Esri. Esri provides geographic information systems (GIS) technology – like its ArcGIS Roads and Highways for Road Management — that helps transportation organizations and planners visualize critical data, develop frameworks and methods for quantifying transportation resilience, and plan for potential infrastructure disruptions. Among its resilience initiatives, Esri donated its technology and counsel to help developing countries visualize, understand, and mitigate the impacts of climate change. More recently, Esri partnered with the U.S. Government and the State of California to equip communities with map-based dashboards that help them assess exposure to climate hazards. Dangermond personally and professionally promotes resilience and sustainability through climate-centered public speaking engagements and establishment of the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve in cooperation with The Nature Conservancy (TNC). The Dangerwood Preserve is one of the largest gifts in TNC’s history, established to facilitate environmental and fire resilience research and conservation technology sharing worldwide.
“The Resilient Roads Innovators and Influencers list recognizes those who have been making extraordinary contributions to improve road resilience materials and methods and who are advocating and educating decision-makers across the transportation landscape. It is incredibly inspiring to find so many transportation visionaries who are committed to improving the resilience of our roads and highways,” said Paul Schmitz, Market Manager – Public Roads with Tensar International Corporation and co-founder of the Resilient Roads Roundtable.
About Resilient Roads Roundtable
The Resilient Road Roundtable is a gathering of transportation infrastructure leaders and their organizations with a common interest in improving the resiliency and longevity of North American roadways. The mission is to encourage the adoption of Life Cycle Cost Analysis and the setting of performance expectations for road building and maintenance initiatives to build more enduring roads for less cost – both upfront and over the long-term. The Roundtable encourages the use of a range of innovative materials and methods for road longevity and resilience with a one-size-fits-none viewpoint – that is, there are likely to be multiple solutions to the matter. Participants also join forces to educate stakeholders on products, processes and best practices that will save time, money, lives, and the environment. See www.resilientroadways.com
