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Office of International Programs

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Appendix A Team Members

Addresses at the time of scan tour

Biographic Sketches

Dr. Kam Movassaghi, Panel Co-Chair, is Secretary of the Department of Transportation and Development in the State of Louisiana (LADOTD) with headquarters in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Dr. Movassaghi currently directs a staff of 5,600 employees and an annual budget of more than $1 billion. LADOTD's scope of operation includes all modes of transportation in addition to ports, flood control, water resources, and an offshore oil terminal. The Department's research activities are housed at the Louisiana Transportation Research Center, located on the Louisiana State University campus and supported by LADOTD. Prior to joining LADOTD in 1998, he served as professor and head of the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette. His research areas of interest included transportation planning and operations, GIS-T, and network analysis and logistics. Dr. Movassaghi is a graduate of the University of Louisiana in Lafayette and holds a Master's degree and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Louisiana State University. He is a licensed professional engineer in Louisiana and has served on several technical and professional committees of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Currently, he is president of the Southeastern Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and a member of the Executive Committee of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Sandra Otto, Panel Co-Chair, is the Assistant Division Administrator (ADA) for the Arkansas Division of the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). As ADA, Ms. Otto shares responsibility with the Division Administrator for administering the Federal-aid highway program in Arkansas. This includes ensuring that FHWA emphasis areas, including context-sensitive highway design, are advanced within the State of Arkansas. This past year, as Chair of the American Society of Civil Engineers' (ASCE) Environmental Quality Committee, she was responsible for presenting a nationwide workshop on Context Sensitive Highway Design in the Washington, D.C., area. Prior to her promotion to ADA, Ms. Otto was Program Development Engineer in the Colorado Division and a Special Assistant to the Environmental Operations Division Chief in Washington, D.C. Ms. Otto holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Montana State University and a Master's in Environmental Management and Public Policy (MPA) from The George Washington University. She is a licensed professional engineer in Washington and current Chair of the ASCE Highway Division's Environmental Quality Committee.

James O. (Jim) Brewer is the Engineering Manager of the State Road Office for the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) in Topeka, Kansas. He manages the pre-construction portion of KDOT's $12.9 billion, 10-year Comprehensive Transportation Program, which includes all location studies and geometric design. He has been with KDOT for 33 years with more than 30 years of that time involved in road design. He graduated from the University of Arkansas with a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering. He is a registered professional engineer in Kansas. He serves on the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Task Forces on Geometric Design and Aesthetic Design. He also has served on several technical committees of the Transportation Research Board. In addition, Mr. Brewer currently is a member of the AASHTO Subcommittee on Design.

John L. German is the Director of Public Works for the City of San Antonio, Texas, and is currently responsible for more than 1,600 employees, an operating budget of $106 million, and a $300 million capital improvement program of which $85 million is expended in the current budget. Functions under his direction include streets and drainage maintenance and operations, solid waste and environmental services, building construction and maintenance, capital projects management, engineering, traffic operations, and parking for a city with a population greater than 1 million. Prior to his current position, Mr. German was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Texas Research and Development Foundation and was also a Senior Traffic Engineering Consultant (1988-92). In this position he was project manager for the Long-term Pavement Performance research project under the Strategic Highway Program. He also has served as Executive Vice President for Land Development with Franklin Savings in Austin (1983-88), and Director of Public Works and as Assistant City Manager for the City of Austin, Texas, between 19771983. He held other positions in traffic engineering, transportation planning, and geometric design prior to these assignments. Mr. German is a graduate of Texas A&M University with a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering and the Yale University Bureau of Highway Traffic with the Master's equivalent in Traffic Engineering and Transportation Planning. He also holds a Master's of Public Administration degree from the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. He is a licensed professional engineer in the State of Texas, is a Fellow of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), and an active member of the American Public Works Association, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the American Society of Testing and Materials. He also serves as the Chair of the Governmental Affairs Committee and as a member of the Engineering and Technology Committee of the American Public Works Association. He previously served on various ITE committees dealing with geometric design issues. Mr. German is well qualified to represent cities on this scanning tour, having served as an officer of many professional organizations, written numerous articles, and spoken on a wide variety of technical and management issues during his 33 years of professional service.

Dr. Ray Krammes is a senior highway research engineer for the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Dr. Krammes is Roadway Team Leader in FHWA's Office of Safety Research and Development at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center in McLean, Virginia. The Roadway Team develops geometric-design, speed-management, and visibility-enhancement techniques and safety evaluation tools to keep vehicles on the roadway, decrease speed-related causes of crashes, improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety, and make highway work zones safer. Dr. Krammes manages development of the Interactive Highway Safety Design Model, a suite of software analysis tools for quantitative evaluation of the safety impacts of highway geometric design decisions. Prior to joining FHWA in 1997, Dr. Krammes was on the Civil Engineering faculty at Texas A&M University and conducted traffic engineering research through the Texas Transportation Institute. He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University. He serves on geometric-design related technical committees of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Institute of Transportation Engineers, and the Transportation Research Board.

John Okamoto is Regional Administrator for the Washington State Department of Transportation. As Regional Administrator, Mr. Okamoto is responsible for planning, designing, construction, and operation of interstate and State highways in the most populated region in the State with more than 2.5 million residents. He is responsible for coordinating transportation services with local governments, marine and air port authorities, public transit agencies, rail operators, and the nation's largest public ferry system. Mr. Okamoto's region employs 1,600 employees with a biennial budget of $1.1 billion. Prior to being appointed as Regional Administrator, Mr. Okamoto spent nearly 20 years with the City of Seattle serving in several department-head positions, including Director of Engineering. He has a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree in public administration from the University of Washington, and has attended Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Mr. Okamoto has served on many national and State transportation committees, and is current transportation chair of the American Public Works Association.

Wendell T. Ruff is the Assistant Chief Engineer for the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) at State headquarters in Jackson, Mississippi. He currently directs the Department's Pre-construction Engineering Activities. His duties include oversight of roadway and bridge design, environmental/location activities, right-of-way acquisition, and research. Prior to being appointed Assistant Chief Engineer in 1998, he served as the Roadway Design Division Engineer and the State Geotechnical Engineer for MDOT. Mr. Ruff is a graduate of Mississippi State University and holds a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering. He is a licensed professional engineer in Mississippi and serves on several technical committees of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the Transportation Research Board.

Seppo I. Sillan is the Senior Engineer, Office of Program Administration of the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in Washington, D.C. His current responsibilities include directing the development, implementation, and monitoring of national highway geometric design standards, policies and guidelines, value engineering program, and pre-construction procedures such as use of consultants. His past positions include division, region and headquarters office assignments in design, construction, maintenance, research, and technology transfer areas. Prior to joining the FHWA he worked with the California Highway Department. He obtained his Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Florida. Mr. Sillan is active in various committees and task forces of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Transportation Research Board. He is also an active member of the World Road Association Committee on Roads, Transport and Regional Development.

Dr. Nikiforos Stamatiadis, the Report Facilitator, is an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Kentucky (UK) in Lexington, Kentucky. At UK he teaches transportation and traffic-related courses and he supervises and conducts transportation engineering research with an emphasis on human factors, traffic safety, and geometric design. His current research emphasis includes the impact of context-sensitive designs on safety, development of relationships between crashes on rural roads and geometric features, evaluation of driver licensing renewal procedures, and safety concerns for elderly drivers. Prior to joining the faculty at UK in 1990, he worked as a full-time researcher at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece. Dr. Stamatiadis holds a Bachelor's degree in Surveying Engineering from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil Engineering from Michigan State University. He is a licensed professional engineer in Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana, and Europe, and serves on several technical committees of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Institute of Transportation Engineers, and the Transportation Research Board. Dr. Stamatiadis is also the president of the Kentucky Section of the Institute of Transportation Engineers.

Robert (Bob) Walters is the Chief Engineer for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department in Little Rock, Arkansas. He has worked for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department for 28 years, with 26 years in the highway design area. As Chief Engineer, he now oversees planning, design, construction, and maintenance of the State's highway system. Mr. Walters is a graduate of the University of Arkansas with a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in Civil Engineering. He is a licensed professional engineer in Arkansas. He is a past Vice-Chair of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials' (AASHTO's) Joint Task Force on Pavements, and currently serves as the Chair of the AASHTO Task Force on Geometric Design. This Task Force is charged with updating the AASHTO "Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets." In addition, Mr. Walters is currently serving as a member of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program Panel researching design speed and operating speed issues.

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Page last modified on November 7, 2014
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