Speaking

B&N's Scott Perfater will moderate the "Ok! Now, what are we gonna do about it?" panel discussion centered around planning and design. This panel will feature Will Potter, Ed Kestory, Justin Hall and Jeremy Dilmore. Together, they will discuss dilemma flipping: in order to deliver, challenges are just opportunities in disguise. Topics in this discussion include: 

• Talent: with a particular focus on how to move past the "shortage." Declining engineering college application and graduate rates. Estimated workforce shortage. Retention issues especially among younger staff. How are we making the transportation industry an attractive place to work? Are we as active as we can be in elementary, middle and high schools? Are we engaged with our local engineering universities? Engineering salaries lag law, technology, accounting, etc. How do we retain talent? Are we making our firms an attractive place to work? Is voluntary turnover a problem? Should we look elsewhere for talent (i.e. accounting, business, etc. majors)?
• Technology: a particular focus on the life cycle to implementation. "The pace of change has never been this fast, yet it will never be this slow again." The rate of technology change has surpassed human ability to adapt. No where is this a truer statement than in the transportation arena. FDOT has to move faster to identify, evaluate, pilot and implement new technologies. This is an area ACEC-Florida member firms must step up to be able to deliver. Panelists could cite certain technologies, certain processes and identify opportunities for member firms to contribute.
• Quality: with a particular focus on the shared responsibility of sound QC. Task force recommendations and conclusions can be reviewed. Central Office, D5 and D7 share their perspectives. This portion is more than just a "do better" message to Industry. Sound quality control involves a myriad of issues and crosses a variety of professionals with different interests, pressures and goals. A Bentley representative will join the panel to talk about ORD and the challenges and solutions being evaluated to ensure the technology supports the human effort to be more efficient and effective.
• Safety: with a particular focus on the downward trend in serious injury and fatal crashes and the contributing factors to this positive one-year running result. It's no one factor but a mindset shift to focus on driver behavior (i.e. drivers make mistakes, designs can take into account how drivers actually behave vs. how they should behave) and young driver education (get to drivers before they're drivers, etc.). Central Office can discuss Target Zero, D5 can share their Safety Strategic Plan, D7 can discuss their efforts that have resulted in significant declines in serious injury and fatal crashes. Jeremy Dilmore will discuss the role of technology in identifying near misses, problem intersections by design, the role of AI in evaluating big data to identify trends we would not otherwise see, etc.