AASHTO Journal - Nomination Cycle Begins for Transportation Vanguard Award

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials is soliciting nominations for the 2018 Transportation Vanguard Award, with submissions accepted from member transportation departments until August 17, 2018.

Details the nomination process for the awards can be found at https://meetings.transportation.org/aashto-awards/.

Send nominations via e-mail to pngethe@aashto.org as a single file in Microsoft Word format using “TVA2018Nomination_LastNameFirstName” as the file name. If you are unable to e-mail the nomination, please call Patricia Ng’ethe at (202) 624-5862.

Any individual from an AASHTO member department, age 40 or younger at the time of the nomination and working in a permanent status capacity for a state department of transportation who exemplifies a commitment to excellence and/or implementation of innovative technologies and processes is welcomed to be nominated for the Transportation Vanguard Award.

AASHTO will only accept one nominee per member state DOT and this person should be nominated by a supervisor and endorsed by the DOT’s Secretary/Director. AASHTO will then convene a special panel whose purpose will be to select an individual deserving of the award. The winner of this award will be invited to present his/her innovative technology or process at AASHTO’s Annual Meeting 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia, in September with travel expenses paid for by the association.

The definition of a “vanguard” is someone who is at the forefront of new developments and technologies, which is what the Transportation Vanguard Award is designed to honor: saluting an individual doing extraordinary things in the field of transportation.

AASHTO grants this award in honor of James McMinimee, formerly of the Utah Department of Transportation, who during his lifetime of public service “epitomized the role of a committed leader of innovation” among his peers and the state DOTs, the group said.

McMinimee worked for the Utah DOT for 25 years, serving in progressive leadership roles in maintenance, operations, and project development. He led successful implementation efforts in diverse areas such as performance management, innovative contracting, partnering, maintenance management, traffic operations, design, software development, Olympic operations, and project management.

Under his guidance, the Utah DOT successfully pioneered the use of self-propelled modular transporters to move completed bridge sections into place in a matter of hours. McMinimee also served as AASHTO’s Implementation Manager for the second Strategic Highway Research Program, working to apply innovative research to critical work done in the field of transportation across the nation.