Under Richard Easley’s term as President of ITS Maryland (ITSMD), the ITSMD state chapter received two distinguished awards for best Best State Chapter 2012-2013. The awards for Outstanding State Chapter and the award for Membership Growth. Richard was able to provide strategic direction and leadership by asking the right questions concerning the status and future of ITS Maryland. With the confidence and support of ITSMD’s Board members, ITSMD responded by transforming itself into the state chapter that ‘was the clear leader in all categories of the competitive awards’ according to David St. Amant, ITS America’s Chairman of the Board.
ITS Maryland began new programs and transformed itself into the state chapter that ‘was the clear leader in all categories of the competitive awards’
Award Message for Richard Easley
From Eileen Singleton, Principle at Baltimore Metropolitan Council
I am so happy to announce that the 2024 Pat Timbrook Memorial Award of Service and Achievement is being presented to Richard Easley.
Richard has been an active member of ITSMD for decades. He is a past president and has been on the board for many years. I actually don’t know when he is on or off the board because he is always engaged in chapter activities – including but not limited to being on various committees, planning events, judging awards and scholarship applications, and presenting at our conferences and at lunch and learns. And I’m sure I’ve missed some things.
Richard has been a vocal advocate for topics that often get overlooked in our community, such as freight, transit, parking, and equity. Richard has also been active in ITSVA, ITS America, and ITS Canada; he is currently on the board of ITS Canada. ITSMD has benefited from all of Richard’s experiences, he brings his extensive knowledge to our chapter which has made the activities of ITSMD broader and more relevant to our transportation community.
I have really enjoyed working with and learning from Richard. In addition to working with him in ITSMD, we’ve worked together on the TRB Regional TSMO Committee. I know that Richard is also an active member of other TRB Committees and I’m sure there are other professional organizations where he volunteers that I don’t know about.
In addition to all of the volunteer efforts in his professional life, Richard is a very active member in his church. Richard’s generosity and willingness to help extends throughout his life.
He started his own successful consulting company, E-Squared Engineering, in 1998 and has worked on projects across the US and internationally. He will be retiring soon, and I’m sure his many colleagues around the world will miss working with him. I know I will. We wish you and Sharon all the best in your next chapter.
Over his career, Richard has provided many years of outstanding service to ITSMD and the local, national, and international transportation communities. He embodies the spirit of this award. So I am delighted to present the 2024 Pat Timbrook Memorial Award of Service and Achievement to Richard Easley.
About Patricia Timbrook, P.E., PTOE
Pat’s career in transportation began in Arlington County, Virginia when she became the first woman to ever be hired for the survey crew. She moved on from surveying to transportation planning, where her strong interest in computers and math led her to become the County’s project coordinator/systems engineer for its first computerized traffic signal system. From there, her career was focused in traffic operations and Intelligent Transportation Systems, propelling her as a pioneer and leader in the emerging ITS field. Pat served as president for ITS Maryland and was a Board member for many years. She was also a member of ITS Virginia.
Pat’s career with Arlington County spanned 12 years before she moved into the private sector, spending another 12 years as a traffic engineer and Director of ITS Engineering at Frederic R. Harris, and six years as a Vice President at Street Smarts. Her expertise in the traffic signal field took her to Florida after Hurricane Andrew to lead the effort to rebuild 77 damaged traffic signals in 90 days. After September 11th, Pat was called in to retime traffic signals on the fly to reroute buses and traffic away from the Pentagon to surrounding roadways after the Pentagon Metro stop was closed. In June 2006, Pat founded T3 Design Corporation, a woman-owned consulting firm that specializes in traffic and transportation engineering and continues today as her legacy.
Pat was always focused on technology and how it could be applied to solve our greatest transportation issues. She had extensive experience in systems engineering, design, installation, integration, and the testing and operations of Advanced Transportation Management Systems (ATMS) and ITS. Pat gained her experience working on high profile systems projects throughout the United States.
She served as the ITS General Consultant for the Florida DOT to support operations and management program development for Transportation Management Centers, systems engineering and review of applicability and status of ITS standards as related to the FDOT program. She also worked on the Metropolitan ITS Integration Project for the Georgia DOT as a Principal ITS Engineer where she provided Quality Assessment reviews of the System Requirement Documents for the integration of the GA NaviGAtor System, Atlanta’s 911 System, and MARTA. She managed the assessment of live CAD impacts within the NaviGAtor test environment.
She worked for several years as the Deputy Project Manager for the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) Transportation Operations Center. In this role, she served as the on-site manager of the operations staff for the statewide transportation management system. She was responsible for the development of standard operating guidelines, procedural manuals, training programs, and integration support during the state’s start-up of a multimillion-dollar transportation management system. She provided system integration and system administration support for the center. The start-up system included dynamic message signs, CCVE, and highway advisory radio. As part of this role, Pat also supported the development of the ITS strategic plan and statewide ITS regional architecture.
Pat was the key ITS and traffic engineer for the I-95/I-395 Express Lanes project in Northern Virginia where she was responsible for reviewing all ITS plans and estimates on behalf of VDOT. As part of this first HOT lanes project in Virginia, Pat was responsible for the development of systems engineering documents for upgrading existing reversible gate control systems, including documentation and developing technical memoranda establishing the baseline existing conditions, concept exploration, concept design plans, and a feasibility assessment of various technical options.
Pat supported the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) in the development of their third generation electronic toll collection system. She developed plans of the existing toll plazas for Thomas J. Hatem Bridge Toll Facility, John F. Kennedy Highway Toll Facility and Baltimore Harbor Tunnel Toll Facility to evaluate toll equipment including: violation enforcement system cameras, card readers, toll both signals, automatic vehicle identification equipment, dynamic message signs, conduits, gates, loop detectors and other related infrastructure.
In her over 40 year career, Pat provided both technical expertise and project management in the application of national standards in the design of traffic signal and freeway management systems; the integration and implementation, and testing of advanced transportation management systems and components, management and integration of statewide transportation management center, and the evaluation of the benefits of these systems. As a pioneer in the ITS field, Pat developed ITS Architecture for various DOTs and Concept of Operations (ConOps) manuals that were instrumental in early ITS adoption efforts.
Bob Winick has been a vital contributor to the 20+ year success of ITS Maryland. He was not one of the original members, but he has been involved in countless activities from just about the beginning in 1995. Bob is not only a distinguished member of ITS Maryland, but he is a leader, a visionary, a champion, a mentor; and so many of us have benefitted from working with and knowing him. Bob brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the field of transportation and ITS and has been a mentor and a source of inspiration to many of over the years.
Bob is best known as the driving force behind our Technology Fair held each year in Annapolis during the Maryland General Assembly session. The first Technology Fair was held in 2002, and its great success has been due in large part to Bob’s hard work, perseverance, and knowledge of our elected officials. This event continues to be a highlight of the year for our chapter and the way we reach our state’s elected officials and educate them about the work of our members around the state. With Bob’s focus on performance measures, we track who attends each year, so we can show that we have continued to attract more attendees, including more elected officials, each year. He spent countless hours working on both of our strategic plans, annual meetings, and other chapter events.
Bob was the ITS Maryland president from 2005 to 2006. He has held other officer positions as well as being a member of the ITS Maryland Board of Directors for many years both before and after serving as president. Bob is the embodiment of how a board officer should remain involved and set an example for other volunteers to follow.
The chapter owes a huge debt of gratitude to Bob for ITS Maryland’s ongoing success.
Fall 2023 marked 43 years of professional engineering service for K.R. Marshall. Beginning in 1980, fresh out of Union College (NY) with a degree in Civil Engineering (and where he was a 4-year letterman in basketball), K.R. began a job as a research assistant with the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) while he pursued his Master’s degree at Texas A&M University. After graduation, K.R. worked for 2 transportation consulting companies in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. While working in Dallas, K.R. attended the Mobility 2000 workshop which marked the development of the national IVHS (now ITS) program and provided the foundation for the formation of ITS America.
In 1993, K.R. accepted an offer from Farradyne Systems in Rockville and moved his family to Maryland. In early 1995, K.R. participated in the ITS Maryland chapter formation meetings and became a member of the first ITS Maryland Board of Directors. His ITS Maryland officer roles in those early years included Vice President from 1998-1999 and President from 1999 to 2000. K.R. was ITS Maryland’s 5th President and during his term ITS Maryland executed its first administrative support services contract with the University of Maryland CATT and prepared its first by-laws. Some of the other accomplishments from that year include:
K.R. remained on the Board through 2001 when he rotated off but continued to be active in many chapter activities during those subsequent years. In 2017, K.R. rejoined the ITS Maryland Board and in 2020 was elected again for another 3-year term. K.R. is very proud of the organization that ITS Maryland has become and especially likes seeing the influx of young and talented members.
The chapter owes a huge debt of gratitude to K.R. for ITS Maryland’s ongoing success.
