By Outgoing SDITE President Alison Catarella-Michel

Happy Holidays, Transportation Professionals!

Regardless of which holidays you celebrate, I hope that you spend them with family and/or friends, which includes fur babies for those who love or prefer animals! The past three years on the SDITE Board looked completely different than I imagined. I began 2020 with plans to attend at least three Section meetings in addition to mine. Also, planning for the joint meeting with International ITE in NOLA was starting to get intense. I was over-the-moon excited about the joint meeting and also determined to attend every Section meeting before my time on the Board was over. Then...COVID-19 came along, and the joint meeting in NOLA was eventually cancelled along with everything else. When things started to open up in 2021, I was registered with flights and hotel booked for the infamous “Summer Seminar” in Georgia! The Pandemic had other plans for me again, as I tested positive with COVID the weekend before I was supposed to leave. Stuck in my memory forever is that after I mustered the energy to sit up long enough to cancel my flights and hotel, I laid back down right before my fairly new Surface laptop slid to the floor off the bed and broke. My “not” attending Georgia Summer Seminar in 2021 was quite an expensive trip!

Luckily, 2022 has outshined the other two years. I enjoyed an amazing year and am still blown away by the Presidential Suite accommodations in Louisville, Kentucky! All the apprehension of planning a post-COVID meeting in a small Section on the edge of our District proved unnecessary as the meeting was a GREAT SUCCESS! This meeting was followed by the ITE International Annual Meeting and Exhibition in my hometown that I had been envisioning since I was a brand new Leadership ITE student in Washington D.C. in January of 2016. Seeing this come to fruition was literally a dream come true for me! Who knew the icing on the cake would be North Carolina winning Best Section and that the Southern District would win the Innovation Award for a mentoring program?

I decided this year not to introduce any new initiatives because as I have said many times, I believe the Southern District of ITE is super strong in every way – in numbers, as an organization, and financially, to name just a few. Being a group of ambitious engineers and planners, new initiatives began organically this year anyway. I am excited about the updated Annual Meeting and Operations Manuals that are now underway. With both professional assistance and “Kick-Off Meetings” for District Annual Meeting planning, I see a smoother road ahead for our valuable Local Arrangement Committees!

I try to extend gratitude every chance I get, but at risk of forgetting anyone, I won’t be specific. I just want to say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for electing me and trusting me to serve on your Board. I could have done a better job in many areas, but we not only survived, we thrived. Many thanks to my fellow board members these past few years who’ve picked up the slack and/or offered their help. You know who you are.

I’m not going to give up on my goal of attending every Section meeting at some point. I hope to visit a few other Section meetings next year as your Past President.  

Let’s welcome in 2023 with the hopeful anticipation of a child before their birthday, with faith that it will bring us the best gifts—ones that we’ll remember forever! Serving on the SDITE Board has been one of those gifts to me.

Stay well,

Alison

By Timothy Overend

The Citadel ITE Student Chapter President

Hello everyone!

My name is Timothy Overend, and I am the President of The Citadel’s ITE Student Chapter. Dr. Dimitra Michalaka is our lead faculty advisor, and Dr. Kweku Brown is the secondary faculty advisor. The leadership includes myself, Donovan Williams (Vice President), Thomas Aycock (Treasurer), Hughes Milling (Secretary), and Campbell DeHoll (Social Chair). We are all juniors in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the Citadel.

Our chapter meets biweekly. At the meetings, we invite local engineers or engineering firms to discuss different aspects of our industry and offer opportunities for entry-level engineering jobs. We hope to expand the chapter's reach by inviting evening students/veteran students that attend The Citadel and engaging with other chapters across the District. We will also begin the process of adopting a street and/or a bus stop in Charleston, allowing our members to give back to the community while gaining real-life transportation experience.

The Citadel will be hosting the 2023 ASCE Carolinas Student Symposium and will be heavily involved in the event planning as well as the transportation engineering competition. The Citadel has been involved in the ASCE conference for numerous years.

Our ITE student chapter’s biggest goal for next semester is to grow our membership. We are all passionate about learning and being mentored, and if enough members join, we will be able to give back to the community in even more ways. We would love to gather feedback on different ways we can mentor more students and give back to the community. If you have any ideas, please feel free to let me know! 

Respectfully,

C/SFC Timothy Overend

2023 SDITE Annual Meeting Announcements

The 2023 Annual Meeting will be held from March 19-22, 2023 at the Hyatt Regency in Savannah, Georgia. There are several ways you can begin participating well in advance of the meeting, including:

• Abstracts are currently being accepted through December 16. Submit your abstract/idea at this link today! For more information, click here.

• Nominations for awards will be accepted through December 30. Criteria and past winners for each award can be viewed here. Nominees should be submitted to your Section’s Awards Chair for consideration. Section Awards Chairs must submit all nominations to SDITE by December 30, 2022!

• The Southern District ITE Technical Knowledge Team and Member Services Committee announced the Technical Paper and Special Project Competition earlier this month. Your application of technical papers or special project is due on January 16, 2023. To submit, click here. For further information, contact Kevin Cole, Technical Knowledge Team Chair at coleka@cdmsmith.com or read the latest E-blast here!

• Sponsorship opportunities are now available! One of the best ways to get exposure for your company is through event sponsorship. The SDITE Annual Meeting brings together more than 350 leaders in the transportation industry from the public sector, private sector, and academia. Your sponsorship gets your logo in front of each of those attendees and assists the LAC in delivering a high-quality conference while keeping registration prices down. More information is available at this link.

Keep your inboxes peeled for E-blast reminders in the coming weeks as March approaches!

2023 SDITE Student Leadership Summit

The 2023 Southern District ITE Student Leadership Summit (SLS) will be hosted this coming year by Mississippi State University’s ITE Student Chapter on March 3-5, 2023. The SLS aims to educate students on how to succeed in the current transportation field and modernize transportation through leadership and technical expertise.

To integrate the 2023 SLS with MSU’s culture, participants will have the opportunity to eat in the Davis Wade Stadium, meet Bully the Bulldog, eat MSU’s famous ice cream, and be entered in a raffle to win one of the ITE cowbells! With panels on leadership, technical experience, and professional development accompanied by a career fair, mock interview, and resume review, students will gain the opportunity to grow both intra- and inter-personally. The career fair will allow companies invested in the future of transportation across the region to directly meet the next generation of young transportation professionals.

Register before February 1, 2023 for discounted fees for both professional and student attendees. Sponsors of the SLS are allowed a certain number of registration slots, depending on their sponsorship tier as well as participation in professional and social events.

To learn more about registering for or sponsoring the 2023 Southern District SLS, please visit itemsstate.org.

Caroline Kiser, MSU ITE Student Chapter President

2022 SDITE End of Year Board Meeting

The 2022 SDITE Board met in Wilmington, NC in November for the end-of-year meeting. They discussed past business from 2022, new business for 2023, and installed new officers. Congratulations to next year's officers, including Incoming President Christa Greene!

• Membership special: Transportation planning professionals can get free membership through the end of 2023 by joining now.

• Save the Date for the 2023 ITE Virtual Spring Conference, March 14-15, 2023.

• This month's ITE Talks Transportation podcast features Eric Rensel, Vice President at Gannett Fleming and Chair of the ITE Council Leadership Team. He discusses the skills that engineers and transportation planning professionals bring to the table and how the two can work together successfully on transportation projects.

December Dates of Interest

1. Dec. 1, 1913 – Ford Motor Company starts assembly line
2. Dec. 3, 2001 - The Segway Personal Transporter is shown to the public for the first time
3. Dec. 5, 1893 - First appearance of an electric car
4. Dec. 14, 1903 - The Wright Brothers make their first attempt to fly the Wright Flyer in NC
5. Dec. 15, 1854 - First street cleaning machine is used in Philadelphia, PA.

Jaywalking is decriminalized in California under new law

Roundabouts are (slowly!) eating the suburbs

Urban Planners and the Regulation of Sound in Our Cities

I-24 Traffic Experiment Using Technology To Solve Traffic Jams

Discretionary Transportation Grants: USDOT Should Better Communicate Federal Share Requirements To Applicants

Federal Railroad Administration: Better Communication Of Safety Information Could Improve The Close Call System

Traffic Sensors Along US 97 In Washington State To Provide More Insight For Improvements Along Corridor

Self-Driving Survivors Struggle with "Trough of Disillusionment"

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and the Southeast is full of bright lights and Christmas spirit! Share your photos with us as we celebrate the season!

Send photos to Dyan Damron or tag us on social media.

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