As transportation issues continue to challenge policy-makers
and budgets across Tennessee and across the country, our role as transportation
engineers will continue to grow in importance. It is the increasing role of the
members of ITE's Tennessee Section to promote our profession and its obligations
to provide safe and efficient travel to all of the residents of our state.
As President of TSITE, I want to increase our influence in several ways. One
area where I think we can grow is in our numbers. To do this, we should promote
ourselves to people who should be TSITE members who are not. For consultants it
may be a client, for municipal folks it may be a consultant you’re working with,
for students it may be a classmate. We need to invite these people to meetings
and invite them to be members. Working with our membership committee, we’re
going to increase contact through mail-outs getting more information to them.
But we don’t just want numbers – we want active members. And
so another way to attract active folks is to provide more opportunity for
service. I want to encourage the development of a group to be our eyes and ears
on the legislature to watch for activity so we can be proactive in our input. I
think an organized group of 300 transportation engineering professionals should
have more input that we currently do and I want to foster that.
We want to grow in influence on our campuses as well. We’ll keep encouraging
activity in our student chapters. We want to bring more students to meetings.
We’re giving them a great incentive to come to the Southern District Meeting on
our dollar. And we’ll continue all the awards that we currently offer. But more
than this, let’s try to offer a personal welcoming to the group; this type of
welcoming and professional and social interaction should be one of the benefits
of our organization.
I look forward to working with our
membership this year and I hope you find 2005 to be a great year for our
organization. If at any time you have questions or suggestions concerning TSITE
please do not hesitate to contact me. As always, thanks for your continued
support of Tennessee's ITE.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey L. Hammond, P.E.
