From the District Director

Edward Soldo, P.Eng., FITE Canadian District Director, ITE director@itecanada.org The ITE Annual Meeting and Exhibition was held in New Orleans, LA from July 31 to August 4 and the conference theme was “Investing in Our Future”. For those of you that have never been to “NOLA” in the summer, let’s just say it is a bit warm. It is a city rich in historical culture, European-style architecture, Creole cuisine, and jazz music. I can now say that I have ridden a vintage street car, gone on a cemetery ghost tour, been to Bourbon Street, and eaten an alligator burger.

At the ITE Board of Direction meeting, three new sections in New England were approved, the annual audit report was presented which identified that ITE’s finances are strong, and the Board worked on our 2023 initiative to attract and engage more transportation planners to ITE. The Exhibition was full of the latest and greatest in transportation technology and provided a great space for discussion with the vendors and other delegates.

The conference opening session, plenary sessions, Traffic Bowl and reception provided a great opportunity to reconnect in person with many colleagues from across ITE. I was pleased to see many Canadian ITE members from across the country at the conference—including those who graduated from the LeadershipITE program (Jill Juhlke, Farhad Shahla, Federico M. Puscar)— award winners, exhibitors, and session speakers. We had an opportunity to have a little get together towards the end of the conference to reconnect over a beverage as well.

One of our major OneITE initiatives for this year has been to recharter all of our Student Chapters. At our Canadian District Board of Directors meeting in September, we approved the rechartering of 17 of our student chapters across the country. I would encourage all of our members to work with your Sections in strengthening the relationships with our student chapters, volunteering your time to act as speakers at student events, and to help mentor the future leaders of our profession.

Keep well, stay safe and if you have any questions regarding ITE, please contact me at esoldo@ itecanada.org on Twitter @EdwardSoldo.

Edward Soldo, P.Eng. (F) Canadian District Director VOLUNTEER HIGHLIGHT Edward has served ITE at the Student Chapter, Section, District and International levels. He has been on the ITE Canada District Executive since 2013. Prior to that, he was on the Hamilton Section Executive and served as the Student Liaison/Faculty Advisor for the Mohawk College Student Chapter. In his current role as District Director, he is an active participant on the ITE International Board of Direction and on Board committees. Thank you for your many contributions to the ITE community, Edward!

Snapshots from ITE NOLA

Ervina Hendra and Marcia Eng accepting the ITE International 2022 Transportation Achievement Award for Complete Streets. Read about their winning project on page 25.

Jenna Duke, Katie Wiebe, and Cassidy Zroebek from the University of Manitoba represented the Canadian District at the Traffic Bowl Championships