Executive Committee Meeting Minutes
October 9, 2006

Participants: Lisa Harris, Patsy Anderson, Bruce Drewes, George Huntington, Marie Walsh, Jim Grothaus, Ed Stellfox, Janet Leli, Bernie Alkaire, Clark Martin.

Previous EC minutes. The minutes for the 7/30 EC meeting in Florida and the 9/11 EC conference call were approved as written. The agenda for this 10/9 conference call was approved as written.

2007 National LTAP Conference planning. Patsy Anderson has prepared a template for the program organized around these four groups; Management, Training, Operations, and Communications. The intent is to have an agenda for the conference completed or very nearly completed by the TRB.

Kevin Burke (Illinois) as the 2007 host Center and Renee Koller, (Colorado) as the 2008 host Center are working to document the annual conference program development, management and evaluation process to provide a framework for conference logistics and assist the next host Center and program committee in developing the program.

Kevin Burke hosted and Patsy Anderson chaired a conference steering committee meeting in Chicago on October 3. The steering committee agreed to begin the conference on Monday, July 23rd through Thursday, July 26th, 2007, with LTAP 101 and FHWA's Safety Workshop on Monday. This is a half day shorter than past years. Patsy and Lisa, who both attended the Chicago meeting, indicated the new schedule would work very well. There will be at least one participatory session in each track, as per requests from prior conference evaluations.

Patsy reported that there is good participation in the planning for next year's conference with all regions represented; 26 Centers, including 2 TTAP Centers are involved in planning the program. There is a need to set up a workgroup or subcommittee for standardizing conference evaluations.

The Conference Steering Committee is also trying to identify possible times for a meeting at TRB, possibly on Saturday.

AASHTO presentation. Lisa led the EC in a discussion about what to include in the LTAP presentation at the AASHTO Annual Meting in Portland. Discussion focused on: How does LTAP interact with AASHTO? How do individual Centers interact with their State DOTs? Is research or training cooperation an issue? The EC hopes to have examples of cooperation presented by a State Chief Engineer as part of the program. Marie pointed out the need to coordinate this effort with Doyt Bolling, UT-LTAP, who has been working with AASHTO's TIG and is the NLTAPA liaison to AASHTO.

Lisa suggested a survey of the LTAP Centers to assess the work of LTAP Centers with their DOTs to help prepare for the presentation. Lisa asked whether AASHTO allowed non-State DOT people on their committees, perhaps as associate members. It was pointed out that Doyt and Tony Giancola are on the TIG. Bruce mentioned that LTAP has been asked to be more involved by Mike McGough, the AASHTO National Transportation Product Evaluation Program Manager. Patsy and Marie pointed out that we need to clarify the difference between interacting with AASHTO, the national organization, versus interaction with the State DOTs. Lisa asked to have a conference call sometime next week with Doyt Bolling, Lisa, Marie, Patsy, Bruce, Cheri Marti, and Clark to continue working on the LTAP presentation to AASHTO.

Transportation Curriculum Coordination Council (TCCC). Ed Stellfox as Chair of the NLTAPA Training Products and Resources Work Group provided a review of the LTAP interest in TCCC. The TCCC program is focused on developing the state DOT transportation construction workforce and works with a number of transportation community partners to identify training needs and establish training programs to meet those needs.

Ben Gribbon with the FHWA Office of Safety has established a working group to focus on safety training development including establishing a safety training/course/ instructor information-based Clearinghouse. Gribbon's working group has identified thousands of safety training programs. Once the current programs are identified, the intent is to identify gaps in safety/training professional development and to them work to develop programs to fill those gaps. NLTAPA's Training Products & Resources Workgroup has a similar interest of identifying needs and resources for Centers and has suggested that LTAP consider supporting the TCCC effort because is so closely mirrors the LTAP interest. TCCC would like to LTAP to be involved in the process. Ed indicated that he understands it would cost $20,000 to "buy into" TCCC process base.

Discussion focused on the need to more clearly define the benefit to LTAP Centers of participating in TCCC. Ed indicated that with the $20,000, LTAP would get access to the new database as well as input concerning future projects. He suggested that LTAP probably would have spent at least that much developing training and populating our own database. Besides the significance of the database there is also an opportunity to leverage this funding into sustainable training development for the LTAP program. Ed indicated that nowhere else, including NHI, can even one or two topics be developed for this size investment. As participants in the TCCC process, LTAP would have access to the courses TCCC has developed for all levels of LTAP users from workers to supervisory.

Another key element is that state DOTs have a handle on training needs, and while LTAP client needs are slightly different, working with TCCC still promises to help LTAP determine topic development priorities. Working with TCCC will substantially raise the visibility of LTAP at the state DOT level which will support the strategy FHWA/NLTAPA is developing for improving LTAP program partnerships with the state DOTs.

The funding support to TCCC will be important to show the LTAP program as a visible, contributing partner and not merely seen as taking from the process rather than also contributing. Ed indicated the $20,000 "buy in" is worth many times what is being asked. Patsy commented that she believed the partnership with TCCC would be a great benefit to LTAP. The EC agreed the program showed great promise, and asked for more information about the TCCC program, process and status of the data base, and the process of how LTAP and TCCC would work together. This information would more clearly define the benefits to the Centers.

Clark Martin indicated that he would work with Ed Stellfox to draft a short paper that would describe the TCCC program and how LTAP may work with TCCC.

FHWA international activities. LTAP has been asked to provide a representative for the FHWA Office of International Programs (OIP) international scan program. Lisa will work with OIP to identify desired qualifications for an LTAP representative. Mike Avery with OIP is on the agenda for the 10/30-11/1 Executive Committee meeting to discuss how LTAP can engage in international technology transfer programs. Clark indicated the Office of Professional and Corporate Development will be meeting with OIP on 10/17 to discuss follow-up activities to the International Transportation Technology Symposium.

Further work with NTTD. Bruce Drewes is continuing to update Ray Belk (TxDOT) of NTTD on LTAP activities and will also talk to NTTD about TCCC. Bruce also indicated there may be some value in having LTAP and NTTD meet jointly every other year or perhaps every third year. Bruce has discussed the possibility of joint meetings with Belk, who was receptive to the idea.

Roadway Safety Foundation. The Roadway Safety Foundation has received a $1.72 million grant from FHWA. LTAP needs to know more about the Foundation and the grant program. Tony Giancola has urged NLTAPA to consider becoming a member of RSF. Lisa Harris will ask Tony Giancola to comment on the Foundation at the 10/30-11-1 NLTAPA Executive Committee.

Agenda for EC Fall Meeting in DC. Lisa advised that plans were progressing for the EC Fall meeting at the end of the month, and that she would be sending a draft agenda to the EC soon. Discussion focused on the opportunity to have representatives from FHWA on the agenda, particularly the Office of Safety. Clark suggested one or more of the Office of Safety Office Directors; John Baxter, Mike Halladay or Beth Alicandri. Clark will follow-up on who should be invited.

Another agenda item will be the NLTAPA Governing structure. The Ad hoc group has met and will provide a report to the EC at the Washington meeting. Marie Walsh advised that she needed to discuss NLTAPA Partnerships at the meeting, and Lisa would like to include a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis as part of the meeting. Clark advised the important of making travel arrangements through the Federal travel system and OPCD travel coordinator April Miller.

Governing Structure: next steps. Lisa will include the Governing Structure as an agenda item at the upcoming EC meeting. She would like the EC to develop a recommendation for the Governing Structure to be sent to the Centers for consideration, get comments and present a final structure to the NLTAPA membership to vote on at the TRB meeting.

Officers Meeting in Chicago. Lisa discussed her meeting with Patsy and Clark prior to the conference planning meeting in Chicago on October 2. Discussions included the possibility of the Clearinghouse assuming the NLTAPA Treasurer's responsibilities and how well the LTAP Program is meeting the needs of the local agency market. The group briefly discussed ARTBA support services to the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC. Lisa and Clark will pursue the possibility of the Clearinghouse providing additional support services to NLTAPA.

Workgroup Updates and Actions

Partnerships - Marie Walsh advised there may be some overlap between the Partnership Working Group, External Communications, and Training Products and Resources. She asked for one hour on the Washington EC agenda to address the overlap issue. Marie also advised that there is interest from the American Concrete Institute (ACI) in partnering or collaborating with NLTAPA, and there would be additional discussion at the upcoming EC meeting.

Training Products and Resources - Ed Stellfox advised that at this work group's last conference call, Gib Peaslee brought the group up to date on what ARTBA can do as the Clearinghouse. Ed also indicated he was coordinating with the Partnership work group, and that ongoing collaboration would be important.

External Communications - Bruce Drewes is in the process of completing the draft of the work plan for this workgroup for review by the Executive Committee. He has postponed a meeting of the workgroup until TRB. He needs to review the TRB agenda including LTAP meetings to coordinate a meeting of his workgroup.

Other work groups - There were no reports for Professional Development or Internal Communications. Lisa indicated that she and Jim Grothaus, as the new Chair of Professional Development, and Janet Leli, as the new Chair of Internal Communications, would touch base before they meet with their groups. They agreed to talk the following Friday.

Next call. The next conference call is scheduled for Monday November 13, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time. There being no further business, the 10/9 call was adjourned.

Minutes submitted by Clark Martin.