Summer 2024 Newsletter

A Message From The Director

From Dr. Larry Rilett to the Alabama Transportation Assistance Program Community 

"Our team was delighted to see many of you in person at our conferences, workshops and webinars. As always, I want to thank our partners at the Alabama Department of Transportation and the FHWA Alabama District office for their support in helping ATAP, home to Alabama's Local Technical Assistance Program, achieve our goal of improving the skills and knowledge of Alabama's transportation workforce. 

In personnel news, I am happy to announce that Ms. Cameron "Cam" Farr has started as ATAP's new Outreach Marketing Program Administrator. An Auburn alum, Cam has extensive experience in digital marketing on a multitude of channels, and will also help coordinate ATAP's many workshops and webinars. She will allow us to do an even more amazing job serving stakeholders with technical outreach. Welcome Cam! 

The 2024 Alabama Transportation Conference (ATC), held in February, was a rousing success. The ATAP staff and the ATC Organizing Committee did a wonderful job making the transition to the BJCC in Birmingham seamless. Attendance was well over 950, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive! Our team also recently participated in the Southeast Regional LTAP meeting to learn from and share with other state LTAP centers within our region. The ATAP staff participated in the National LTAP Association (NLTAPA) conference this July, as well, and are currently conducting our annual Alabama LTAP work plan for 2024-2025. To support this effort, we have expanded our Advisory Board to include ACEA President Eric Hill of Lauderdale County. Welcome, Eric! 

To further support our improvement efforts, I would like to say that the feedback we receive from you is invaluable. We strive to continuously improve our ATAP programs, and a critical component of this is advice and thoughts delivered from our stakeholders. We recently conducted a survey of our workforce development offerings in conjunction with the Association of County Engineers of Alabama (ACEA) which resulted in several new LTAP workshops being scheduled for this coming year. We intend to continue this active engagement in the future, so, as always, we would love to hear from you! 

In closing, I want to send a big thank you to all the local transportation agencies who invested in their workers and communities by participating in our many training activities throughout the year. I am confident that you agencies will be more effective, and your communities safer, because of your participation. I hope you have a safe and enjoyable remainder of the summer and I look forward to seeing you at one of our events in the near future!" 

Courses, Workshops and Webinars

As part of ATAP's mission to serve Alabamian public works agencies, an array of workshops and webinars are available to provide training and technical assistance to any agency who requires it. Recent workshops include an asphalt pavement construction workshop in Birmingham and Mobile, and a Fundamentals of Road Safety workshop in Mobile, Montgomery, Birmingham and Huntsville. 

In addition to these workshops and websinars, ATAP also provides private training through on-demand classes, creating courses to satisfy gaps in training or to update processes as proposed or requested by state and local agencies. In Shelby County, ATAP hosted a private Temporary Traffic Control workshop in late June that refreshed temporary traffic control plans and processes. This workshop aims to strengthen knowledge bases and raise awareness of such concepts as work zone safety, flagging procedures, safety apparel, temporary traffic control elements, and typical applications found within the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), using a variety of materials including slideshows, worksheets, clicker questions, videos, hands-on tabletop models, and field exercises. Waterworks, emergency management, and public works personal joined together in this seminar to better serve the public when they are needed. 

If this or a similar professional development opportunity could be beneficial to you or your agency, please don't hesitate to reach out to Hollis Marshall through email at hcm0055@auburn.edu or by phone at 334-844-5782! 

Save The Date!

Funding Opportunities and Grant Writing

With the assistance of the Alabama Department of Transportation Local Technical Bureau and Alabama's LTAP within Auburn University, ATAP provides a guide for state and federal programs that provide transportation project funding. 

In addition, on November 15, 2021, President Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) (Public Law 117-58) into law. This "Bipartisan Infrastructure Law" (BIL) is the largest long-term investment in our infrastructure and economy in our Nation's history. It provides $550 billion over fiscal years 2022 through 2026 in new Federal investment in infrastructure, including roads, bridges, mass transit, non-motorized systems, resilience, and broadband. Read about fact sheets, regulations, and more. 

ATAP plans to organize a series of webinars to disseminate information that will empower and assist local engineers and key stakeholders to access and competitively apply for the appropriate BIL funding opportunities. Stay tuned for updates on this series! 

Upcoming Conferences

This fiscal year, ATAP will be organizing in two conferences. The 2024 Alabama Road Safety Conference has just opened registration for their 11th annual seminar, to be held October 15-17. Every year, the location of the conference switches between the north and south of the state, and this year, the conference will be held at The Lodge at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, AL! The conference will showcase information about programs and techniques that can help agencies strengthen their planning, design, and operations processes to improve the safety performance of their systems. This conference partners with the Alabama Department of Transportation and is still looking for sponsors and exhibitors. Receptions have been held on the beach in years past, and as The Lodge is part of the Hilton Hotels & Resorts family, amenities such as an on-site restaurant, direct beach access, and being positioned adjacent to the Gulf State Pier are provided! 28 miles of trails and a freshwater fishing lake sprawl through Gulf State Park. Register soon to secure a spot at the 2024 Alabama Road Safety Conference! 

The second conference of this fiscal year, the 68th Annual Alabama Transportation Conference, is scheduled to be held February 11 and 12, 2025, in Birmingham, AL! More information on this conference will be available at a closer date. 

Build A Better Mousetrap

Every year for over a decade, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has held the Build a Better Mousetrap national recognition program. The program celebrates innovative solutions for any kind of planning or procedural problem that challenges local and tribal work. These solutions include the development of task-specific tools to new processes that increase safety, reduce cost, and improve efficiency. The FHWA's goal is to share and memorialize this creativity on any scale as these ideas change the way work is performed! Any sort of innovation is welcomed and encouraged that fits into one of four categories: an innovative project, a SMART transformation, a bold step, or a pioneering tool. 

Solutions will be considered against a variety of criteria, including overall impact, community or agency benefit, originality, applicability to others, cost effectiveness, time savings, and the quality of the submitted application, in order to determine which submissions will be selected as Honorees and announced at the annual National Local and Tribal Technical Assistance Program (NLTAPA) Conference. To participate, local or tribal agencies must submit their solutions to their nearest LTAP. Applications for 2024 are closed, so begin thinking about what kinds of innovations could be done moving into 2025! See more information or read about the 2024 winners here. 

Staff Spotlight

Hollis Marshall, a native of Montgomery, AL, has resided in Auburn for the past thirteen years. As the Program Manager for Alabama's LTAP Center since January 2023, Hollis is responsible for overseeing all events hosted by the center. This includes venue contract negotiation, marketing or promoting all LTAP events, coordinating speaker selection and venue locations, and planning workshops and professional development opportunities both in-person and virtually. 

Prior to this role, Hollis served as the Executive Director for a non-profit healthcare association for twelve years, where she honed her skills in corporate event planned for educational programs. She holds a BS in Human Environmental Sciences from the University of Alabama, and is married to Will Marshall; together they have three children. In her spare time, Hollis enjoys going to the beach, supporting her children's activities in cheerleading and baseball, and reading. 

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