You have until Thursday to comment on ODOT Director job description
Posted by Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor) on May 7th, 2019 at 1:46 pm
What would you like to see in the leader of ODOT?
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)
The Oregon Department of Transportation is in desperate need of new leadership. Thankfully, the Oregon Transportation Commission is moving full steam ahead in their search for a new director.
The OTC’s search committee — led by Vice Chair Bob Van Brocklin, a lawyer with Stoel Rives LLP — has published a draft version of the job description and will accept public comment on it until this Thursday, May 9th. Below are a few salient excerpts from the description:
The OTC seeks a new chief executive that will manage ODOT through significant change…
The next Director will work effectively with a wide range of people, interests, and viewpoints to achieve an agenda that promotes a stronger economy, a cleaner environment, and a safer network of transportation facilities to serve all of Oregon…
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The selected candidate will support increasing the availability throughout the state of accessible, convenient,
and affordable mass transit, continuing to invest in existing and new facilities that strengthen Oregon’s diverse economies, and advocate for and take actions that result in reduced greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle emissions.Oregon Transportation Commission Vice-Chair Bob Van Brocklin leads the search committee.
(Photo courtesy Stoel Rives)Qualifications will include:
– A track record of solving access and mobility needs with holistic, equitable, multimodal investments.
– Demonstrated ability to align transportation investments with environmental, environmental justice, and public health objectives, including but not limited to meeting the state’s greenhouse gas reduction goals.
To offer feedback on the job description, fill out this form on ODOT’s website.
According to their published timeline, the OTC plans to confirm the new director via the Senate in September.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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Qualifications will include:
[…]
– Over 1,000 miles of bicycle riding in the past 12 months
RecommendedDoes being a passenger on a pedi-cab count?
RecommendedHow about counting those at 1:3, and count stoking a tandem at 1.5:1 ?
RecommendedThis is a great opportunity for comment – I hope.
Recommended[Though with Oregon’s current governor, I wonder if it will it matter, as per their leadership in transportation and the big picture, things I always hear Oregonians complain about?]
Progressive Metro Portlanders: such a conundrum, would it be better to keep Lynn Peterson at METRO or “share” her leadership in a statewide DOT CEO post…like that ‘golden era’ Washington citizens had …but lost due to the state’s minority party throwing a tantrum and expelling her from office.
RecommendedI’d settle for 10 miles, if they were ridden on the worst parts of the Oregon coast bike route:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeportland/9714524684/
Recommendedhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeportland/9729724364/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeportland/9725853131/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeportland/9711293167/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeportland/9729085698/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeportland/9729081974/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeportland/9704493917/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeportland/9704494981/
I hope David Bragdon is looking for a new home and challenge.
RecommendedI hope excellent candidates who do not share any of the previous director’s demographic characteristics apply and are considered seriously by the search committee.
RecommendedHow are a candidate’s marital status and religion connected to whether they’d be a good director?
RecommendedLiving in sin/cohabiting with their bicycle?
RecommendedWas I unclear? Older white male was the demographic triad I had in mind.
RecommendedI concur. I think an older white male would be an excellent choice.
RecommendedWhen Garrett announced his intention to leave, thirteen organizations, including The Street Trust, came together to send a letter to the Oregon Transportation Commission regarding our expectations for the next Director. We are pleased to see many of those recommendations reflected in the draft released by Bob Van Brocklin. We are working on comments on the draft to further improve the description and the process to attract a leader who can make ODOT a truly multi-modal agency that is advancing the State’s climate change goals.
RecommendedThe draft job description is a mess. It calls for things that cannot be met simultaneously. Basically, it boils down to asking for someone to lead the propaganda chorus as we move to off-shore our transportation emissions (20-40 tons of embodied CO2 per e-car, with a 10-12 year life, is hard to make up when IPCC calls for emissions of about 2 tons per person per year). It also calls for continuing to maintain a transportation mix that is almost exclusively cars and trucks and continuing our dreadful record on safety.
I’m not optimistic on these sort of things by nature, but this draft job description was so far below my extremely low expectations that I was practically weeping as I read it.
RecommendedODOT is an engineering organization.
An engineer would be best qualified to direct it.
RecommendedIs ODOT an “engineering organization?”
What in an engineer’s training qualifies them to lead any organization?
RecommendedAn engineer with management training would be a good fit. It is common to see engineering undergrad with management post-grad in technical leadership roles.
RecommendedActually understanding what it is one is supposed to be doing.
Matt Garrett is not an engineer. Leah Treat is not an engineer. ODOT and PBOT became disaster areas largely because of their technical incompetence.
Our water bureau is administered by a highly competent registered professional engineer. No one in Portland dies from bad water.
RecommendedOur water is (mostly) safe, but a few people may have died from heart attacks when they opened their monthly water bill.
RecommendedThe drinking of tap water is so safe nationwide that the rare exception (Flint, parts of Texas) makes headlines. If having engineers as leaders correlated with non-lethality of drinking tap water, I would expect most of the country to have engineers in charge of their water departments.
ODOT has some engineering expertise (though the analysis in their recent Rose Quarter I-5 environmental assessment doesn’t speak to that). But what criteria/parameters should they design and optimize for? Mostly so far it’s been the throughput and velocity of cars. That’s a leadership issue, not a technical one.
RecommendedBwahaha – An engineer as the water department head, surely we remember the water catastrophe on Alberta St? So you are saying an engineer is better at the water department? Is he paying the home and business owners for negligence based on their engineering license requirements and liability? HAHA! Of course not. The city isn’t paying these citizens for the water fiasco, nobody disciplined because……? ENGINEERING SCALE RULERS ONLY!
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