-: So, as you can see and from your program,
we're gonna talk about the future
of the transportation workforce,
which as we heard from the speaker just a second ago,
the reason that you all are here is to shape your future.
So, it's my turn to be able to start the presentation on
how we move that momentum, continue that momentum forward,
but just a little about myself,
anyone who comes before you to speak should share
something about themselves so that you'll understand
where their life experiences are professional experiences
have brought them to this point,
so I, like several in this room, spent some time with a DOT,
so I have familiarity with our FHWA
and transportation systems from having worked there.
Now, that was after my ten years in the private sector
with the natural gas company.
I was hired by the largest natural gas company
in North America to work on commercial industrial market,
and from that perspective, my job was to work with
developers who were building a lot of your franchises,
who were building new industrial uses, providing school
additions, building new schools, helping them to develop
the plans for their natural gas service,
and that body of work, both in the private
and the public sector, is what I use now with Linkscape 360,
which is a development planning firm
and we work both in the public and private sector.
So, when I was working with state DOT, my job was
Special Projects Chief and I was, my team and I
managed the non-motorized transportation programs,
and you see some examples of those.
Those are the bike ped programs, so we had
a wonderful opportunity on behalf of FHWA
and our state DOT to work on the street scapes.
You'll see in Lincoln, a lot of the street furniture,
you'll see the lighting.
If you all, how many have trails in there community?
Walking and biking trails?
Those were some of the things that my team and I worked on
and actually, this picture is endearing for me,
not only because it's our 39th president and his wife,
but it symbolizes the success when a whole community
works together for a common goal and in this case,
it was for the plain street scape project,
and the whole community was involved.
We received community input on the type of benches
we should use, what kind of pavers we should put down
to compliment the aesthetics of this historical city,
and as well, the First Lady actually led the committee
to pick out the street lamps and the street lights,
so of course, with pedestrian lighting,
those lights are lower than your highway lights,
because we need to provide a foot candle light
for those passengers who are on foot,
and so it really was a whole community effort,
and the ribbon cutting for that street scape project
was actually planned and coordinated with the Carter's
so that they would be there, they insisted upon being there,
so that ribbon cutting was in December a few years ago,
and it was followed by the Christmas parade,
the holiday parade, so that was a lot of fun.
But let's get started, everybody's now energized
and fed and ready to go, so I have
the first question for you as a did you know.
Did you know, are you all ready for this?
(students chattering)
Are you ready for this?
(students chattering)
Are you ready for this?
(students chattering)
Okay, did you know that congratulations are in order
for our Mid-American Transportation Center?
They are the recipients of five year,
13.75 million dollar grant that was recently
announced for District 7, let's give them a hand,
that is pretty awesome!
(applause)
Pretty awesome job.
Pretty awesome.
So, that means the great work of
the Mid-American Transportation Center
has now, further resources for it to continue and do
the innovative research as well as those safety projects.
So, we want to extend our congratulations
from the 2017 class of scholars.
So, let's talk about our presentation outline.
We've gone through the introductions,
and one of the things we wanna do,
when you talk about the future of something,
sometimes you have to take a look at the past
in order to see those correlations,
because remember, there is nothing new under the sun.
So, what we're gonna do is take a quick look back 100
years ago to try to see the validation of that statement,
then we're gonna talk about a historic collaboration.
One that entails secretaries of transportation, labor,
and education and how with this historic joint
collaborative study, we were able to, it was able to
provide some results that I think all of you
are gonna be interested in, particularly from where you
are sitting right now as we're talking about the future.
And then we're gonna be talking about positioning
for success and afterwards, we'll do a Q and A.
So, everybody ready?
(students chattering)
Let's go.
So, talking about the transportation workforce,
the first I wanted to do was look at 100 years ago.
The transportation industry provided jobs
for the 19th century Americans.
The successful cities had both skilled
and semi-skilled workers and we're gonna
take a look at some of the things
they were doing transportation related,
as well as we're gonna talk about something that
you all think is new, but it actually is an old idea.
Okay, how many people have heard of Uber?
Raise your hand.
Well, as we stated in our premise,
there is nothing new under the sun.
The first Uber concept were actually Jitney drivers,
and this is a picture of what the Jitney looked like.
A Jitney was historically a Model-T,
and of course, with the introduction of the Model-T,
it made cars available for working
and farm class communities, and of course,
capitalism has always been around,
so some of these first owners of some of the
first horseless carriages decided
this will be a great idea to start a company.
What if we use our brand new 1907 Model-T's
to really pick up folks who are waiting
on these antiquated street cars.
And guess what they ended up doing?
They ended up figuring out that if they charged a Jitney,
which was five cents, and therefore the name
of this first service, if they charged five cents a ride,
which then was competitive with the street cars
who were charging five cents, but guess what
the advantage was over the Jitney versus the street car.
(students chattering)
They were faster and they could go perhaps places
the street car couldn't go, because they weren't
relying upon tracks and to the chagrin of the street cars
and the cities, the Jitney drivers would often times
just drive a few paces ahead of the street car
and pick up the fairs and be able to say,
"Hey, you wanna wait on them or you wanna go with me?"
So, they were able to do that and were
very successful at doing so, and they were so successful
that the cities became concerned,
because the street cars were owned privately
and those private owners were providing
a percentage of their fares back to the city,
so that meant that what?
When the Jitney drivers were, they were doing so well,
the cities were loosing revenue, correct?
Okay, and so, they started having a conversation
as to whether there should be a
special license fee for the Jitney drivers,
something in the tune of 50 to 70 dollars per year
in order to make up for the loss of revenue.
Have we heard any of those conversations in your cities,
where they have Uber and some of the Uber drivers
wanna go to the airport, where there are taxis,
and some of them have become vocal, saying the Uber drivers,
what are they saying about the
Uber drivers in some of your cities?
(students chattering)
They're taking all the revenue,
they're getting there faster.
Sometimes, the Uber car, a lot of the times,
the Uber cars are cleaner than the taxis, exactly.
You're getting to point A to point B,
but our point here in this slide is that
the concept of car based transportation is not new.
Lyft and Uber had a predecessor and they were the Jitney's.
Also, 100 years ago, as still today,
you see we had the cargo and also we've got the rail yard,
and I'm loving down at the hay market where we are,
because we pass it, has anyone noticed those
locomotives that are outside of the rail depot?
That is an awesome, awesome capture of a major part
of transportation history and as you can see
from where that rail depot is located,
and the businesses that were built around it,
that actually is a lesson in city planning
and how our cities evolved from being located
near the rail stations, because the rail
was one of the primary sources of transportation
of goods and services, so all of the other
extrinsic uses developed around there,
and so even today, our CSX or Norfolk down in the south,
are very important and integral parts
of our transit and our transportation.
Okay, we're laying the groundwork.
Okay, then of course, again, we've always been
an agricultural based country, so we have our roots there.
You see some of the first roads that were built,
and one of the things that was of concern is that
how are we gonna take care of these roads?
In 1891, New Jersey was the first state
to actually start some sort of state aid,
but there was resistance, there was some resistance
to public funds being used for roads,
because prior to the Model-T, the only people
who had a car were what would you assume?
(students chattering)
Were the wealthy, I'm sorry, what was the other one?
(students chattering)
(laughs) The bootleggers.
Now, I can give a talk on bootlegging,
because I've learned a lot about that
through our Scenic Byway program in Georgia,
so we'll have that talk if there's time remaining,
but and that'll be fun as well, but in 1891,
when the thought of if we're gonna have roads,
because as you can see, if we can flip back here,
the roads were in poor condition, so even owning a car
meant dealing with some horrendous roads,
and you can see on this slide here
some of the first drawings of trying
to get a suitable road system.
Of course, now, Astro, which came around in 1914,
gives us, provides some great guidance
on the sewer, the drainage, how we need
to have curb and gutter, and how we need
to build our roads so that they are usable
for its full economic life, but that was a concern
back in the day and this is a favorite slide of mine,
because it shows the ladies who were able
to work on these cars, so of course,
during our industrial era, the whole point is everyone
was doing their part in order to make this transportation,
the idea of transportation very sustainable.
But, we've got to move on and we see here,
I've been asked to provide a letter and this corridor path
to you all, the 2017 scholars from
this 100 year history to our present day.
And this is where we are today, you can see here
the upbeat music, we've got Bono going,
and that's our beautiful day song,
so we're gonna talk about how we have been able
to use that foundation from 100 years ago
to put us where we are today.
Okay, so we've come a long way.
We saw that ancient picture of how they went about
trying to lay out roadways, very primitively
compared to today, but now let's take a look
at some of the street scaping and I would suggest
with Statesboro being a college town,
and those smaller than Lincoln,
they still wanted to capture some of the aesthetics
that you see and we'll say haymaker,
'cause we're all familiar with that,
since we're all living just right down the street.
So, what are some of the first things you wanna do
when you're looking to make an environmental space
more people friendly, more bike and pedestrian friendly,
what are some of the things you wanna include in that space
to make it more adaptable for that method?
(students chattering)
Wanna have bike lanes.
(students chattering)
Water sidewalks.
(students chattering)
You wanna have it ADA accessible, yes.
(students chattering)
Lighting, you wanna have really good lighting.
(students chattering)
Nice sitting areas.
Thank you for all of those great suggestions,
and you all were able to actually come up with
what the scope of this street scape project is all about.
Again, it's a college town, but in Georgia,
and I'm sure in your states, with the funding,
such as transportation enhancement funding,
will you see projects like this where they've gone
and put in these wide sidewalks,
often times with the brick pavers,
in order to make it more aesthetically pleasing.
Trees are very important when you start
speaking about planning for the public
and wanting to improve quality of life, so of course,
and then it needs to be an appropriate sized tree.
Why does it need to be an appropriate sized tree
if it's gonna be planted in the middle of a sidewalk?
(students chattering)
Okay, don't wanna crack the sidewalk.
(students chattering)
Mhmm, okay, well very good answers, all.
And certainly, I would say, near the top,
in the top three would be the root systems,
and I know for us, my team worked on
developing a pedestrian street guide,
which was a resource, is a resource still,
for designers when they are specifying
what needs to go into projects.
They can select the correct trees.
They won't try to put a mighty oak on the sidewalk.
Oaks have their place and they're beautiful trees,
unfortunately, in the middle of a sidewalk
is not the most ideal place for that oak.
There are some other varieties that offer
everything that you want for having trees there,
but are less intrusive for the sidewalk, and then of course,
we don't wanna damage the species either.
Okay, benches, someone called out benches.
If you've got pedestrians and bicyclists,
they need to have resting spots,
and because we're designing for all levels of ability,
all of us, if we've been out walking for some time
will need a place to land, and because you're
inviting people to come out of their cars
and to be able to come out on the sidewalks,
also you're inviting them to read a book,
you're inviting them to read the map of local attractions,
decide where they wanna be, so if you're
gonna do all that, then you're gonna need a bench.
You're gonna need a resting spot to do so.
And lighting, someone over on this side called out lighting.
Do you see the lighting?
Okay, so we've got the lighting posts and of course,
because this is pedestrian and not highway,
it can be a lot lower, correct?
It doesn't have to loom over the street way,
and the other thing about pedestrian lighting,
keep this in mind, and I know the engineers in here
are aware, pedestrian lighting has less foot candles
than your highway lights, I mean, we don't need
to glow into the eyes of the users
and be a further distraction for them.
So, this is a great example of how a community
can go about adding amenities that really add
to the quality of life, but yet have
very practical purposes, very practical purposes.
Okay, so that brings us to talk about this historical
joint report which was a collaboration
of education, transportation, and labor.
Now, this report was completed right before,
right at the end of the last administration,
but this is the thing about science,
the beauty of science is H20 will always be what?
(students chattering)
It would be a necessity.
H20 will always be water.
It doesn't matter who, you know, who, what, when, or where.
With science, that is a scientific fact,
and so we can use the information from this study
and make it applicable now, because it, like H20,
reports the facts and we're able to use those facts
to look at what we're wanting to look at now.
One of the things that I want to start with saying,
and again, as our last speaker was speaking of
him having that wonderful opportunity
to meet the Transportation Secretary, of course,
all of our cabinet levels have secretaries.
So, for this to be a collaboration, again,
that's what makes this information so valuable,
and still so poignant today is that
it was able to use the resources that are available
at very high levels to provide research
that had not been refreshed in some time.
One of its main summarized facts was that
between 2012 and 2022, which you all are
all in this range that will impact his number,
there will be 417,000 new jobs
added in the transportation field.
Everyone should be cheering, because that means what?
You all are in high demand and you all that are
sitting here today will have jobs to go to.
To take a look at some of the reflections
that were given as this report was being released,
we can go to the Department of Transportation that said,
"Careers in the transportation industry can lift Americans
into the middle class middle or help them stay there,
and this report concludes that there will be
more job opportunities in the future."
And of course, we want to have a picture
of our current Secretary of Transportation,
Secretary ...
(students chattering)
Chao.
I'm looking to Dr. Rylett for ...
And actually, I've heard it a lot of different ways,
so I wanted to have you all to help me with that.
(students chattering)
Chao, okay.
And she was sworn in as our 18th Secretary of Transportation
on January 31st and so, from all indications,
there is gonna be a continuation of a lot of the programs
that made the fact that we're gonna need
417,000 more jobs in the near future,
because we're gonna always need transportation.
Water will always be H20.
Okay, this photograph, does anyone
recognize this photograph besides Dr. Larry?
(students chattering)
Or know where this is from?
Okay, well I will help you out.
This is Kawasaki.
I will invite you to do some research,
because we are located currently
in the headquarters of this rail car manufacturer
and this, the note that's attached here
that I called to your attention
is that in February 2017, today, present time,
we've celebrated Kawasaki making its 2,000th rail car.
And some of you in this room may have been
at the celebration for that.
That's an incredible milestone and of course,
as you can see, again, it emphasizes the fact
that laborers involved and the importance of transit.
There are plenty of cities across the United States
that do not have appropriate transit systems
and many of them are trying to retrofit,
that is actually the case in
the city where I currently live, Atlanta.
We're trying our best in order to come up with
an idea of retrofitting our rapid transit,
because when it was built, we missed the mark
in its placement and if you think transit
is expensive initially, don't look at the price tag
when you're trying to retrofit it after the fact.
But we're very fortunate as Americans
and as folks in the transportation industry
to have companies like Kawasaki who are
supporting our transportation workforce.
And we move on to our Education Secretary.
"In today's society, it's important that
all of our students are well-equipped with knowledge
and skills to compete in a global economy."
That is the premise of us being here today.
We are, and MATC is, contributing to your success
in being able to compete in a global economy.
The speakers that have been before you
throughout these couple of days,
the speakers that will continue to mentor you
once you go back to your respective campuses,
we're all making an investment in you.
We're making an investment into your futures,
because we need for you all to be ready to take the helm,
to move transportation, and quite frankly,
the entire global economy forward,
and want to pay homage to our current
Secretary of Education, Secretary Devos
who is the 11th Secretary of Education.
And that brings us to labor, 'cause again,
this was historic, because this had never been done,
three branches of government, three cabinet level branches
coming together to provide this information for us.
"Ensuring that America continues to lead the way
in global economy means not only investing
in infrastructure that allows us to move goods
and keep up with global demand, but also,
the skills, infrastructure to support the workforce."
That is a most powerful statement, and
one of the reasons I will tell you that statement
is so powerful is because we became
the giants in industry that we are
because we had skill labor and a skill workforce and every
developed company, country, every industrialized country,
every country that's gonna be on the cutting edge
of innovation must have a skill workforce.
Last week, last week I was working with an engineering firm
out of Coral Gables, Coral Gables, Florida,
and we were in a small town among called Small Town USA,
I'm gonna call it Appleville, just so I don't accidentally
say its name, but we were in Appleville.
Appleville has a beautiful downtown, it has
a beautiful, beautiful residence, but it has a problem.
The workforce, the base of this workforce is eradicating,
so much so that some of the current manufacturers
and businesses there are becoming very vocal
because they cannot find anyone to replace
the attrition of when they lose their workforce.
One company which manufactures small goods said,
"We have minimal requirements for our workforce,
for our labor, yet for the eight positions
that we need to keep fully staffed at all times,
in two years, we've gone through 50 individuals
trying to satisfy eight positions."
Because for their light manufacturing, they may require
some minimal, but at great level reading,
some of their machines may require little but some
know how in order to keep a production line going.
They, quite frankly, have not, they've had to
hire 50 people to try to satisfy
eight postilions in two years, bless you.
So, with that trend in mind, because you all
are going to be the future leaders
and for you all, when you were the managers,
the supervisors, the vice presidents, the presidents,
that's gonna be a concern for you,
because it's lonely at the top if you don't have
anybody that's gonna support you
or if you're having to spend the time needed
for you to provide executive leadership,
but you're trying to make sure that everybody
can read simple instructions on how to operate
whatever process you all are doing and that you're leading.
So, that is a big, that's a big problem.
That is something that the Labor Secretary
was correct in addressing is it doesn't matter
if we've got money for the infrastructure
if we don't have people that are available,
educated, trained, and have the know-how
to even things that you could buy with
or for the infrastructure projects.
So, we already talked about this number,
the 417,000 job openings from 2012 to 2022,
I can guarantee if your parents or guardians were in here,
they'd be shouting, they'd be saying,
"Great, that means that when he graduates,
when she graduates, she's gonna get a job."
So, that is great news and I know that you all
appreciate it, because you wouldn't be here if you didn't.
You've been working very hard.
Let's see, how many freshmen do we have?
We don't have any, okay, good.
How many sophomores do we have?
We've got a few sophomores.
How many juniors do we have?
Okay, how many seniors do we have?
Excellent, excellent, you guys are to be commended,
because guess what, there are jobs waiting for you.
You've made a right choice in the career field
that you've chosen to go after.
But let's just talk briefly about
the six sectors of transportation, and any surprises here?
Everyone knew about the six sectors?
So, inside of this report, they looked
at these six sectors to look at the labor
that was required to support each of these sectors
and as you can see, if you had to say which sector
perhaps had the largest percentage of older,
of an older workforce, what would you say?
And then we're gonna see how we do.
What would you say?
(students chattering)
I hear rail, what was that?
(students chattering)
Highway construction.
(students chattering)
The trucking.
Great, great answers.
Actually, it is the rail, it's the rail industry
that has the highest, where the workforce
inside that industry is the most aged.
And that kinda makes sense if we take one step back,
because the rail is one of the
most historic transportation sectors,
and in doing so, we look at the mindset
of the transportation workforce
and don't wanna spend too much time, you know,
just kind of looking at what is trending now
as I guess the stay ability of the workforce.
Some of the trends that you see currently were not the
trends when a lot of the railway workers were starting.
When they started, you stayed somewhere for 25, 30, 40 years
and as a matter of fact, just as a sidebar,
my great grandfather retired from a rail company and he
lived to be 101, he lived to be 101, and so, what happened,
of course, he was on retirement for a lot of years.
I think on his 95th birthday, and this is a wonderful story,
it kinda makes me laugh every time I think about it,
I think it was his 90th birthday,
the rail headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida,
'cause we lived in South Georgia,
but the closest district office sent
one of their employees there to wish him a happy birthday
with a nice card and all of that.
And it was, and so his wife was just,
"Oh, they sent someone from Jacksonville
to wish your grandfather a happy birthday."
And we were just chuckling at home, because we were like,
"Oh, they wanna see he was still alive."
(laughter)
So, that was on his 90th birthday that they actually
had a guy drive to Thomasville, Georgia
with his birthday card and guess what?
He was there 11 more years, so he was 101 when he passed,
so I think he holds the record for that rail company
being the longest living retiree.
So, that just says (laughs), that really says a lot
about just how our workforce trends have changed.
It could be that for you all, you may, I don't know,
you all may work at four, five different companies
or more throughout the course of your career.
Okay, again, we're talking about strengthening,
skill training, and the career pathways
across the transportation industry.
We've looked at this first fact, which is wonderful,
which is fabulous, that we're in a great job.
Some, and we don't take that lightly,
because you have classmates at your universities
that may not have the same outlook as you.
They may go through the same four years that you're
going through and graduate and not be able to get a job.
However, great news today, you will not be one of them.
You're gonna have job offers.
Let's look at what the growth rate.
We're looking at employment growth rates
of around 11 percent on all
transportation sectors, more great news.
Fast growth areas, any surprises here?
Anyone surprised about some of the parts of the country
that are experiencing fast growth
and where some of the fastest growing sectors are?
Any surprises?
What else would you expect?
What would you expect to be on this list
that may have just missed the cutoff?
What are some areas that you all know of
that are also fast growing?
(students chattering)
Seattle, okay.
(students chattering)
Washington, D.C., okay.
(students chattering)
Atlanta, yes, yes.
Okay, excellent.
Okay, retirement and attrition,
because at some point, you all are gonna want to retire
and then also, we're looking at the attrition rate,
because many of you inside this room,
your first job is gonna be the result
of someone else retiring, that's how it was for me.
I'll forever be indebted to Ellis Crowder.
When Ellis retired, I moved into his job
and started a fantastic career in the natural gas industry.
And so you can see some more fantastic facts
about how we're gonna be tracking in the future
with retirement and attrition
and I just wanna call attention to trucking,
because you all were very adept and mentioned trucking.
Trucking, again, we can never get rid of our trucks,
and thank goodness that we have our truckers.
Projected job growth and openings, two million jobs.
Now, I will share something with you
that one of my classmates shared with me,
and this kinda is a consumer warning.
About a few years ago, I went to
the executive education class at Dartmouth.
Dartmouth is an ivy league school
located in Hanover, New Hampshire,
and this was a great opportunity,
brought in folks from all over the country
who were doing executive education
in their Tucks School of Business.
So, one of the business owners there
was a female who owned a trucking company,
and we were doing report outs on something,
but one of the points and I'm getting to the point,
for the trucking, and this is my consumer, this is
my consumer advice, she said, and I'm gonna say this low,
"Be careful of Funyuns."
Does anybody know what a Funyun is?
(students chattering)
The chips.
"Be careful of Funyuns."
The chips, Funyuns, Funyun onion rings.
This is why.
She was like, "Funyuns are neither fun, nor onion rings,
they're primarily not onion rings."
So much so, when her company goes
to pick up loads of Funyuns, they have to make sure
that their truck, they have to guarantee that their truck
is at a certain temperature or else they will explode.
So, just know, I mean, and I haven't looked
at a bag of Funyuns the same since she shared that.
You know, they're sitting up there innocently enough,
right at the counter, you know,
just sitting there looking innocent,
but yet, I've been warned to be careful of those Funyuns.
So, I felt the duty and responsibility,
particularly since we were talking about trucking,
that just brought up that warning that she gave us.
She was like, "You know, I can't even let
some of my drivers drive that load of Funyuns,
'cause they might get a little messy
and it'll be a real mess and we've lost a load."
But she said, she told us and now
I'm sharing it with you all and you can choose
to share with your friends if you see them
go and just kinda grab that bag and you can let them know,
there is nothing fun about Funyuns.
Okay, the skill labor shortage, again,
throughout this talk, we've been talking about
how it is so necessary in order for us to move
goods and services across the country, to be able to
have a secure and a reliable transportation system,
and those of you, I'm looking at the leaders
for our transportation industry for all six sectors.
I'm looking at you right now.
I'm looking at the leaders who will be responsible
and fill those gaps to ensure that we don't have
a labor shortage, to ensure that we remain as high as we are
as a global economy leader, because you'll be the ones
responsible for the staffs of people
that'll be building the infrastructure
that is necessary to continue to keep us rolling,
literally to keep us rolling through these six sectors.
And want you to feel very proud of this fact,
the number four point is number four on this slide,
but should be number one in your hearts,
the fact that you are in demand.
You are in demand.
So, we wanna further again, just show
what the percentages look like.
We won't spend a lot of time looking further,
but we have it here and these slides
will be made available for you, but again
just to make the emphasis about the trucking,
that is gonna show some very significant
stabilized growth and that is important for all of us,
because when the trucks roll, then
America's being taken care of.
Again, we've got an overlay looking at the United States
as a whole, showing us where
this growth is projected to be.
You all had some further insights,
based upon what you see trending in your area,
about some of the growth, and to know
that at the end of the day,
we are still positioned,
those of you who are in this room who are sitting here,
the sophomores, juniors, seniors,
you guys are in awesome, bless you.
You guys are in awesome shape to capitalize
on these 417,000 new jobs that are coming our way.
What's this?
Oh my goodness, looks like there's ...
Oh my goodness, oh we got a congratulate Dr. Larry again.
Oh, Dr. Larry did something else ...
You're just everywhere, you're all over the presentation.
Oh my gosh.
Between baseball and Dr. Larry,
let's see can we get through the presentation.
Okay, but just to let you see again
about what some of the requirements are of our jobs,
that's always a really good thing to know
as you're going into your job search,
what the requirements are, but one thing
I'll call your attention to and this was at this study,
I mean, we can do really well.
Okay, great, excellent.
(students chattering)
Well, you know, I'm talking about the industry in general,
however, as a sidebar, I would say Linkscape
and companies like Linkscape on the private sector side,
we need to have valuable talent.
We need to have the talent to be able to do
the things that support industry and the private sector,
so when you're talented, you actually
can make your personal selection where you'd like to be
on the private, and you can do both.
Lot of times, you're able to do both
at some point in your career, but yes,
and the thing about it, the cost, you know,
one of the adages about if you think education
is expensive, then try the opposite.
If you think it's expensive to get great talent,
then wait until you measure the cost of having poor talent.
So, companies that get it and industries that get it,
they understand that essentially,
you get what you pay for a lot of times.
Of course, a lot of times, as entry-level,
that doesn't necessarily say your first job
is gonna be six figures, but what you're gaining in that
is the experience to be able to command larger wages.
So, one of the things that we need to do,
and I believe I've heard speakers make this point,
always capitalize on any experience
given to you to work your best.
You work as if you're gonna become the president
and CEO of that company, because it may not be that company,
but it may be another, and so, because we all
have our own personal work ethic,
we always want to execute that
whenever we're working on a job, because those skills,
everything that you learn no one can ever take away, they're
always gonna be transferrable at your next opportunity.
Okay, so one of the things I wanna try
to start to bring us in on are some of the new trends.
How many people have heard of Aerotropolis?
Or know what an Aerotropolis is?
Okay, well, let's share with the class
what an Aerotropolis is.
(student chattering)
Uh-huh.
Bingo, yes, an airport city.
You did a, thank you so much for sharing that.
And Aerotropolis's, is that a word, Dr. Larry?
Did I just invent something?
Aerotropolis's, you can see those a lot
in Europe and actually, if you come to Atlanta,
if you see a lot of the growth,
you see we're in the process
of developing the Atlanta Aerotropolis.
And so, it is gonna be a phenomenal, a phenomenal thing.
Alright, you know, Atlanta is the world's busiest airport
and just imagine, we're that busy
without really having the amenities
and the infrastructures to support
to level of passengers who come through
on a daily basis, on an annual basis.
Part of what's coming out in our new airport city
will be housing, will be additional retail.
It's gonna look like a city, so much so,
it'll take full advantage of the employees
who work at the airport who physically
have to leave the airport to do, you know,
to get restaurant service and that sort of thing.
You never want, I guess, from a business perspective,
if you've go a captured audience,
you wanna be able to serve that audience
with everything they need without them
having to leave the constraints of your boundaries,
so what the Aerotropolis will do,
it's going to build a new airport hotel.
We already are familiar with several cities
who have hotels attached to their airport.
One of my favorites, so this is another chip,
if you're ever in Orlando, and it happens to be the weekend,
make sure you build enough to time to go up to their hotel,
the Hyatt that's in the Orlando International Airport.
They have the best French toast that I've had in the world.
The creme brulee French toast, I'm threatening
to fly to Orlando on a Sunday just to eat the French toast
and then book a flight out later.
It is, it is amazing.
But the whole Sunday breakfast at that airport is amazing.
So, on the weekend, they only
serve it on the weekend, this brunch.
But, I'm sorry, let me get back on track.
Okay, so the Aerotropolis, the city, the airport city,
that is where we're going.
We're going to spaces that will compliment
the demands of the traveling public
and that's being driven by if I go somewhere
or if you go somewhere, your demands
are that anything you need to do
needs to be within almost an arm reach,
where you stay, where you're gonna get food,
if you need to pick up dry cleaning,
all of those things, you wanna have those services
available in your immediate region.
You don't wanna have to be somewhere
and then go somewhere else to do A, B, C, you know, B, C, D.
You wanna be able to do it all there.
Okay, but to continue my efforts to inspire all of you,
to thank all of you for your chosen fields,
just want to remind you that the future
of transportation firmly rests on your shoulders
and that future is bright.
It is a bright future, because we're in a field
where we touch every facet of life,
the living, the working, the moving, the thriving.
Motorized or non-motorized, all of it is transportation.
All of it is dependent upon us and our abilities
to be able to build out infrastructure,
coordinate corridors, and to also come up with great plans
to move people, places, things, goods, and services.
So, one of the things we're gonna leave with
is a video and I hope I didn't mess it up,
I'm wanting to do a little bit of setup before I go into it.
We talk about community inside,
some of you may not have been, may not have known,
we're gonna talk about community development,
but inside of community development,
transportation is a key component
and one of the things that we have the benefit of
as transportation engineers and planners,
we can see the results of our work.
A lot of times, a lot of other industries
may not see how their work impacts others.
But we have an opportunity to be able to take
not only pride in our work, but also
we can see straight away how what our work product,
how our work product impacts others.
So, this is a short video that I didn't even know
was being recorded until I received the disc in the mail,
and so that's my third point, people are always watching.
There's always someone watching
and taking note at all times.
They may not make themselves apparent, like in my case.
I had no idea that a video was being done and recorded
until I received the video, that's just how
whatever the big word is when someone is able to do that,
or whatever the small word is for that matter,
but it did drive home the point
that probably some of your parents
and your guardians have said, always be on your best,
because someone is always watching.
Always do your best, because you're making
a permanent record that may be written
in invisible ink, but it's being recorded all the same.
So, this one is a video from St. Simons Island.
How many have heard of St. Simons Island, Georgia?
Oh, I invite all of you to at least Google it.
(laughter)
To at least Google St. Simons Island,
it is a coastal city in Georgia
that its significance is it is the passageway
to our largest port, which is in Savannah,
and so it's incredibly deep and it has to be so,
because you see a lot of those ships
going through the channel on their way to the port,
so many of them coming from Europe
and other foreign destinations.
And so this lighthouse was actually built in 1871
and you all know what is the purpose of a lighthouse?
(students chattering)
Oh, to signal ships, provide the guidance of ships,
that's a good one, 'cause it makes me think
of the story that the lighthouse person told.
Yes, so a working lighthouse is still instrumental, because
again, no matter how much technology becomes available,
a lot of times it comes down to the smallest things.
In this case, just that beam of light
to guide a ship through a channel,
because there is not much difference,
there is not much margin or room
for error coming through a channel.
You're either in the channel or you're on the shore,
and so you need to stay in the channel
with this big cargo ship, so because that is
such an important task that's being relegated to this light,
when we did this lighthouse project, guess what we had
to do, one of the first things we had to do?
We'll say ensure that what?
That the light remained, there was some source of light,
because that light was imperative for safety
and it also was imperative for the
safe passage of those ships.
So, how we were able to do that was
we had to coordinate with the Coast Guard,
again out of Jacksonville, to place a temporary light
so that ships still had some guidance through that channel.
Now, you could imagine, when you turn off
the main light, though, you have a very short window.
How many people have worked on projects
or interned on projects and one of the
first things that the project engineer
whoever's the superintendent does is go over the schedule?
How many people have had that to happen?
Okay, and why do they do that?
(students chattering)
Yes, yes, it costs money.
Someone else have an input?
I saw your hand, sir.
What was the importance of them going over the schedule?
(student chattering)
Stay within the budget, so time is money,
both of those things are kinda on this equal plane
and sometimes, you don't have more money,
and sometimes you don't have anymore time,
so whatever the schedule, the schedule rules,
so whatever the schedules says,
we've got to make sure we do it.
That was the case with this lighthouse.
It was turned off in December, it was turned off in October,
work started in December, but guess what the schedule said?
The schedule said that lighthouse had to be completed
before the official start of Summer.
Who can guess what the official start of Summer
is considered to be for a seaside city?
(students chattering)
April's a good one, May, actually, Memorial Day
is considered to be the start of Summer,
because that's when their tourists start really piling in.
April you do see the pickup in tourists,
but definitely by Memorial Day, which is in May,
you've gotta be clear, the lighthouse has to be
back in order and then we're talking about
a historic transportation structure, this lighthouse,
so we said it was built in 1871.
One of the further challenges, we've got money,
we've got time, but now we've gotta preserve
a building built in 1871.
We can't break the lenses, in other words.
We actually found the original drawings
that were sailed from France with this lighthouse
and meticulous care had to be given
in order to put it all together, to restore it.
Because it's historical, that meant that only certain
craftsmen could work on it, so there were
a lot of moving parts, as you can hear,
but let's see how well we did with that.
(soft music)
That's okay, that's good.
-: Welcome everyone, to the big turn on event.
Many of you are here for the big turn on.
(background noise drowns out other sounds)
We stripped this lighthouse down and put it back together.
We're really excited about this and you can see
(background noise drowns out other sounds)
And we really appreciate all of you members
(background noise drowns out other sounds)
All: Five, four, three, two, one!
(cheering and applause)
So, we were able to do it.
We were able to match the time, money,
and keep it historically intact,
the lens was not broken, even though we had to remove it.
So, in summary, 417,000 jobs, I cannot say that enough,
and I hope, I'm seeing smiles, I'm seeing smiles,
and again, I really feel like if I had
some parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and guardians
they would be ecstatic, because they're like,
"Yes, that's why we sent 'em to school,
they'll be able to get a job."
Okay, our new transportation workforce quite simply is you,
and you'll be paid well, take advantage
of every opportunity you have from internship
to the first day of your first real job
and seize the day, you are in demand,
and I thank you so much for your attention.
(applause)