Posts

More Apprenticeship Programs are Being Offered through Programs Sponsored by Community and Technical Colleges

/0 Comments/in , /by

With benefits like an 88% retention rate for apprentices, a built-in source of high-performing students, and an increasing interest among businesses, more and more community and technical colleges are seeing the value in sponsoring registered apprenticeship programs through the US Department of Labor. By being a program sponsor, the college takes on the responsibility of classroom education as well as all the paperwork, ultimately making it easy for employers to hire apprentices. In this model, even small companies, who are hiring just one or two apprentices at a time, can use this proven method to grow their talent pipelines.

When Harper College in Palatine, Illinois, began their program, they were one of just three colleges in the country that were Registered Apprenticeship program sponsors. The growth in sponsorship among community colleges can be seen on the website for the Registered Apprenticeship College Consortium (RACC), which currently lists 23 colleges that are program sponsors.

One state, Georgia, has taken this to the next level by working to approve most of the technical colleges in the state to act as Registered Apprenticeship sponsors through Georgia WorkSmart, a work-based learning initiative operated by the Georgia Department of Economic Development.

Businesses are also increasingly taking advantage of apprenticeship to grow expertise within their workforce.

“We’re finding that, after their first experience, companies want to expand and add apprentices in different industries,” said Dr. Rebecca Lake, Dean of Workforce and Economic Development at Harper College. For example, Lake pointed to one company that had enrolled an apprentice in Harper’s Logistics/Supply Chain Management program and then came back the next year with an apprentice for the Banking/Finance program, because they had a need in that area of their business, as well.

Like apprenticeship programs across the country, Harper is growing their Registered Apprenticeship programs in white collar industries. Their newer programs include Banking/Finance, Sales & Retail Manangement, and Graphic Arts Print Production. A program in Cyber Security is also in the works.

Lake is actively working to develop an apprenticeship program for truck drivers at Harper College. To do this, she is utilizing a curriculum created by another college in Illinois, another benefit to community colleges that join the RACC.

“If you’re part of the network, you can get curricula. You, don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” said Lake.

Emerging Careers – Autonomous Vehicle Development, Deployment, and Maintenance

/0 Comments/in , /by

This is the first article in a three-part series, “Transformational Technologies and Emerging Careers in Transportation.”

The futuristic technology of driverless vehicles now seems to be on the precipice of a widespread reality. News items on projects around the world pop up daily and the recent CES consumer technology show in Las Vegas showcased half a dozen cars with autonomous capabilities. According to journalist, Samara Lynn, in an article on CES for Black Enterprise, “If there was one, star attraction at CES this year, arguably it was vehicles. Vendors, including Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Nissan gave CES attendees a look into the cars of the very near future.”

Autonomous vehicles capture the imagination and young people setting out on their career paths and selecting their post-high school educational route have been hearing the rumblings of this phenomenon for their entire lives. Today, those wishing to get into this field have a variety of opportunities to get involved.

Working toward the goal of making autonomous vehicles a reality is the Wisconsin Automated Vehicle Proving Grounds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. This group is managed by Peter Rafferty, an engineer with a masters in Transportation Engineering, with other graduate work in planning and economics.

When asked how students can break into the field and work with autonomous vehicles, Rafferty points out that there are several fields that contribute to this discipline. Traditionally, transportation has been largely composed of Civil Engineers and Transportation Planners.

“There is always going to be a need for the infrastructure side, like Civil Engineering,” said Rafferty. “But, when it comes to traffic control, that’s becoming increasingly technical. Automated and connected vehicle growth in those areas is very multidisciplinary,” said Rafferty.

Rafferty points out that experience with database systems was helpful for his career. While he is not a computer programmer or a software engineer, just being able to work with data has been beneficial to him.
“I say to students, ‘Make sure you’re getting some exposure to basic scripting and working with big data,’” said Rafferty.

People entering this field today come from a variety of backgrounds including electrical engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, artificial intelligence, and robotics.

Steve Herro, Project Manager of the Al Hurvis-Peak Transportation Center at the Milwaukee Area Technical College in Wisconsin, points out that people beginning their training as automotive technicians today will be working on cars with the types of technologies that come with autonomous vehicles. As examples, many of today’s newer vehicles come equipped with automatic emergency breaking, backup cameras, adaptive cruise control, and self-parking systems, all of which are components of autonomous vehicles.

However, not all automotive technicians will be working with driverless cars in the next five years or even in the next decade. “You have to be a little careful luring people into the field with autonomous vehicles,” said Herro, pointing out that only a small percentage of vehicles on the road will be driverless for some time. “Only a master technician will be able to touch any of those cars,” he said.

As a manager, Rafferty has not had to know all the technical details of all these varied fields, but he has had to develop an understanding of the concepts from them and “learn the lingo.” He has augmented his knowledge with some online courses. There are materials relevant to this field on online educational resources, such as Coursera and Udacity. Rafferty suggests taking courses on computer science, digital security, machine learning, sensor data, artificial intelligence, and robotics.

“If I were 25 years younger and going into college, I would go to one of these online resources,” he said.

His background as a planner has also been helpful. From this, he is able to understand the human experience with transportation and mobility. Rafferty thinks about autonomous vehicles more broadly than just automating a piece of hardware.

“I am grateful for the opportunity to work with autonomous vehicles here at the university. This is not something I could have done as a consultant.”

Best Practices Coming to Light as Highway Construction Workforce Pilot Moves into Implementation Phase

/0 Comments/in /by

Having completed their first year, the cities and states in the Highway Construction Workforce Pilot recently met via webinar to take stock of their progress and share strategies that are working. Overseen by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, the national initiative was begun in the fall of 2016 with the goal, “to meet the transportation workforce challenge and harness the energy, expertise, and communication networks of all stakeholders.” Midwest Transportation Workforce Center highlighted the St. Louis pilot location last year for their partnership with their Workforce Development Board.

Across the initiative, the FHWA reported that many of the pilot locations have formed working groups and begun working on initiative goals with two of the locations having delivered an “Identify, Train, and Place Program,” a stated outcome of the initiative.

The initiative uncovered best practices that are becoming familiar across the Transportation sector:

  1. Building relationships and forming partnerships with stakeholders
  2. Participation in the working groups by a diverse representation of stakeholders, especially contractors
  3. Combating stereotypes/perceptions of highway construction jobs, especially among middle school and high school students and their parents and teachers
  4. Developing a pre-apprenticeship or apprenticeship program

To assist the pilot locations, a suite of marketing tools were developed to help spread the word and increase awareness about the initiative. These include billboards, posters, flyers, and postcards, all with the hashtag #RoadstoYourFuture.

Two of the pilot states, Alabama and Arizona shared their case studies.

For this project, the Alabama team was able to build on successful practices already in place in the state including the Alabama Industrial Development Training system, marketing and outreach done by the community college programs, and the Alabama Department of Transportation On-the-Job Training Program. They began by focusing on entry-level employees and learned a lot from their project partners about where to focus marketing efforts and where to find available resources.

The Arizona pilot site worked closely with contractors early on to determine workforce needs. From this they determined that industry readiness was a high priority. They also zeroed-in on at-risk youth age 18 to 24 and dislocated workers for their initial outreach efforts.

For more information on the national initiative, visit the Highway Construction Workforce Pilot program website.

Public-Private Partnership Helps Technical College Launch New Transportation Center with $3 Million Challenge Grant

/0 Comments/in , /by

A curious person, who uses their sleuthing skills to get to the bottom of a problem with the aid of computerized diagnostic equipment, may not be what most people picture when they think about automotive technicians or diesel mechanics. Yet, today, successful candidates in these occupations are just that; they are inquisitive problem solvers. They need these skills to work in a field that has become increasingly technical and computerized.

There is a shortage of workers with these skills nationally, and in Wisconsin, employers are having trouble finding the talent they need to fill positions. In the state’s largest city, Milwaukee, a public-private partnership, called the MATC RevUp program, has been launched to help recruit more people into the field and provide needed training.

Tom Hurvis, issued the funding challenge to help fill the need for more technicians and provide opportunities for students to obtain the skills needed for a family-supporting career in the automotive field.

Tom Hurvis, Co-founder of Old World Industries, issued a $3 million challenge grant in March 2017 to expand automotive programs at the Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) and kick off fund raising to create the Al Hurvis-Peak Transportation Center. Grant funding will provide seed money to launch expanded academic programming and outreach activities, including the additional personnel and equipment expenses for the new transportation center.

The grant provides $1 million in immediate funding, and up to an additional $2 million for every dollar MATC raises for the RevUp program over two years. To house the transportation center, MATC is repurposing an existing auditorium at its downtown campus. The building will be named the Al Hurvis PEAK Transportation Center to honor Tom Hurvis’ father, Al Hurvis, who was an automotive executive in the Milwaukee area.

The RevUp project is taking aim at the causes behind the talent gap in the state.

“The biggest issues are two-fold. First, there is a shortage. The recession caused people to hold off retiring. But now, with the economy rebounding, combined with all the changes in technology, a lot of those baby boomers are leaving. We’re going to have serious technician gaps in the workforce,” said Steve Herro, Project Manager of the Al Hurvis-Peak Transportation Center at MATC. “Secondly, there is a negative stereotype around auto mechanics. It is seen as a non-technical career with no growth potential. This is why we use the term technicians, to better reflect the current reality of this occupation.”

In addition to technology evolving, the way that young people find their way to careers like automotive technician or diesel mechanic has also changed.

“In the past, young people probably had some sort of mentor—like a family member—who was working on a car and they got a chance to help. In our urban areas, today, youth coming up have not had the same sorts of opportunities,” said Herro.

The RevUp program is focused on opportunities for students in urban settings. The two-pronged approach is providing additional support and engagement activities for existing students and outreach into the community to get more young people interested in transportation careers.

The RevUp program is focused on opportunities for students in urban settings. The two-pronged approach is providing additional support and engagement activities for existing students and outreach into the community to get more young people interested in transportation careers.

MATC RevUp will be partnering with area groups, like the Boys and Girls Club, which have expertise in putting on camps, to host automotive-related camps starting this summer. These camps will be at the middle school and high school level and introduce students to careers in the automotive industry. Representatives from area businesses will offer their time as mentors. One of the planned activities for high schoolers is to build raceable go carts. This project will provide experience with engines, fabrication, and auto-body painting.

Herro points out that the skills learned by automotive technicians provide advancement opportunities over time along a career pathway. These skills are also highly transferable according to Herro, and technicians may not spend their whole careers in the automotive field.

“One of our instructors told me that he had a student from the diesel program who went on to work on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico making $100 grand after three years. Diesel is a huge area because you can work on any diesel engine. It doesn’t matter if it’s at a power company, in a truck, or in a manufacturing setting,” said Herro.

The RevUp program will also be running after-school clubs during the school year. While Wisconsin has many high-quality automotive programs that meet national standards, many schools in the state have discontinued their automotive programs due to costs.

“Often, an automotive program might have $500 to $1000 per year to purchase supplies. That doesn’t even provide annual updates for their automotive diagnostic equipment,” said Herro. “We need to do more than just support those schools. We need to dive deeper into the community and get more students interested in these programs,” he said.

Milwaukee area native, Tom Hurvis, chairman of Old World Industries, LLC, the parent company of the PEAK automotive brand, issued this funding challenge to help fill the need for more technicians and provide opportunities for students in urban Milwaukee to obtain the skills needed for a family-supporting career in the automotive field.

Interested donors can contact Laura Bray, Executive Director of the MATC Foundation and MATC Vice President of College Advancement and External Communications, at braylm@matc.edu.

State-Focused Internship Portals Keep Talent within Borders During Crucial Career Decision Point

/0 Comments/in , /by

The ability of internship programs to retain talent has spurred a growing interest in internship programs as well as the launch of internship-matching portals catering to in-state employers. In the Midwest, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and most recently, Wisconsin, all have websites dedicated to promoting their state’s internship opportunities.

Read more

Exponential Growth in Registered Apprenticeship in Transportation Fueled by Accelerator Activity and Industry Commitment

/0 Comments/in , /by

Registered apprenticeship programs are growing to meet the demands of the transportation sector. A powerful tool for companies to develop the talent they need to fill positions, apprenticeship is being adopted to address workforce gaps in a growing array of occupations. The U.S. Department of Labor funds intermediaries such as FASTPORT and TransPORTs to develop registered apprenticeship programs and expand the number of apprentices for employers in the transportation and logistics industry.

“I am currently working with a large supply chain exporter with 60 branches in the U.S. Their vice president reached out to us because he wants to use apprenticeship to build his workforce,” said Barbara Murray, TransPORTs Apprenticeship and Partnership Development Expert. “He said there are great supply chain programs out there and named a couple of universities. But, then he said the graduates of those programs have great theoretical knowledge but they don’t have any work experience so they really still can’t go to work.” Plus, Murray pointed out, it is at this point that new graduates often discover that the job is not a good fit.

Combine the career readiness that apprenticeship provides with the astoundingly high retention rates of 87-93% of employees who complete apprenticeship programs, and it is clear why more companies are turning to groups like TransPORTs and FASTPORTS, for assistance in getting new programs up and running for an increasing number of occupations.

Resources such as videos and the new SMART Maritime and Transportation Career Pathways and Occupations Toolkit are available to help spread the word about the growing number of maritime occupations available through registered apprenticeship.

“My role has been changing the face of what apprenticeship is. Those professional careers can all be done with apprenticeship. The only way to do that is have people understand what apprenticeship is,” said Murray. “There are so many open positions right now where the people applying don’t have the needed skills. There’s a mismatch. More can be done than just taking classes and sitting in a classroom. Actually taking relevant classes that are matched to the work that you’re doing; that’s the difference.”

Truck drivers are an in-demand group and accordingly, this was one of the earliest national training standards program developed.
“We now have nine national employer companies sponsoring registered apprenticeship programs. Through these there are currently 814 apprentices operating on the national standards with a truck driving apprenticeship,” said Dave Harrison, Executive Director of National Apprenticeship at FASTPORT.

One of the key boosts to apprenticeship has been the advent of national apprenticeship standards, which facilitate the expansion of programs across states and make it easier to replicate programs.

“In 2014 an idea was born and some of us in the industry started actually writing what is called the National Standard of Apprenticeship, even before anything was passed in legislation. We just believed it was going to happen,” said Harrison. “It’s just been since the middle of 2015 that we started getting engagement on national strategies. So, if you look at it, it’s not very old.”

Truck drivers and diesel mechanics are some of the most in-demand employees being developed through apprenticeship today.

But there has been a lot of growth in a short time. Since the beginning, Harrison points out the truck driver segment has experienced the greatest growth, because that’s the biggest area of need. Moving forward, other related occupations are beginning to catch up. These include occupations like diesel mechanic and fleet manager. FASTPORT currently has programs for eight occupations in this area.

Over the next two years, Harrison predicts explosive growth in apprentices joining programs for freight broker or cargo broker and related occupations. These occupations are increasingly important to the world economy “because they integrate everything, air, land, and sea,” said Harrison.

In maritime, employers around our nation’s ports have diverse workforce needs and the new occupations being pursued for apprenticeship reflect this diversity. “The hot jobs include electro-mechanical, welder, HVAC, crane operator, logistics associate, freight forwarder, and, most recently, graphic designer,” said Murray.

Currently in process, FASTPORT is working to co-sponsor a new registered apprenticeship program with the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA) to launch programs for freight brokers. With over 1700 employers as part of their association, this TIA program will quickly rival truck driver programs in terms of enrolled apprentices.

Harrison sites partnerships with industry as the driving factor for apprenticeship program successes. It is the industry connections which helps guide the best practices for reaching employers. One of the key activities they do is host accelerator events, often as part of national trade conferences. FASTPORT will be attending the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas, August 24-26. “This is a great event and I would encourage anyone interested in apprenticeship and the transportation industry to attend,” said Harrison.

“A lot of what we do is make it simpler and quicker for companies,” said Murray. She cites the U.S. Department of Labor’s commitment to the ApprenticeshipUSA program with contributing to their success by adding more people but not more administrative layers. “We have more people, more opportunities to work face-to-face with companies and turn their programs around more quickly,” she said.

To learn more about starting an apprenticeship program, contact Dave Harrison at dave.harrison@fastport.com or Barbara Murray at brmurray77@gmail.com.

Highway Maintenance Engineering as a Case Study for Growing the Transportation Workforce

/0 Comments/in /by

Transportation infrastructure in the Midwest encompasses all modes from inland waterways to bike paths. Midwesterners continue to rely on and demand more from their investments in the past.  Keeping up requires innovation and for that we need creative thinkers interested in transportation asset management. As we celebrate National Transportation Week, we have a chance to reflect on what the Midwest can do to develop the transportation talent that we need to meet the needs of this sector moving forward.

The discipline of Highway Maintenance Engineering is an excellent model for exploring how to grow talent in transportation. Like many transportation occupations, jobs responsible for maintenance could be made more attractive with an image makeover. Yes, filling pot holes and removing road kill may be the most visible responsibilities, but we entrust highway maintenance workers with far more.  Highway maintenance workers are responsible for keeping the infrastructure in a state of good repair and at the same time keeping the adjacent air, soil, wildlife, plant life and water clean and healthy.

In order to improve the image of this occupation, there needs to be a change in mindset, both internally within the highway maintenance organizations as well as externally in the eyes of potential employees.

Challenges facing the highway maintenance workforce are the same as those facing transportation occupations across the board, making highway maintenance a good model for piloting strategies to address these challenges. For these reasons, the Midwest Transportation Workforce Center has chosen to focus on Highway Maintenance Engineering as part of the National Transportation Career Pathways Initiative.

The responsibilities of highway maintenance organizations are changing rapidly and finding the workforce with the skills and experience needed to execute these tasks will require a concerted effort.

For various reasons, the majority of attention around roadways has traditionally emphasized new construction, with less attention paid to maintenance. Maintenance jobs incorporated primarily tasks such as mowing and filling pot holes. Accordingly, the image of the average highway maintenance worker is not a glamorous one, to be sure, among the general public.

Today, departments of transportation are changing their mindset from construction thinking to maintenance thinking. They are assessing roadways across the entire lifecycle from construction through the end of its life expectancy. These assessments are including not just the costs of materials to build a new road but also the costs of maintaining the road surface and rights of way as well as well as the harder-to-quantify costs, such as the environmental impacts of all the construction, design, and maintenance practices.

In addition to this mindset change, highway maintenance is seeing an increasing use of new and emerging technologies such as computerization, drones, and geographic information systems (GIS). People entering this discipline will need experience with these technologies. These are some of the exciting things happening in transportation and we need career pathways to tell students about such opportunities.

Another trend affecting highway maintenance is the move toward automated vehicles. While this technology is still very new—it may not be clear exactly what form automation will take over the coming decades—it is undeniable that automation will change how our roadways are used. This will certainly change how we maintain our highways and rights of way.

Trends pushing maintenance thinking to the forefront include an increasing understanding of the environmental impacts and the impacts on human health of transportation. These impacts include road dust (from tire, brake pad, and road surface wear) as well as water runoff. Mitigation of these impacts are increasingly the responsibility of highway maintenance organizations. Whereas, in the past, maintenance considerations may have included driver visibility and safety, today’s maintenance practices must also take into account such things as the welfare of beneficial pollinators or the control of invasive plant species.

As highway maintenance organizations are charged with more responsibilities, the people doing this work will need to be more highly skilled and bring a broader range of technical expertise to the table.

Fortunately, the next generation of employees is excited about environmental sustainability. Aligning the needs of this discipline with the up-and-coming workforce is quite feasible. Young people today are interested in the holistic stewardship that will be required by this profession.

Like so many occupations in transportation Highway Maintenance Engineering careers need to be rebranded to reflect that these jobs are becoming more highly skilled, highly valued, and better compensated. Internally, highway departments will need to adopt a maintenance mindset. Externally, the next generation of transportation workers need to be shown a new image of highway maintenance.

Visit the MTWC Highway Maintenance Engineering Career Pathways Initiative page to keep abreast of this initiative.

To learn more about the National Transportation Career Pathways Initiative, visit the NNTW website.

About the Author

Dr. Adams is a civil and engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has more than 25 years of research experience and is an expert in freight policy research. Dr. Adams also led the 21st Century Workforce Development Summit, one in a series of regional summits used to identify needs, set goals, strategies, and best practices across various transportation career paths. The regional summits culminated in the National Transportation Workforce Summit, which Dr. Adams also co-led in the spring of 2012 in Washington, DC.

Adams: Highway Maintenance Career Pathways Must Highlight What Interests Young People, Leverage Established Programs

/0 Comments/in /by

This is an update on the MTWC Highway Maintenance Engineering Career Pathways Initiative.

“It’s not about potholes and roadkill. It’s not about snow plows and grass cutting,” said MTWC Director, Teresa Adams, at a recent webinar where she outlined the MTWC’s approach to the discipline of Highway Maintenance Engineering. “It’s a lot of vision for the future. A lot of young people are interested in things that have to do with our environment and taking care of our resources, and also technology.”

Last month, the MTWC Highway Maintenance Engineering Career Pathways Initiative was kicked off as part of the umbrella effort, the National Transportation Career Pathways Initiative. The national initiative is being conducted by five regional transportation centers across the country. Each center is working to define career pathways for a unique discipline of transportation occupations.

Discipline Working Groups (DWGs) Formed

Key to each centers’ part in this initiative is their discipline working group (DWG). The DWGs are comprised of subject matter experts who are contributing their time and expertise to help identify what is needed for each career pathway and then define components of those pathways. Last month, the centers came together with the members of their DWGs for an orientation webinar and to kick off the initiative. A recording of this orientation webinar is available.

Highway Maintenance Engineering is a Diverse and Evolving Discipline

Adams explained that highway maintenance occupations encompass a wide range of topics, such as environmentally relevant issues like surface water management, wildlife protection, invasive species and plants, brush control, and emerging technologies like drones and GPS-guided equipment. To address this diverse discipline, MTWC has put together a DWG with members representing a wide range of skills and expertise. The group includes highway maintenance directors, public works directors, people who know about pathways and industry employers.

Building on Established Resources

Fortunately, while the Highway Maintenance Engineering discipline is very diverse, it also has a wealth of established programs that will contribute to the development of career pathways.

“Our vision is to build upon the work that’s already been done in highway construction. We will take that to the next level by adding-in asset management like the long-term care and stewardship of our infrastructure systems. The exciting thing for our group is there’s so much already out there and we don’t have to start from scratch. A lot has been done on the body of knowledge for technologists and technicians. A lot has been done in certification on some of the maintenance systems and some of the engineering,” said Adams.

Adams also outlined some of the tactics that the group will use in this initiative. Leading up to the launch, her team identified some resources that may be beneficial, such as apprenticeship programs.

Next Steps

The MTWC Highway Maintenance Engineering Career Pathway initiative will begin quarterly calls with members of its DWG in April.

For more information, please contact Maria Hart at maria.hart@wisc.edu.

MTWC Takes on Highway Maintenance Engineering Career Pathways

/0 Comments/in /by

The Midwest Transportation Workforce Center has embarked on a two-year endeavor to create pathways for the skilled careers needed in the Highway Maintenance Engineering discipline over the next 10-15 years.

To do this, MTWC will form a working group, identify critical occupations, design career pathways, and implement methods to evaluate success. The center will also work to refine curricula that take into account emerging advances in technology like automated vehicles, sensors, robotics, artificial intelligence, geographic information systems (GIS), machine guidance systems, and others that may be on the horizon. The career pathway for highway maintenance occupations will start at the technical school level.

Currently, there is no clear pathway to occupations in highway maintenance. For starters, students cannot major in Highway Maintenance at a technical school or university. To explore needs in this career pathway, MTWC will seek to answer questions like: What kind of knowledge is needed for technicians or engineers in this field?

Occupations in highway maintenance are increasingly technical and specialized. For example, proper pavement treatment depends on climate, surface, and age of the pavement. Additionally, in places like the upper Midwest, winter maintenance, including snow removal, can be as much science as it is art, as many communities are moving away from salt to more environmentally friendly mediums such as beet juice and cheese brine.

Highway maintenance has a significant impact on everything from safety and costs over a road’s life cycle to wildlife and the environment. To be successful, roadside managers must be able to troubleshoot and leverage diverse skills and knowledge bases. For example, roadsides managed with pollinators in mind can achieve multiple goals at once, such as stabilizing roadsides, reducing storm water pollution, supporting wildlife, and building public exposure and appreciation for the local landscape.

MTWC’s work on Highway Maintenance Engineering career pathways is part of the National Transportation Career Pathways Initiative. Led by the National Network for the Transportation Workforce (NNTW), which is funded by the Federal Highway Administration, the national initiative will look at five disciplines: (1) Engineering, (2) Planning, (3) Safety, (4) Operations, and (5) Environment.

Each of the five NNTW regional centers is taking on one of these disciplines.

To keep abreast of the project, send an email to Maria Hart at maria.hart@wisc.edu. You can also visit the National Network for the Transportation Workforce website at NNTW.org, or click on the Initiative link on the MTWC website.