Paula Hammond

Paula Hammond is the National Transportation Market Leader for WSP USA, in Seattle, WA. Paula is responsible for representing the company as an industry leader in the emerging transportation practice areas of: funding and finance, organizational leadership, transportation resilience, performance management and asset management, pricing and managed lanes, and transportation system operations. Paula dedicated her 34-year public service career to improving transportation systems in Washington state, and served as WA Secretary of Transportation from 2007-2013. She has been a national figure on transportation issues, with leadership on numerous AASHTO committees, TRB Executive Board, ARTBA Board of Trustees and WTS International Board of Directors. Ms. Hammond is a graduate of Oregon State University (OSU) with a B.S. degree in civil engineering. She is a registered professional engineer in the State of Washington.

Paula has been a member of the WTS Puget Sound Chapter for over 20 years. While at WSDOT, she was instrumental in supporting the Chapter’s technical programs on state DOT services and projects, and participates in the mentorship of WTS members and students. She has been a member of the WTS International Board since 2014, and was inducted as Board Vice-Chair in May, 2018. As a Board member, Paula has led the Region Council Liaison committee, and served as the Northwest Region Council Board Liaison. She has actively supported the Board’s work to establish an updated strategic direction for the organization, and looks forward to successful efforts to grow WTS membership and partnerships within the industry to continue to advance women in transportation leadership.

Jannet Walker-Ford

Jannet Walker-Ford is a nationally recognized transportation industry executive with WSP USA, a leading engineering and professional services consultancy. Walker-Ford has more than two decades of diverse experience in technology, mobility and transportation systems. In her role with WSP, she serves as the senior vice president & national transit and rail leader and is responsible for leading and growing the firm’s business in the national transit and rail markets and establishing strategies that will position WSP for major advisory, planning, design, program management and construction management assignments. 

Prior to this appointment, Walker-Ford served as a senior vice president for the Americas transit market sector at an international engineering services firm where she was responsible for the leadership and strategic direction of the transit market in North and South America, and previously as a vice president of government relations for a technology firm where she provided transportation focused, executive-level bi-partisan collaboration with elected officials at all levels of government, as well as trade industry associations and non-profit organizations. She has served in an executive leadership capacity on programs and projects for large transit and transportation agencies across the U.S., including a public-private partnership for the Massachusetts Bay Area Transportation Agency and a multi-billion-dollar capacity enhancement program for the Philadelphia International Airport. During her tenure with the public sector, Walker-Ford served as the Deputy General Manager/Deputy CEO as well as the Chief Information Officer at the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, where she led the implementation of the regional smart card fare collection system, the first of its kind in north America.  

Walker Ford is a graduate of the University of Memphis with a bachelor’s degree in management information systems, Central Michigan University with a master’s degree in business administration. She has completed significant coursework towards her doctorate in information systems from Nova Southeastern University.  

She serves on numerous diverse boards including as board chair of the American Public Transportation Foundation, is a board member of the American Public Transportation Association, chair of the WTS International Foundation Board and vice chair of the WTS International Board, ENO Transportation Advisory Board, a member of the Jacksonville University Board of Trustees, and is chair of the Greater Jacksonville Cultural Council Board. Additionally, Walker-Ford serves as the Vice Chair of ITS America’s Sustainability & Resiliency Committee and is also a member of the IT Senior Management Forum and the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials and is an Alumnus of Leadership APTA and the ENO Executive Leadership program. 

Walker-Ford has received numerous awards throughout her career, including the 2019 Women of Color STEM Technology All-Star Award, the 2019 Miami Women Who Rock’s National Business Achievement Award, the 2019 Transportation Diversity Council/Massachusetts Institute of Technology honoree for Services to the Transportation Industry, and a 2019 Conference of Minority Transportation Officials’ Women Who Move the Nation honoree. 

Danielle Smith

Danielle Smith is the Central Region Director for Triunity, Inc. and is based out of the Denver headquarter office.  Danielle oversees the operations, business development and project management of the engineering, construction management and program management teams that provide services in all aspect of transportation. Danielle has over 25 years of delivering transportation projects in Colorado and was involved in the nationally recognized multi- modal project T-REX and the FasTracks project. Danielle’s leadership role as a program manager on FasTracks included experience of project prioritization, stakeholder coordination, highway and light rail design oversight, utility coordination, project controls, cost estimating, and project coordination. She has excellent communication and the ability to lead teams to implement projects and bring them to completion.

She has been active in the WTS Colorado Chapter since 1997, serving in roles as Secretary and President. She was WTS Colorado Member of the Year in 2016. She was named the Council Chair for the pilot Northwest Regional Council in 2014 and has severed on the International Advisory Board. Danielle served as Treasurer for the International Board in 2018 to 2020.  She will serve as Secretary of the International Board and is looking forward to continuing to serve and promote the WTS mission.

Susan Martinovich

Susan serves as the DOT National Practice Consultant for HNTB, supporting the firm’s national DOT and toll market teams in building and fostering relationships and providing strategic advice with clients across the country. As part of HNTB’s leadership team, she also mentors and coaches project, office, and division leadership teams.

In her almost 40 year career, Susan has been a nationally recognized expert in surface transportation development in the areas of safety initiatives to reduce fatalities, alternative project delivery methods, asset management and performance-based decision making, and transportation funding mechanisms and policies to ensure continued investment in the nation’s infrastructure.

For nearly three decades, Susan was part of the Nevada Department of Transportation, including serving two Governors of Nevada as the DOT Director for the last six of those years. As Director, she worked to form the Department into a responsive and customer friendly agency through broader communications strategies both within and externally to give, receive, and follow-up with information, and to improve transparency and show accountability to the Nevada Governor, Legislature and public.

She initiated several programs which are still in place today, including the Joint NDOT/Construction committee, the Executive Leaders Safety Committee, and NDOT Leadership training

Under her leadership, she oversaw the design and construction of several key projects within Nevada, including the Hoover Dam Bypass, US95 Widening in Las Vegas, I-15/US95 Design build (the first in the state), I-580 Freeway between Reno and Carson City, and the Carson City Bypass.

Susan has held numerous chair and vice-chair AASHTO Committee leadership positions including being elected AASHTO President (the first woman) in 2010.  Other committee leadership roles include - the Chair of Committee on Research, Chair of Committee on Safety, Vice-Chair Committee on Design, and Vice-Chair Committee on Highways.  She was also a member of the TRB Executive Board.  She has been on the WTS International Board for 3 terms, with the last term as the Board’s Secretary and she is also on the ARTBA Executive Board.

She is also the proud mother of two sons.  One is the city transportation engineer for Carson City, NV and the other is a retired marine who know works at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Reno, NV.

Maggie Walsh

Maggie Walsh is Vice President and Strategic Clients and Pursuits Leader at HDR, a leading consulting company in engineering, architecture, environmental and construction services. She leads teams in securing new work by providing guidance, oversight and support for highly visible and game changing project pursuits. She keeps her focus on strategic client development programs across market sectors including transit, freight rail, highways, bridges, aviation and maritime resulting in transformative growth for HDR employees.

Maggie has been an active member and supporter of WTS since 1997. Having a strong connection to Chapter level activities and has a solid understanding of WTS International’s needs, her tenure as Chair of the Board advanced the organization in many ways. Operationally, a new WTS Staff has been hired and a new operating systems and website have been put into place. Strategic partners and professional organization alliances were strengthen by formalizing relationships with AASHTO, ARTBA, COMTO, TRB and APTA. All six Region Councils were launched, 62 professional chapters are active and the organization has grown to 8,500 members. The brand and image of the organization has been refreshed to better reflect the forward-thinking, inspiring, inclusive nature of WTS.

Today, Maggie serves as Immediate Past Chair and the Governance Committee Lead. She has held several other leadership positions including a 3-year term as the Greater Chicago Chapter President, International Board Liaison to the Central Region and she remains on the Greater Chicago Chapter advisory board. Maggie served a two-year term on the WTS Foundation Board where $611,000 in scholarships were given out in 2019. She feels very fortunate to have the opportunity to participate in Chapter events as she travels throughout North America.