Chatting with Neil: A Lesson in Leadership and Loving What You Do
By Cerasela Cristei, WTS-DC
March 2022
Neil Pedersen may only be known to some from the message he writes in each TRB Annual Report Program and the picture that accompanies it. Maybe some have had the opportunity to meet Neil during the week-long TRB Annual Meeting, but I believe everyone knows that Neil leads the team that makes the TRB Annual Meeting (and everything else that TRB does for our profession) a reality. On March 16, 2022, WTS-DC members and friends sat down with Neil for a small group discussion about his path to leadership at TRB.
Neil Pedersen has been Executive Director of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) since 2015. In that role, he provides executive direction and leadership to TRB’s technical activities, including its annual meeting of over 14,000 transportation professionals, its 180 technical committees, its conferences, and its publications; its peer reviewed policy consensus studies; and its multimodal cooperative research programs. Prior to joining TRB, Neil spent 29 years at the Maryland Department of Transportation, where he served the last eight years as State Highway Administrator and Governor’s Highway Safety Representative.
Neil’s “relationship” with transportation began when he was eight years old and witnessed the construction of the Massachusetts Turnpike. He was curious not only about the construction process but also of the impact it had on communities. This curiosity grew when an old church in Brooklyn, a church where his mother used to be a member, was displaced by the approach to the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. The development fractured the community and separated once-close neighbors by a half-hour bus ride. Despite the upheaval, Neil recalled the story’s happy ending — a new and better church was built to replace the old one.
While in graduate school in 1975 at Northwestern University, Neil was told, not asked, by his advisor to attend a TRB meeting in Washington, DC. Without means but with a dedication to his advisor, Neil and five of his classmates drove from Evanston, Illinois to Washington, DC and slept on the floor at the home of one of his classmates. (An early form of AirBNB, maybe?) Nearly 3,000 people attended the meeting, which overwhelmed Neil but also sparked his decades-long professional love affair with TRB. True to form, Neil has remained involved with TRB ever since.
During his talk, Neil acknowledged the many crossed paths that helped shape his career. He shared stories about his work with Paul Wiedefeld, GM/CEO of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (who was in the audience at this event), while Neil was planning director of the Maryland State Highway Administration (MDOT SHA) and Paul was planning director for the Secretary's office in Maryland. Neil reminisced of the times when he and Paul held breakfast meetings at a downtown Baltimore restaurant for less money than most pay for a Starbucks today. It was heartwarming to hear Neil speak of the professional and personal interactions that contributed to his career development.
Neil volunteered with TRB for many years. In 1982, he joined the Statewide Multimodal Planning Committee and eventually became its chair in 1996. Through this committee, Neil developed friendships with planning directors from 12 different states, and their shared ideas helped them develop better solutions to the problems at hand. The rest, as they say, is history — Neil rose up through the volunteer ranks, took on more responsibilities by chairing committees, and eventually became Chair of the TRB Executive Committee in 2011. When Neil retired from MDOT SHA around that same time, TRB approached him to be part of a TRB research program called the Second Strategic Highway Research Program. In 2015, Neil became the Executive Director of TRB.
Neil shared some of his proudest accomplishments at TRB. Neil noted that TRB has become more diverse and—more importantly—has increased its focus on addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion at the programmatic level. He applauded TRB’s strategic approach and focus on planning for the next decade and beyond. I left the conversation with a renewed professionalfocus. Like Neil, I must always strive for what I want, even when it may seem impossible, understand what needs to be done, and focus on accomplishing my mission.
Neil encouraged participants to become (and remain) involved in TRB. Neil’s response to the question “why” was simple — professional development. Participating in TRB is one of the best opportunities for transportation professionals of all ages and levels of experience to place themselves at the intersection of ideas and advancement in the industry around the globe. Professionals who dedicate time to TRB create lasting professional relationships and contribute to the betterment of transportation. What could be better than that?
WTS-DC thanks Neil for his continuous support of WTS-DC, for generously giving his time to our chapter, and for donating venue space at TRB for this event.