President's Message: January/February 2021
Dear WTS-DC Chapter Members and Friends,
On behalf of the WTS-DC Board, I would like to wish all of you a happy new year and thank you for your continued support of our chapter.
When I began my term as WTS-DC President in January 2020, I could not have imagined how much the world would change. The year 2020 challenged our lives personally and professionally, but through it all, WTS-DC never relented. I would be remiss if I didn’t recognize the hard work of our chapter board and volunteers in helping navigate the challenges of doing business and executing virtual programming in a pandemic.
In November, we hosted a virtual event with WMATA leadership, including GM and CEO Paul Wiedefeld, Chief Safety Officer Theresa Impastato, and Vice President of Government Affairs Regina Sullivan. This is an event that we have held annually for several years now. While the format was different, we were excited to have WMATA leadership join us for an important conversation about how the agency is managing during the pandemic.
In December, WTS-DC had our first virtual Holiday Party! As always, we celebrated our recognition award winners and our scholarship awardees. The virtual setting allowed us to also share some of our chapter’s achievements this year and our involvement within the community. Despite the challenges associated with 2020, we were able to give away nine scholarship awards for a total of $15,500 in scholarships, which is the highest amount our chapter has ever given out. I want to say a big thank you to our Holiday Party Committee who transitioned the event from being in-person to a virtual celebration. Thanks to Audra Bandy of Fairfax County DOT, Sofie Rhoads of Foursquare ITP, Sara Haley of Sullivan Strategies, and Brittney Gick of Texas A&M Transportation Institute and WTS-DC Advisor. Thank you for putting together a wonderful virtual event to celebrate the end of 2020!
WTS-DC was very fortunate to receive significant support from so many people over the past year, and we appreciate the involvement and contributions of our membership and the larger community. I hope that WTS-DC uses the efforts from all those who supported the organization in the past and builds off of that strong foundation as we continue to pursue our mission.
I do want to take a moment to recognize members of our community who we lost in 2020: Patricia (Pat) Timbrook and Joseph (Joe) Alexander. We are grateful to Pat and Joe for their support of WTS-DC throughout the years, and we express our condolences to their families and friends.
As we kick off 2021, WTS-DC is welcoming two new Executive Board members: Shelley Wynne of Dewberry will serve as our Treasurer, and Katie Masetti of Mead & Hunt will serve as our Secretary. We are excited for these women to take on leadership roles within our chapter, and we are thrilled to begin the year with a few new board members and volunteers.
In 2021, our chapter will continue to provide interesting programming, a mentoring program, and a Transportation YOU program. Please be on the lookout for emails with information on how you can engage with us in any of those activities.
As I continue in the second year of my presidency, I invite you to provide feedback on how WTS-DC has managed our involvement in the community in 2020 and how we can continue to serve you, our community, in 2021. My goal for this year is for WTS-DC to continue to engage with and add value to the D.C. transportation community. If you would like to share any comments on how WTS-DC can achieve that goal, please feel free to email me at [email protected].
We can only guess what 2021 has in store for all of us! As this year is already quickly underway, I wish you all well, and thank you for your continued support of WTS-DC. We look forward to seeing you (virtually) soon!
Best,
Neela Babu, Ph.D.
President, WTS-DC Chapter
Contact Us!
If you or your organization are interested in contributing to WTS-DC and would like to know how you could do so, please contact us. You can reach us through any of our social media channels listed below, or you can email me at president.wts.dc@gmail.com.