pacific nw transportation consortium region 10 Pactrans

Last week, Wednesday February 24, The PacTrans Board of Directors (BoD) met at the University of Washington. Present were Board Members: Chris Bell and David Hurwitz from Oregon State University, Billy Connor of University of Alaska Fairbanks, Ahmed Abdel-Rahim of the University of Idaho, Yinhai Wang (director) and Mark Hallenbeck from the University of Washington, and Ken Casavant from Washington State University; and Staff Members: Maria Bayya and Cole Kopca.

The board spent some time discussing the upcoming request for proposal for our consortium to continue representing federal region 10 as the Pacific Northwest University Transportation Center (UTC). For those unaware, universities need to reapply for their position as UTCs at the beginning of each funding cycle. Currently PacTrans is in the process of closing out its first center (with funding from SAFETY-LU), half way through its second center (with funding from MAP-21), and will be applying for its third center (with funding from FAST Act). This center will come with a USDOT grant for five years of funding research, education, workforce development, and technology transfer. Each associate director expressed how much they have valued the partnerships built over the last several years within the consortium and are excited to pursue this next round of funding together.

The afternoon was spent reviewing abstract submissions for multi-institutional projects proposals. PIs should be on the lookout for feedback on their abstract from both the PacTrans office and from their university’s associate director by Monday, March 14th. Don’t forget, full proposals are due to be uploaded to the PacTrans website by Monday, April 18^th.

Finally, the Board took the opportunity to recognize Dr. Chris Bell for his years of service acting as Oregon State University’s PacTrans Associate Director. He has been slowly transitioning out of this role as he passes his baton to David Hurwitz. Dr. Bell will be retiring at the end of this school year and fully stepping down from his role as PacTrans Associate Director. We want to extend him a huge thanks and wish him all the best in retirement.