Saturday, December 22, 2018

Colorado Department of Transportation

My career has taken another turn and I have accepted a position with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT).  I am working in the Division of Mobility Operations and more specifically, with the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) group.

ITS is responsible for advanced technology applied to the existing roadways.  We support the transportation operation center by installing fiber optic cable, closed circuit television cameras and traffic monitoring devices.  We use microwave radar to establish speed and vehicle size.

Colorado is well poised to be a leader in autonomous vehicle technology.  Projects are in the works to assist vehicle to infrastructure (V2I), vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and infrastructure to vehicle (I2V) communications.

Technically it is a pretty cool role.  In terms of the responsibilities, the role is broad.  Professional Engineers own the project from design and project management to construction, before a final walk through when the project is turned over to maintenance.  It will be a nice blend of design work and field work.

Having never worked in public service, there are a lot of adjustments.  The field vehicles are not bright shiny Ram 1500's.  They are a mix of the most affordable vehicles in a given year and my choices were a 2007 Ford Expedition or a 2010 Jeep Liberty.  The offices are comfortable but do not have free coffee, soda, etc. 

It is an exciting time to be in transportation.  I have wanted to get involved with infrastructure, but was not sure in what capacity.  This is a nice blend of engineering and field work.  With ~3300 employees at CDOT, it is also a right sized organization.  Not too big and not too small.

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