In March, Cambridge Systematics (CS) President and CEO Brad Wright announced the promotion of 10 staff members to the role of Principal, followed by the announcement of the firm’s annual Manheim and Taggart award recipients.
Ten Senior Staff Promoted to Principal
“Earning the role of Principal is a significant accomplishment. The senior leaders who have been promoted to Principal have exceptional leadership skills, are sought-after subject matter experts, have made strong contributions to Cambridge Systematics’ project work and are ambassadors of our core beliefs,” said Wright. “These individuals demonstrate an unwavering commitment to our firm, mentoring and motivating staff and above all, working with our clients to solve today’s transportation challenges.”
The individuals promoted to Principal include:
Dina Baker
Baker led the 2016 rebranding of the firm, transformed the company’s marketing capability, crafted effective communications and collaborated on some of CS’ most recent strategic initiatives. Baker translates her impactful project leadership to mentoring and training staff at every level of the organization.
Susan Binder
Binder is a critical resource for interpreting federal legislation and policy changes and analyzing their impacts for transportation agencies. She is a recognized leader known for tackling complex policy, organizational and institutional challenges. Other staff members frequently seek her guidance to better understand the policy and governance environment.
Rachel Copperman
Copperman has gained industry-wide recognition for her work in model development, intercity passenger rail and measuring uncertainty in the travel forecasting process. She is a proactive force committed to excelling every time and delivering objective, high-quality and timely results. In addition, she leads our Austin office and plays an active role training junior staff across the firm on critical software and systems.
Tom Harrington
Harrington brings more than 25 years of transportation planning experience to critical growth areas within the transit and shared mobility market, including corridor studies and alternatives analysis, performance-based project prioritization and the impacts of connected and automated vehicle technology on transit. He is a leader in our Bethesda office and manages our Mid-Atlantic planning staff.
David Jackson
Jackson supported countless multimodal transportation planning and policy projects since joining CS over a decade ago. He’s a recognized leader in the Mid-Atlantic and is a key technical resource within the CS environmental practice area. Jackson proactively sets goals for himself and junior staff to ensure each project delivers on our commitment to excellence. He was a founding member of our office in Raleigh, NC.
Karen Kiselewski
Kiselewski is a leader in transportation resiliency and well respected for her talents managing complex and new “first time” challenging projects. Our clients vocalize their confidence in Kiselewski’ s project management and data-driven approaches. She sets the tone in the Fort Lauderdale office, she is us a role model to junior staff and emerging leaders in that office and beyond.
Marty Milkovits
Milkovits is an integral component to the firm’s modeling capabilities. His work has expanded our approach to model for transportation’s uncertain future, which helps agencies understand how autonomous and connected vehicle technology, new mobility services and changing travel behavior impact their services. Milkovits also was a technical leader in the development of CS’ Activity Based Modeling (ABL) platform, TourCast.
Nikhil Puri
Puri’s integrity and professionalism has gained the trust of our clients in the metropolitan New York area and his colleagues around the country. Puri’s experience applying big data to transportation projects has made significant advances to the industry. He is a key leader in our New York City Office and manages the local modeling staff.
Paul Sorensen
Sorensen brings a rare combination of computer science, geography and urban planning to his work specializing in software for the transportation domain. He effectively leads CS Software project teams while motivating staff with his commitment to provide open-source solutions for transportation challenges. He recently worked with 2-1-1 agencies in Southern California to apply 1-Click, the mobility management and cross-modal trip planning software that provides eligible residents with better access to a regional database of human service transportation providers.
Sam Van Hecke
Van Hecke leads CS’ Connected and Automated Vehicle Strategic Planning area, where he helps agencies determine how emerging technology will impact their region then works to incorporate these findings into the agency’s long range transportation plan. Van Hecke is a national voice on the linkage between operations and planning and he is committed to supporting junior staff.
2018 Manheim and Taggart Award Winners
Established in 2001, the Marvin L. Manheim Award memorializes and is named for one of the company’s founders, who was an innovator and visionary. The award recognizes an individual or group within CS that demonstrates these same qualities through the development and implementation of an innovative new product or service that brings value to CS’ clients or to the industry.
This year’s Manheim Award recipient is the CS team that developed an innovative approach to applying the Design Sprint concept to transportation planning and modeling challenges. The team included Principals Sarah Anderson, Evan Enarson-Hering, Nathan Higgins, David Jackson and Marty Milkovits. In announcing the award, Karen Kiselewski, Principal, noted that the Design Sprint enables teams to solve problems in a rapid manner by designing, prototyping, and testing solutions on a close to real-time basis. This approach has been used on several projects across the country and clients who have participated in a Design Sprint have come together with a single purpose and through collaboration leave with extraordinary results that meet their immediate needs.
The Chip Taggart Exceptional Service Award honors CS’ first COO, Chip Taggart, who brought objectivity, vision, creativity, foresight and energy to the role, empowering staff to forge relationships with clients, improve operational performance, and strive for excellence. Established in 2011 upon Taggart’s retirement, the award goes to CS employees for work that significantly impacts process efficiency, results in improved client satisfaction and significantly contributes to one or more of CS’ mission and core values.
This year’s Taggart Award went to the team that led the implementation of CS’ firm-wide Facilities Strategy, announced Steve Capecci, Chief Operating Officer. The team members include: Sue Krabbe, Director of Facilities; Dawn Mihelis, Facilities Office Administrator; Kathryn Cohen, Director of Information Technology; and Anthony Zannella, Information Technology Support Manager. “In 2016, we developed our first ever company-wide Facilities Strategy and since that time, we have relocated four of our offices, opened stand-alone offices in Los Angeles and Denver and refreshed our offices in Chicago, New York City and Tallahassee,” said Capecci. “The work of this team of recipients has provided our staff with more modern and collaborative spaces to work while also reducing the firm’s office-related costs.”
Cambridge Systematics congratulates its newest Principals and award recipients, and appreciates the service and partnership they and their colleagues across the firm provide to our clients every day.