A Thank You To Faisal Saleem and Looking Towards 2024
Scott Marler, Director, Iowa DOT and Chair, NOCoE Strategic Advisory Council
As Chair of the NOCoE Strategic Advisory Council, I would like to thank Faisal Saleem for his accomplishments during his nearly two-year tenure as Director of the National Operations Center of Excellence. Faisal departs his role tomorrow to join FHWA’s Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center to continue his esteemed career as a leader in the field of transportation operations.
As Director of NOCoE, Faisal implemented the new cooperative agreement with FHWA, which expanded the Center’s service through the next five years. He also oversaw the renewal of the partnership between AASHTO, ITE, and ITS America to ensure transportation operations knowledge is gathered and shared across the entire industry.
As a subject matter expert, Faisal established a new era of NOCoE peer exchanges, webinars, and technical services which embrace a large constituency of practitioners and address emerging TSMO strategies and practices, including the establishment of the 1st NOCoE TSMO Trends Survey to capture the ongoing trends within the industry. Most of all, just as with any effective TSMO program, Faisal established a strong culture at NOCoE, which I’m certain will continue, even after his departure.
In the next 3 months, NOCoE will deliver a robust number of activities and services, including peer exchanges on Public Communications, TSMO and Planning, and Cybersecurity for TSMO, and host an average of 2 webinars a week to focus on applying TSMO strategies and practices. NOCoE will also publish TSMO Moment videos to capture operations career paths, develop case studies to transfer knowledge to the community, and engage with organizations on workforce development strategies.
I’m excited to continue to work with the well-established team at NOCoE, representing its three partners, as they work to provide centralized services to support the transportation industry. Adam Hopps will continue to oversee the technical services, website, and stakeholder engagement activities, while Luana Broshears, Ahnaf Morshed, and Doug Noble of ITE provide subject matter expertise for peer exchanges and Kevin Viita of ITS America supports the webinar program.
Attract, develop, sustain, and expand the TSMO workforce.
Accelerate the deployment of current and emerging TSMO practices.
Mainstream TSMO as a core function of providing transportation system solutions for all.
Through summits on these strategic goals, industry feedback, and ongoing engagement, NOCoE has been learning about the evolving needs of the TSMO community.
Later this year, the NOCoE Strategic Advisory Council will begin evaluating how NOCoE can best serve the industry beyond this strategic plan as we continue to focus on the goals of saving lives, improving mobility, and establishing a resilient transportation system. I’m very excited about NOCoE’s future and how it will continue to grow to meet the needs of TSMO practitioners.
We will all miss Faisal as he moves into his new role at FHWA, but the future laid out above is due to his leadership as NOCoE Director and we are fortunate he’ll continue to contribute to the TSMO community.
NOCoE’s key advantage will continue to be its founding partners: AASHTO, ITE, and ITS America, and the support of FHWA. I want to thank each of them for their continued support in providing strategic leadership, technical oversite, and the delivery of services.
About the National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE)
NOCoE provides services to the transportation systems management and operations (TSMO) community to saves lives, improve travel times, and enhance economic vitality. With an emphasis on workforce development, NOCoE aims to assist in the deployment of technologies and the mainstreaming of TSMO solutions by fostering education, networking, communication, and knowledge transfer.
