My "least immersive" experience working professionally with government was as a young engineer designing highways for Florida DOT. Obeying their standards without having a direct relationship with the staff.
Since 1995, my relationships with Government have been built around process improvement, whether it has been software/standards automation or staff training and training development. Even at CalTrans, where my job was production, I was continually working with staff and leadership to streamline their processes.
I worked for HNTB for two years as an InRoads Highway Designer. FDOT was our primary client.
I spent five years consulting to the City of San Diego. Initially I was an independent contractor with San Diego Data Processing Corp (SDDPC) leading their InSewer (InRoads Sanitary) product implementation, training development and staff training. Ultimately, I was a Principle Engineering Analyst for SDDPC, managing Engineering Services Contracts for the City (MicroStation, InRoads, InSewer, InFlow and other products).
I was Technical Lead for OkDOT's migration from MicroStation/J to v8 and InRoads. Bohannan-Huston Inc. (BHI) owned the contract and Brad Adams managed it. I was given wide lattitude in how I worked with the client and staff, how and when we met, staff education, consensual decisions, and implementation of newly-decided standards.
While most of the on-site was in Oklahoma City, I led a consulting team from multiple states and worked with staff from multiple OkDOT regional offices. I started a website to facilitate collaboration between BHI staff. It grew into an education and collaboration core that erased the geographic distance among participants.
Another great project where I worked with Bohannan-Huston, Inc. (BHI) and Brad Adams. BHI had a contract to migrate CDOT from AutoDesk to Bentley. I was technical lead, developing the standards implementation. Later, I wrote their initial InRoads Storm&Sanitary Training Manual.
In my Civil XLr8 days, I bid for and won a contract to deliver InRoads Training to UDOT's Roadway Engineers and their Bridge Group, using my standard training material as well as custom content for the Bridge engineers.
The four classes I taught stand out as some of the most enjoyable in my career. Great people and testament to the ability to have a great time while staying very productive (my favorite way to work).
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I worked directly embedded with CalTrans for 18 months as part of their Staff Augmentation Program (through CH2MHill). I worked in a construction trailer for a year as part of their Phased Construction (equivalent to Design-Build) for I-15 HOV Widening. I worked primarily on a highly-constrained and ever-changing Direct Access Ramp geometric and drainage design.
My last six months at CalTrans was in the new District 11 Headquarters doing interchange widening studies for I-5 (geometric and drainage design).
My engineering work at Kimley-Horn was for CalTrans. While at Bentley, I taught StormCAD at District 1 (Eureka) and Headquarters (Sacramento).
Virginia DOT was an early adopter of OpenRoads Drainage ("Subsurface Utilities"). As one of Bentley's top experts and co-creator of training material, I worked with VDOT Drainage HQ staff to identify gaps between their needs and Bentley's training offerings. I authored new courses and taught classes at their headquarters and throughout the state. I worked with their Drainage Managers to ensure their comfort not only with the software but with Quality Assurance tools and techniques. They wanted to be sure that the additional power (complexity) of the software did not lead to errors.
In 2018, I spent a week at a number of DOTs working with their Hydraulic Leads to help define their implementations of OpenRoads Drainage.