Reaching Higher, Reaching Out on FasTracks Program

Reinstill faith. Reaffirm the mission. And reinforce confidence. That was Phillip A. Washington's goal when he took over the reins of the troubled $6.5-billion FasTracks transit construction program as general manager of Denver's Regional Transportation District (RTD) in 2009.

He directed the creation of a transparent "lessons learned" document to help boost the staff's morale. "The information we had at the time was what we had to deal with," he says. "Don't become too defensive. Move on." The document is refreshed every year.

Now, the 122-mile program is chugging along, with a $2.2-billion public-private partnership that includes features that are the first of their kind in the

WASHINGTON

But perhaps Washington's most beloved project is the Workforce Initiative Now (WIN) program. A partnership among RTD, Community College of Denver, Denver Transit Partners and the Urban League of Metropolitan Denver, WIN has helped some 400 disadvantaged residents in the past two years get training on RTD projects in their communities.

In successfully nominating Washington for the American Public Transportation Association's 2013 outstanding manager award, Lorraine Anderson, RTD chairwoman, emphasized his "vision and determination to make meaningful and far-reaching accomplishments and engaging in service to humankind." A 24-year decorated Army veteran, Washington compares public service, particularly transit, with the military, saying, "I can't think of any other profession where there is so much daily responsibility to serve so many people."

U.S. In 2011, Washington launched an industry forum that hosted 200 executives from around the world to seek out innovative ideas. The resulting unsolicited proposal policy launched two projects ahead of schedule. An internal savings account that Washington initiated will generate an extra $300 million by 2017. He also started a practice of regularly letting employees speak with him about anything and everything, in 15-minute slots.

Aileen Cho, ENR's senior transportation editor, is a native of Los Angeles and recovering New Yorker. She studied English and theater at Occidental College, where a reporter teaching the one existing journalism course encouraged her to apply for the LA Times Minority Editing Training Program. Her journalism training led to her first stories about transportation, working as a cub reporter with the Greenwich Time. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times. Many of her experiences with engineers and contractors have inspired material for her alternative theater productions way, way off Broadway. For ENR, Aileen has traveled the world, clambering over bridges in China, touring an airport in Abu Dhabi and descending into dark subway tunnels in New York City. She is a regular at transportation conferences, where she finds that airport and mass transit engineers really know how to have fun. Aileen is always eager to hop on another flight because there are so many interesting projects and people, and she gets tired of throwing her cats off her computer in her home office in Long Beach, California. She is a very conflicted Mets/Dodgers fan.

Post a comment to this article

Now is the time to get your project financial control up to date! Pairing rapid construction industry growth and today's incredibly challenging economic times with increasing labor, material and supply chain costs, this webinar dives deep into why effective project financial control is now a must-have requirement.