RTSSC LogoSkip Navigation

Vision Safe Drive Conference
Presenter Bios

Use the following links to jump directly to presenter's bio:

Sheryl Aanerud is a senior operations and policy analyst and the medical program coordinator for Oregon's Driver and Motor Vehicle Services (DMV). She provides training and technical assistance on DMV's medical and at-risk driver programs to agency personnel, the medical community, local and regional community agencies and the public. She also works with the Oregon Department of Transportation's Public Transit Division, the Oregon Medical Association, senior services groups, and others to raise awareness of safety issues associated with older drivers. Aanerud holds a master's degree in counseling from Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Brad Booth is a sergeant in the traffic division of the Rapid City Police Department. He oversees the Critical Accident Reconstruction Team and the STOP Program, and assists in managing the Driving While Intoxicated Enforcement Program. Booth began working with the Rapid City Police Department in 1986, and worked as a state trooper in Custer, SD, until 1999. During that time, he became an accident reconstructionist and began teaching intermediate and advanced accident investigation at the State Law Enforcement Academy, which he continues to do to date. In addition, Booth instructs forensic mapping of crime and crash scenes and has traveled throughout the country instructing other agencies on this technology. He holds a bachelor's degree in education from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, SD.

Matthew Carlson has been the state highway safety engineer and the governor's representative for highway safety for the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) for the past three years. He began working for the WYDOT 23 years ago in various capacities including: six years as a field engineer working on construction contract administration; one year as a project engineer; two years as a materials staff engineer; and six years as the resident engineer responsible for planning, surveying, designing and oversight of highway construction projects. He was also the district construction engineer in Rock Springs, WY, where he was responsible for the planning, project development and construction oversight for five counties. Carlson graduated from Central Wyoming College in 1982 with an associate of applied science degree and from the University of Wyoming in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering.

Brian Chandler works as a traffic safety engineer with the Missouri Department of Transportation. Chandler leads efforts in crash data analysis and safety engineering. His recent projects include system-wide installation of median guard cable and rumble strips.

Paul Harker works as an intelligent transportation systems, safety, and traffic operations engineer. Harker has been involved with traffic safety with the FHWA since 1992. He has worked in field offices in Alaska, Washington and Wyoming. He has also spent time working at the headquarters in Washington, DC, and as field liaison to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Region 10, in Seattle. In these roles, Harker provided technical assistance on roadway safety for the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, road safety audits, work zone safety and the Strategic Highway Safety Plan.

David Huff directs traffic education programs for Montana through the Montana Office of Public Instruction and leads the implementation committee on young driver issues. He administers two different driver education/training programs including the Novice Driver Education program for eligible teens and the Montana DRIVE program, an advanced behind-the-wheel crash avoidance training for licensed drivers. Huff also recently participated in the development of the Montana Strategic Highway Safety Plan. In 2005, he participated with highway safety advocates for four legislative sessions to pass a Montana Graduated Driver License (GDL) law. He also worked with other traffic safety partners to develop a parent guide to assist parents in their role with the GDL. In 2001, Huff completed earned a master's in education from Montana State University at Northern, with an emphasis on learning development and focus on traffic safety education.

Jeff Jensen is a division administrator for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. He started his career as a Transportation Technician for the State of Vermont. In 1987 he was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Army where he specialized in truck transportation. After reaching rank of captain he transitioned to the U.S. Department of Transportation in 1994 and became a special agent. In 1999 he was promoted to division administrator for the North Dakota Division which is responsible for 10,000 motor carriers based in North Dakota, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. He has a B.S. in biology and a master's degree in organizational management.

Anthony (Tony) Kane joined the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) in 2001 as director of engineering and technical services. He oversees the development of transportation policy and legislative proposals; the development of hundreds of technical publications and standards, including those for safety, quality, bridges, geometric design, materials, and intelligent transportation systems; the development and licensing of AASHTOWare software products; the review and accreditation of laboratories thru the AASHTO Materials Reference Lab; the evaluation of transportation products; radio frequency filings with the FCC; and support to numerous AASHTO committees. Previously, Kane served as the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration's executive director. He holds a B.S. in civil engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; an M.S. in civil engineering from Northwestern University, with emphasis on transportation planning; and a doctorate of business administration from George Washington University. Kane also graduated from the Program for Senior Managers at Harvard's Kennedy School.

Martin Kidner works as the state planning engineer for the Wyoming Department of Transportation where he is responsible for the Safe Routes program, along with environmental, railroad, transit, and project programming functions. Previously, Kidner worked in various field offices overseeing construction projects for 15 years before moving to Cheyenne, WY, and working as maintenance staff engineer. He then moved back to the district headquarters where he worked as a district maintenance engineer and then as a district engineer. After returning from National Guard deployment to the Middle East, Kidner was appointed as the asset manager and worked to balance the different demands for highway funding, including pavement, safety, bridges, and maintenance. Kidner graduated from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering.

Jeffrey Lindley was named associate administrator for safety for the FHWA in 2006. He directs a staff that develops and delivers FHWA policies and programs designed to improve highway safety. Prior to this appointment, he was director of the FHWA Office of Transportation Management where traffic management and ITS technologies and strategies are implemented to address urban congestion problems. From 1997 to 2000, he served as FHWA California Division administrator where he led the nation's largest federal-aid highway program. Lindley first joined the FHWA in 1985 as a highway research engineer in McLean, VA. He also held positions as a traffic management/ITS specialist in San Francisco, CA; as a branch chief and team leader in the Office of Traffic Management and ITS Applications in Washington, DC; and as deputy director of the ITS Joint Program Office. Lindley graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in civil engineering and received his master's degree in transportation engineering from the University of Maryland.

Robyn Litke has been employed by Fargo Cass Public Health for six years as coordinator for the Safe Communities Coalition of the Red River Valley. Litke coordinates coalition-driven activities including alcohol compliance checks, responsible beverage service training, sticker shock campaigns, law enforcement appreciation events, victim impact panels, school and worksite seat belt campaigns, national seat belt and impaired driving prevention campaigns, and implementation of child passenger safety and underage drinking prevention curriculums in area schools. She also provides technical assistance and training to Safe Communities coalitions and coordinators in eastern North Dakota. Litke is a graduate of Creighton University and attended Mothers Against Drunk Driving's Public Policy Institute and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Traffic Safety Institute.

Jim Lynch is director of the Montana Department of Transportation, leading a team of more than 2,200 employees who plan, design and maintain 12,950 miles, and 2,100 bridges on Montana's highway system. He also manages state aviation, transit, and rail programs. Lynch has a wide variety of experience in the construction industry. Most recently he served as a public policy advisor to an international construction consortium. He holds a degree in management science from Kean University. Lynch serves as the governor's representative for the National Highway Traffic Safety Programs. For AASHTO, he serves as chairman of the Subcommittee on Highway Transport. In 2005, Lynch led the team that brought the Beartooth Highway Emergency Slide Repair Project in ahead of schedule and under budget. The project was the largest design/build project ever undertaken by the Montana Department of Transportation. Lynch is a champion for highway safety and has led legislative initiatives resulting in enactment of a ban on open containers, and graduated driver's licenses. Under Lynch's leadership Montana completed its first Comprehensive Highway Traffic Safety Plan.

Bill Mickelson recently finished his largest project to date, consulting for the new G.S. Mickelson Criminal Justice Center in Pierre, SD. In 2004, Mickelson was appointed by Attorney General Larry Long as special assistant attorney general and special agent with the Division of Criminal Investigation. In 2001, Governor Bill Janklow appointed Mickelson to develop and command a computer crimes unit called the South Dakota Internet Crimes against Children Task Force. In 2003, this special enforcement unit received a national award from Bill Gates and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children for being one of the top six computer crime units in the country. Mickelson joined the South Dakota Highway Patrol in the mid 1970s, working as special assistant to the superintendent, government lobbyist and law enforcement planner. He started his law enforcement career in 1971 as a deputy sheriff in Sioux Falls, SD.

David Morena has been working as the safety and traffic operations engineer at the FHWA Michigan Division Office in Lansing since 1983. His job is to become aware of successful safety-related practices around the state and nation and to share and promote good practices within Michigan. To do this, Morena develops and maintains nationwide information on best practices in several cutting edge safety areas including rumble strips, intersection safety, elderly mobility countermeasures and red-light-running camera programs. Morena earned his master's degree in civil engineering from Ohio State University in 1974.

Mark Nelson has been superintendent of the North Dakota Highway Patrol since being appointed by Governor John Hoeven in 2007. He began his career with the North Dakota Highway Patrol in 1981 as a trooper in Rolla and Devils Lake. In 1989, he was promoted to sergeant and served as district sergeant in Dickinson. In 1996, he was promoted to captain and served as district commander in Grand Forks. In 2002, he was promoted to major and appointed as the field operations commander serving at the Highway Patrol Headquarters in Bismarck. Nelson earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Park University, MO, in 2002. He graduated from the Northwestern University Traffic Institute's School of Police Staff and Command in 1991.

Colonel Sam Powell was appointed administrator of the Wyoming Highway Patrol in 2005, becoming the 10th person to lead the Patrol since it was created in 1933. He had served as the Patrol's operations commander since 2003. His career spans 31 years of diverse experience, beginning as a patrolman and working his way up through the supervisory ranks. In 1985 he was promoted to Safety and Training Sergeant in Cheyenne, and four years later was named Safety and Training Lieutenant. He became field district commander for Albany, Goshen, Laramie and Platte counties in 1991, and was promoted to Support Services Captain in 1999, managing dispatch, evidence and equipment functions at Patrol headquarters. He serves on the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission, Public Safety Communications Commission, Governor's Council on Impaired Driving, Wyoming Alliance for Drug Endangered Children, Project Safe Neighborhoods Steering Committee, Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy Advisory Board and the FBI National Academy Associates. Powell was born in Sidney, Neb., and raised in Laramie, where he graduated from high school and attended the University of Wyoming. He is a 1994 graduate of the FBI National Academy.

Cliff Reuer has worked as traffic and safety engineer for the South Dakota Department of Transportation Office of Local Government Assistance and Office of Project Development with responsibilities for the Highway Safety Improvement Program, Hazard Elimination and Safety, Road Safety Audit/Road Safety Audit Reviews and traffic engineering for local governments for the last 14 years. Before that, he worked six years as a surveyor and project inspector on grading, asphalt and concrete surfacing and signing projects; four years in the billboard/junkyard control; six years with the Pierre Region maintenance crews as a maintenance analyst; and nine years in traffic engineering in the Pierre Region working with work zone signing and normal traffic signing/striping.

Michael Rothschild is n professor emeritus in the School of Business at University of Wisconsin where he has been on the faculty since 1975. His research focuses on social marketing, that is, the use of commercial marketing techniques to change behaviors on public health and safety issues. From 2003 to 2005, Rothschild acted as eminent scholar at the Center for Strategic Dissemination, National Cancer Institute. Since 2000, he has been principal investigator on Road Crew, a project for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to reduce alcohol impaired driving. The Department of the Environment of the United Kingdom recently selected Road Crew as one of the top 20 behavior change programs in the world. In addition, Rothschild has also worked on social marketing projects related to reducing obesity, reducing binge drinking on college campuses, increasing produce consumption and exercise and inhibiting the onset of smoking among teenagers.

Ayman Smadi serves as director of the Advanced Traffic Analysis Center for the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute (UGPTI) at North Dakota State University. Since joining the UGPTI in 1993, Smadi has been developing research programs, supporting and coordinating educational programs, and expanding and managing UGPTI partnerships with transportation agencies and organizations. He has led research on more than 25 externally funded projects with federal, state, and local transportation agencies dealing with transportation planning, traffic safety, traffic operations and ITS. His safety-related work includes: truck safety focusing on hours-of-service, educational and technical training and alternative truck routes; ITS safety applications such as automated treatment systems (bridge anti-icing), work zones, traveler information and warning systems, train detection and traffic control at railroad crossings and incident management systems; school safety studies; pedestrian safety studies; and intersection safety studies. Smadi earned his Ph.D. in civil engineering from Iowa State University in 1994.

Dennis Trusty has been the director of the Northern Plains Tribal Technical Assistance Program (NPTTAP) located on the campus of United Tribes Technical College (UTTC) in Bismarck, ND, since 1999. In addition to helping start the NPTTAP at UTTC, he manages the daily functions and selects and creates workforce development and workforce safety training materials. Recently, Trusty wrote the Northern Plains TTAP Safety Manifesto for Local Roads, identifying the components required to have safe local roads. He has also completed the National Highway Institute's "Road Safety Fundamentals Train-the-Trainer" and "Road Safety Audits for Local Governments Train-the-Trainer" held at the NHI Training Facility in Arlington, VA. Trusty graduated from North Dakota State University with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, and has training in transportation safety, engineering economics, statistics and management.

Rudolph Umbs is a senior highway safety engineer with the FHWA in Washington, DC. He is works directly with state and local agencies in the areas of road safety audits, pedestrian safety, low safety improvements and the development and implementation of the States' Strategic Highway Safety Plans. Umbs is also secretary to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials subcommittee on safety management systems. During his 37 years with the FHWA, Umbs has held headquarters and field positions in virtually every aspect of highway safety including legislation, strategic highway safety plans and highway safety improvement programs. While in headquarters, he was the FHWA's chief highway safety engineer.

Terry Weaver is the program coordinator of the Traffic Safety and First Aid programs for the North Dakota Safety Council, a nonprofit membership-supported organization with a mission to create a safer and healthier environment throughout North Dakota. She is currently working to bring the Alive at 25 Program to North Dakota. Alive at 25 is a program that encourages young drivers between the ages of 14 and 24 to take responsibility for their driving behavior. Weaver also serves as the state coordinator for Operation Lifesaver. Operation Lifesaver is a nationwide, nonprofit public-awareness program dedicated to ending collisions, fatalities and injuries at highway-rail grade crossings and on railroad property.

Francis Ziegler has served as North Dakota's director of transportation since being appointed by Governor John Hoeven in 2006. Previously, he served the North Dakota Department of Transportation for 36 years in a number of capacities including director of the Office of Project Development, West Region engineer, assistant chief engineer (operations), construction engineer and project and resident engineer. Ziegler earned his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from North Dakota State University in 1970 and has experience in field construction, statewide operations (construction and maintenance), planning and programming of projects, budgeting, environmental document preparation and plan development.