Engineering and Management Experience at Texas A&M Transportation Institute

This manuscript presents the author?s engineering and management experience during his internship in the Materials and Pavements (M&P) Division at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), and is a record of study for the Doctor of Engineering at Texas A&M University. Through this internship, he met his established internship objectives of gaining technical knowledge as well as knowledge and skills in project management, organizational communication, and quality management of pavement condition data, and of attaining professional development.

In meeting these objectives, the author describes the history, mission, and organizational structure of his workplace. He also presents his experience of developing and delivering a two-week training course on pavement design and construction in Kosovo. Participating in a number of professional development training courses and other activities prepared him for working as an engineering manager. These activities include Delta-T leadership training, an instructor development course, a time management and organizational skills course, and the M&P Division lecture series. Leadership and skills learned through the Delta-T program were beneficial for the employee as well as the employer. For the class project, the author and his teammates performed a study dealing with improving TTI?s deliverables. The Delta-T team composed a report summarizing their efforts of examining the current state of TTI?s project deliverables, the deliverables? shortcomings, and potential enhancements to expand the deliverables? appeal to additional types of potential users outside the traditional research community. The team also developed a prototype web-based model of deliverables and presented some implementation recommendations.

Participating in the Texas Department of Transportation?s (TxDOT?s) pavement surface distress data collection program enabled the author to become familiar with pavement distress data quality management and thus attain the technical and nontechnical skills required for project management. He noticed some areas for improvement in TxDOT?s rater?s manual, rater?s training class, and acceptance criteria for visual distress data.