Ryan Knapp had been on the fence about attending the Operations Academy Senior Management Program at the University of Maryland. Others at the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) encouraged him to go, but it was difficult to take time off work and leave for a week. As a new father, it had been no small consideration between professional and personal responsibilities, to stop delaying and attend the Operations Academy last year.
Ryan has been with VTrans since 2011 and in 2022, became the agency’s Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Section Chief. When he was promoted, he felt a bit “thrown into the fire” because his background had not been in transportation, but he took the role as ITS Section Chief and began learning as much as he could.
“I had already been in the role several months by the time the Operations Academy rolled around for me, so it was perfect timing for me professionally,” Ryan said. “I was getting into more tech aspects of the job, including weather stations, message boards, and cameras. It was a natural melding of the traffic management center and ITS world.”
Ryan observed that ITS was more programmatic and administrative, managed more planning, built relationships, networked, and was more involved with other bureaus.
“Our equipment captures the data that the police and the Department of Motor Vehicles need to do their job,” he said. “With the knowledge I gained at the Operations Academy about Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) I was able to tie all that together in my new role.”
Since his time at the Operations Academy, his agency has made strides in integrating TSMO into their culture. “I must continue being proactive and ambitious with it. It will not happen immediately, but we have already seen a return on the effort,” he said.
There is a tangible result of going to the Operations Academy, and he acquired the skills he needs to identify stakeholders, create a strategy, and execute it.
“Spreading the culture of TSMO throughout the agency is what I’m working on now,” he continued. “I’m in operations but the people in project delivery aren’t familiar with it. It is not just about engineering roadways. There’s so much more to it, and it involves so many other agencies.”
He learned to put all the information in front of the people who design projects and communicate priorities to leadership, so they can support them, fund them, and advocate for them. Because there is not a designated TSMO section at his agency now, it was part of Ryan’s challenge to collaborate with units adjacent to TSMO.
“People get their data from an ITS unit, but they don’t even know that’s where they’re getting that data,” he explained. “That has to change.”
Effectively communicating their stories and their needs and the services they provide, and creating a constant feedback loop was among the greatest takeaway skills he had acquired at the Operations Academy. That is part of creating the TSMO culture, in which everyone participates, and everyone has a role in sharing their perspectives in all projects.
Through his time at the Operations Academy, he expanded his network, which had been extremely beneficial. Hearing what he can do to change processes and listening to others’ challenges makes everyone better, and for him, it was critical to learn more ways to implement TSMO throughout the agency.
“If you don’t remember anything else, you’ll remember you’ve met your exact counterparts from other states, as well as people above you and below you, and also state troopers and others you don’t generally encounter,” he said. “We work completely separately from police and first responders, but those are very important connections, and those were all very big light bulb moments.”
