Tony Leingang participated in the Operations Academy Senior Management Program at the University of Maryland back in 2007 as part of its second-ever cohort. It was a new opportunity to get immersed into what the operations side of transportation should be, having been part of an agency that had struggled to ensure an even plane existed between traditional engineering and Department of Transportation projects.
At that time, he was the Freeway Operations Manager in the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) in the Olympic region, which is one of the agency’s six regions. His director had asked him to enroll in the Operations Academy and take advantage of the opportunity to learn, focus on improving operations, and see how other parts of the country were solving their challenges.
“It was invaluable,” Tony said. “We had one-on-one time with the biggest names in the industry, we had networking opportunities, and for me, the Operations Academy has continued to be the seed that was planted long ago and still benefits me with those relationships.”
His boss was right—he’d seen the value of the Operations Academy, and he knew it would be critical to other people in the agency who didn’t have a strong background in operations and needed a starting point.
“It served a real need that we couldn’t fulfill anywhere else for the operations side of the house,” Tony said.
Upon completing the Operations Academy, his role of Freeway Operations Manager expanded to managing the Traffic Management Center, where he immediately implemented the concepts that he had just learned.
“Out of that experience came the Joint Operations Groups, which focuses very intensely on traffic incident management. We talked about everything under the umbrella of transportation systems management and operations (TSMO) so we could strengthen our incident response,” he explained.
The sessions at the Operations Academy enabled him to see how larger-scale operations were conducted around the D.C. area, and he was able to implement practices they learned from the experts in Montgomery County traffic management who led those sessions in his own agency.
He remembered listening to others speak about a terrible incident that took place on the Potomac River Bridge between D.C., Maryland and Virginia. The incident caused traffic to be affected in 13 states, in part because no one could determine who was in charge. He learned what not to do in these situations and could see the importance of creating partnerships with surrounding transportation entities so that when a major incident arose, it would be possible to leverage those relationships to find a solution as quickly as possible, instead of wasting valuable time and resources.
Hearing those real-world examples and being immersed in the leadership of Federal Highway Administration leaders helped him feel the pulse of what was going on and the direction in which it needed to go.
“It’s been 16 years, and it’s definitely something I’m proud to say I did,” said Tony, who is now a WSDOT State ITS Program Administrator. “Graduating means you can collaborate with people in the same organizations doing operations and increasing our cutting-edge practices.”
The landscape in the transportation industry constantly evolves, and the Operations Academy changes alongside it, and Tony’s advice to others is to enroll as soon as possible, because no one comes away without a newfound passion for operations.
