Institutional Memories of Road Design

Most of the engineers who were part of the design teams planning, designing and building the highways in Maine from the 1950s through the 1970s have retired. John Dority, who is the current Chief Engineer with Maine Department of Transportation (Maine DOT), started working there 52 years ago and is the embodiment of its institutional memory. But soon, John Dority will follow in the footsteps of other engineers, such as John E. Hodgkins, who retired after 41 years with Maine DOT as their Chief Construction Engineer. Many of these engineers are still alive and active. So much of the institutional knowledge is still not lost. And some of that knowledge could be transmitted to our undergraduate students. This education project aims at contacting the most influential engineers from the 'golden years' of road construction, and have them participate in evening sessions with students during the Spring of 2009. The project will be organized by professors Thomas C. Sandford and Per Gårder. The sessions will be videotaped, summarized and analyzed for use in future years. The significant commentary of these institutional memories will be documented and presented in a report.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $31711.00
• Contract Numbers:

  DTRT07-G-0001

  UMEE21-15

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  Department of Transportation
  1200 New Jersey Avneue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Performing Organizations:

  University of Maine, Orono

  Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
  5717 Corbett Hall
  Orono, ME  United States  04469-5711
• Principal Investigators:

  Garder, Per

• Start Date: 20090401
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20110831
• Source Data: RiP Project 24548

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Highway design; Highway engineering; Memory; Planning and design; Research projects
• Uncontrolled Terms: Institutional memory
• Geographic Terms: Maine
• Subject Areas: Design; Education and Training; Highways;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01480765
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: New England University Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: DTRT07-G-0001, UMEE21-15
• Files: UTC, RiP
• Created Date: May 7 2013 1:01AM