APWA News Fall 2011/ Vol. 47 No. 3
In This Issue
- The Relevance of History in Public Works
- Ostrowski's Outlook
- New Members
- Scholarship Winners
- Calendar
Advertisers
From the President-Elect
Greetings!
In thinking about a topic for this issue's President's column I wondered what past presidents wrote about at this time of year. The Chapter website includes a library of past newsletters dating back to 2001 … a great resource for those suffering from writer's block or for someone interested in the Chapter's history. In reading the musings of our past presidents I noticed several recurring themes. First, the weather is beautiful in Oregon at this time of year and we should all enjoy the last days of summer. Second, there is a lot going on in APWA at this time of year including the National Congress (this year in Denver), our fall conference (this year at Eagle Crest), our second Developing Leader training at Mount Bachelor Village, and our fall Street Maintenance and Collection System Training at Eagle Crest. Third, at this time of year for the past decade the Chapter President has been able to announce with great pride that the Chapter has again received the Presidential Award for Chapter Excellence (PACE) Award.
The PACE Award was established to recognize chapters for contributions made to positively impact their membership, profession, and community. Chapters are judged on membership, service to chapter members, advancement of public works, and service to the community.
I would like to dispel the myth that as a former recipient the Chapter has to simply submit the same nomination year after year and we receive another PACE Award. To receive the award year after year the Chapter needs to continuously improve. Over the past 10 years our Chapter presidents have led the chapter and its members on a path of continuous improvement. A few examples of how the Chapter has evolved to serve its members include:
- First Timers Program – At the 2004 spring conference the Leadership & Management Committee kicked-off the First Timer Mentorship Program to encourage members to become more involved in APWA and at the same time maximize their membership benefits and opportunities. The program has become a mainstay of our conferences and was a successful part of our joint conference with the Washington Chapter this past spring.
- Julian Prize - At the 2004 fall conference the first Julian Prizes were awarded. The award recognizes individuals, practices or projects that showcase the role of public works in furthering the principles of sustainability. The awards are intended to recognize systems thinking, long term design practices, and infrastructure systems that sustain society. The awards are intended to further APWA's purpose of education and recognition of excellence.
- NW Public Works Institute – The first official institute class was held in 2006. The Northwest Public Works Institute is a program of instruction for Public Works leaders in the Northwest who would like to attain a higher degree of proficiency as public works leaders and managers. The Washington and Oregon Chapters jointly operate the Institute. The program consists of 3 courses offered in Oregon and Washington that, taken in their entirety, provide public works professionals with the essential skills needed to advance in supervisory and management positions up to and including Public Works Director. Dozens of future leaders have graduated from the Northwest Public Works Institute since its inception.
- Willamette Valley Luncheon Program – In June 2008 the Willamette Valley APWA Luncheon program was launched in Eugene. Luncheons are scheduled every other month and attendance has ranged from 35 to 50 people per luncheon. The luncheon is similar in format to the long established Portland luncheon and provides public works professional the opportunity to network and learn about a project or program from one of their peers.
- Allen Hall Public Relations Partnership – In 2009 the Chapter began a partnership with the University of Oregon's Allen Hall Public Relations. This is a student-run public relations agency located at the UO School of Journalism and Communication. This relationship assures that the Chapter will submit a top notch nomination for the APWA Top Ten Public Works Leaders of the Year Award and at the same time help develop the next generation of public information officers for our profession.
The final theme from our chapter presidents over the past 10 years was a call to members to get involved in your chapter. Our many PACE awards are a testament to the willingness of our members to devote their time and energy to make the Chapter a great resource for the public works professionals of Oregon.
Mark Schoening
By Bill Kappel, President of the Public Works Historical Society
As the current President of the Public Works Historical Society (PWHS), I am often asked the question why be a member? The answer was brought home to me again just the other day on a conference call with the other trustees of the PWHS. We were discussing our newest oral history venture – an interview with Robert Albee. Those of you who attended Congress in Boston may have been fortunate enough to attend his session on the Big Dig.
Robert Albee, former Boston city engineer and Central Artery/Tunnel construction director, is Managing Director of Telecommunications Engineering; he directs mega-utility projects for VHB, an engineering, land planning and environmental services firm with private and public clients. Bob was in charge of the Big Dig and prior to the start of the project he had his staff read the "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York" by Robert Caro. Why? Here is a bit of information about Robert Moses and his career as an urban planner.
"His (Robert Moses') works remain extremely controversial. His critics claim that he preferred automobiles to people, that he displaced hundreds of thousands of residents in New York City, uprooted traditional neighborhoods by building expressways through them, contributed to the ruin of the South Bronx and the amusement parks of Coney Island, caused the departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants Major League baseball teams, and precipitated the decline of public transport through disinvestment and neglect." (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Bob wanted his staff to learn from the mistakes of another historical figure responsible for numerous infrastructure projects in New York City, prior to undertaking the Big Dig in hopes that a greater sensitivity would be shown by staff members during the project.
Public Works Historical Society Invites You to Join!
The Society's logo is a depiction of the nation's first federal public work, the Cape Henry Lighthouse at Chesapeake Bay, Virginia. Built in 1791 at the specific direction of the first Congress of the United States, President George Washington and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton were personally involved with the project. The lighthouse was built on the site of the landing of the Susan Constant, the ship carrying settlers who founded Jamestown in 1607 – the first permanent English speaking colony in the new world. The lighthouse stands today as a historical monument not only to our nation's heritage, but also to the timelessness of public works.
The mission of the Society is to enhance the planning and management of public works programs, and to promote public understanding and appreciation of the role of public works in the growth and development of civilization. The Society accomplishes this mission through the collection, preservation, and dissemination of public works history. Specifically, the goals of the Society are to:
• Foster scholarly research and publication;
• Support collaboration among public works practitioners, historians, and educators;
• Encourage the preservation of historically significant public works;
• Promote historical awareness and activities throughout APWA; and
• Collect and preserve records of individuals and groups engaged in important public works activities.
The Public Works Historical Society (Society) was chartered in 1975 by the American Public Works Association (APWA) to prepare a history of public works in America to coincide with the United States bicentennial. Our official formation was announced at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., on April 10, 1975. Senator Jennings Randolph – then Chairman of the Senate Public Works Committee – was the principal speaker. The Society's first annual meeting followed later that year in New Orleans.
During our 35-year history, the Society has evolved as an historical organization, having published volumes of books, essays, and articles; administered research grants; sponsored award programs; and hosted academic seminars and meetings.
Membership in the PHWS is comprised of public works practitioners, historians, authors and educators, and is open to all, regardless of APWA affiliation. The annual dues are $35, and can be paid separately or with APWA dues. For membership information, please go to: www.apwa.net/About/SIG/PWHS/member.asp
A few months ago, during a northwest Public Works institute class I asked the class a trick question. I asked how many of them had seen the raw data on climate change. I didn’t ask them if they believed in climate change or if they believed that climate change is caused by human activity. I merely asked if they had seen the raw data. One or two of them thought I meant had they read the actual reports and at least one had. What I was really asking was a trick question because I knew that none of us has the time or energy to dig up the raw data, subject it to scrutiny to determine its validity and then design our own approach to determine a conclusion about the data.
We can’t all be scientists doing original work so we have to rely on the work of scientists whom we trust. I’ll say that again so that you can see how important it is. We rely on the work of scientists whom we trust. In fact, I’ve made that statement too precise. We actually rely on the reports of scientific work by authors we trust.
If you believe that the earth is warming due to the good work of human beings, you got the data to support your opinion from an author you trust. If you believe the earth is just going through another cycle; you got the data to support that opinion from an author you trust.
Sometimes we pick a view of scientific data for self-serving reasons. If I like wine, I like the studies that say wine is good for you. Same goes for coffee, sex, drugs and rock and roll. We want what we want so we want our studies to support our beliefs. That’s the way the human mind works. We look for data to support our hypothesis and ignore the data that doesn’t. It’s actually very difficult to be an objective observer.
Our brains are hardwired that way to respond to threats like wild animals that we need to recognize quickly. We wouldn’t be such a successful species if our ancestors spent a lot of time examining all sides of the “is that wild animal vicious or cuddly?” question. The little amygdala in our brain makes that decision for us. Unfortunately, that same process affects decisions that we make that aren’t quite so pressing. And this is why we have some of our biases.
There’s a growing body of research (objective, I’m sure) suggesting that the human brain misjudges certain kinds of risk. We’ve become used to reacting to immediate threats but we can’t get too excited about stuff in the future. The prefrontal cortex is where we process all that future stuff and it doesn’t get that energized when someone brings up the life cycle of a concrete road.
This all contributes to what the Pew research center finds is a growing divide between what scientists believe and what the general public believes. The scientists aren’t even talking that much and if they were, apparently the public wouldn’t be listening.
Who is the general public listening to? Take a few seconds and think about it. I gave you the answer earlier. We’re listening to people we trust. Those same people we trust are taking the data of scientists and interpreting it for us. We believe what we believe in spite of how our brains are programmed if someone we trust takes us by the hand and tells us it’s OK to pet the wild tiger. Or we are willing to take a long term view of things if someone we trust tells us we should.
We should be asking how those people we trust overcame their natural human impulse to act impulsively and took the long view instead. If we could figure out how those people took the long view of things wouldn’t we be better off than if we just find out more about why we take short term actions?
We all should know that if we managed our public streets the way we manage our public utilities we’d be setting aside money from current revenues for future street repairs. We also know that the general public doesn’t trust government to use that money wisely so we’re stuck with the old, short-term thinking way of doing business.
Remember for later that the key word in the last paragraph was trust. So where do we find these long-term thinkers so that we can ask them how they developed this skill? I hope you’ve already jumped ahead to the answer here. We are those long-term thinkers, aren’t we? This next part should be easy. How did we come to this way of thinking? All we have to do is ask ourselves. I have me right here so I thought I’d take the easy approach and ask me.My answer is that I’ve had enough experience to see the value of long-term thinking. Before I had that experience, when I was younger; I worked with older more experienced people whom I trusted. They showed me the value of long-term thinking and all of my experience since then has reinforced that belief. I still remember a project engineer I worked for in 1968 telling me that someday there’d be a huge price to pay to maintain the interstate highway system because we weren’t setting aside money for maintenance as it was built.Remember for later that the key word in the last paragraph was trust.
Recently, Walter Cronkite died at the age of 92. He was once known as the “Most trusted Man in America”. He never did anything to lose the title but how did he get the title in the first place? This is an important question because as I’ve been saying repeatedly, trust is the most important thing there is. If government officials had it, we could build a better America. Without it we’ll continue to think short-term.
If we want to duplicate Walter Cronkite’s trust maybe we can learn something from his life. First, he didn’t set out to be the most trusted. He just worked at a variety of jobs, developed a professional approach to journalism and didn’t try to be something he wasn’t. That sounds like a lot of people I already know in the public works profession.
So if we’re already trustworthy why aren’t we getting through to more people?
Cronkite wasn’t shy. We are.
We’ve been keeping our trustworthy selves under a barrel. When we are seen, we are associated with all those politicians that most people (myself included) don’t trust. In other words, we’ve taken our role as public servants too literally. We view ourselves as subservient to the elected officials we work for. We’re good team players and don’t challenge our bosses publicly.
Perhaps the problem isn’t that our bosses are wrong and therefore need to be challenged. It’s more that they aren’t trusted so that our support for them gets their trust anti-matter on us.
So here’s the hard part. How do we overcome our shyness and set ourselves apart from the elected officials we serve without being counterproductive? More of us could run for elected office. We could blog and tweet and generally make a nuisance of ourselves through any available media. We could form an action group of public works officials who want to save the world (pwowwtstw). Or we could just talk to one another about how we know the right way to run this country. I’m not sure if the first suggestions would work but I do know we’ve been doing the last one for quite some time. As my favorite Dr. Phil saying goes, “How’s that working for you?”
As usual, comments suggestions and anything else can be sent to me at ostrowj@pacifier.com.
This article by John Ostrowski was reprinted from the fall 2009 issue of Washington State Public Works magazine.
Do you have a colleague or a friend who has never been a member of APWA? Let them know that they can get their first year of membership at half price ($70 US for those who qualify). Special offer ends December 31, 2011. Visit www.apwa.net and click on Join Now or contact Membership Committee Chair, Barbara Blair (blb@deainc.com) for more information!