N I N E What is your background as it relates to the transportation industry? Before I joined PennDOT as the Secretary, I was vice-chair with the board of commissioners in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. In addition, I had experience working at a woman-owned civil engineering firm and a consulting firm, working in the private sector for more than two decades. I enjoyed what I could do in these private sector positions. From managing multi- million-dollar infrastructure projects to facilitating public meetings about transportation issues in those communities, it was all impactful work that has led me to the current position I am in today. With the recent honor of receiving both the Female Innovator of the Year for a Government or Non-Profit of More than 2,500 Employees and the Female Executive of the Year from the international Stevie Awards for Women in Business, how has this recognition impacted how you view your career? Everything I have done so far as PennDOT Secretary has been accomplished by leading a team, and I am very cognizant of that. On a daily basis our staff works incredibly hard to make a positive difference in Pennsylvania in terms of transportation. Receiving this award is a great representation for everyone who works at PennDOT, even before I took this role. I think it’s fair to say that for many reasons women are not always completely comfortable to be outspokenabouttheiraccomplishments, so by receiving this recognition, it encourages an important and broader dialogue about leadership in general. Since the award was honored to us, it has had me take a few steps back and reflect on how we at PennDOT recognize our people and our partnerships. I am very proud of this award and the work that has led up to us receiving it. I have noticed more people recognizing our organization for the work we do. People don’t usually think of a government entity as a large business, but we are. We are a multi-billion-dollar entity with 11,500 employees, so any type of national or international awards we receive makes me very proud of who we are. This strengthens us as a national leader within the innovative technology sector. Upon reflection on your recent awards, what advice or information do you have for aspiring female leaders? Everyone has something valuable to share, especially their own personal stories. During my acceptance speech at the Stevie Awards, I mentioned that I lead an agency with a budget of over $9 billion, and so many females in the audience came up to me to share their thoughts about how they found that inspiring. For me, thinking of where I was in my life when Governor Wolf asked me to join his cabinet is an inspirational story. I didn’t realize it then, but it is very uplifting for working parents, particularly working mothers who are trying to balance their career with their personal life. Not many people know that I was a stay- at-home mom for seven years. Being able to demonstrate that it is possible to come back and pick up where they left off in their career is an important message. You mentioned becoming seen as a national leader in innovative technology. How are DOTs keeping up with this rapidly growing technology  — specifically, driverless/driver-assisted vehicles? All DOTs are working hard to build a framework for addressing the development and the potential of automated technology in the transportation industry for the next five, ten, fifteen years down the road. We are trying to figure out how quickly we are going to get there and how we get there. Every time this topic is discussed, especially with all the unknown factors, there are a lot of questions that come out of it: What will our vehicles and roadways look like? How will you insure the vehicles and the driver? When there are accidents, who do you blame? How do we prevent cybersecurity issues? How do we educate individuals on the benefits of having an automated vehicle? Nationally, there were 37,000 deaths in 2014. Today, we are at over 40,000 deaths on roadways — over 94 percent of those accidents are related to human choices. Automated technology may allow us to remove the human distraction element, which could one day reduce that percentage to zero. It could also bring up other issues and new categories of incidents, but the human distraction element in causing crashes is one that we need to urgently deal with in a significant way. P e n n D OT h a s c r e a t e d t h e Autonomous Vehicle Policy Task Force recently to study this type of technology and how it relates to drivers. Can you expand on how you see this group evolving in the next couple of years? We formed the task force and had our first meeting prior to the federal g u i d e l i n e s co m i n g o u t . Th i s technology is moving rapidly, and we must be ready for it. We are working to have relationships with various stakeholders from technology, research, manufacturers, etc. to be sure we are as up-to-date as possible and are considering all of the elements that are related to this emerging technology. Our task force, established in mid-2016, worked quickly to evaluate all the known aspects of autonomous driving and had a report on my desk by November, which was then released to the public. Our findings show, along with the federal report, that it is important to never compromise safety, but to also allow the room for this technology to develop and mature in an appropriate way. We want to encourage private industry to develop while making sure our roads and transportation networks are safe for all users. Whether it is autonomous or human, public safety is our main priority. Recently, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan transportation agencies came together to form a “Smart Belt Coalition.” Can you provide us a brief background on this collaboration? This collaboration is designed to bring together leaders from all three of the states, and beyond, to evaluate the research, testing, policy, funding pursuits, and deployment of automated and connected vehicle initiatives. Currently, participation includes our agency, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, Carnegie Mellon University, the Michigan Department of Transportation, the University of Michigan, the Ohio Department of Transportation, the Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission, and the Ohio State University Transportation Research Center. This coalition allows for all of us to work together to evaluate the technology, as well as drive consistency-testing scenarios for the private sector developing this equipment. INDUSTRY INTERVIEW CONTINUED ON PAGE TEN