Program Leadership

Bio coming soon!

Frank Green is an Assistant Program Administrator for the IBR program. He represents WSDOT, where he has worked since 2002, in roles ranging from transportation engineer all the way to his most recent position as Assistant Regional Administrator for Development and Delivery. He has worked on numerous highway, rail and bridge projects in Washington and helped lead a host of high-speed rail projects involving WSDOT, BNSF Railway and Sound Transit. He enjoys spending time with his family and collecting sports cards in his spare time. He may not have grown up thinking about a career involving bridges and tunnels and roads, but as it turns out, the transportation field was precisely what Frank was looking for.

“It’s funny,” Frank says. “My mom was a teacher, my dad was a police officer, and I don’t know that I ever wanted to follow in their footsteps. I think engineering was naturally where I should have been, but I just didn’t know that as a kid.”

In his current role with the IBR program, Frank is working to oversee and supervise the day-to-day work that is driving the program forward. This follows his most recent position with WSDOT’s Southwest Region, where he was the Assistant Regional Administrator for Development and Delivery, as well as a prior role as project lead guiding the agency’s high speed rail efforts between Vancouver and Tacoma from 2014 to 2017.

Prior to that, Frank spent almost eight years as the structures engineering manager on the Columbia River Crossing project, ensuring that all of the structural and geotechnical work on the project met the requirements of WSDOT, ODOT, the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration.

Working on megaprojects like the IBR program, however, was probably the farthest thing from Frank’s mind as a kid. He grew up in Montana and wanted little more than to play college football. His goals changed as he went through high school and discovered computer science. But after earning a football scholarship to Montana State University he quickly found that computer programming was not exactly for him. He turned to his football teammates for advice and found that one of them was a civil engineering major.

“He told me about some of the things he did on an internship that summer and I thought ‘Hey, that seems pretty neat,’” he says. “And it started clicking for me.”

After getting married in college, Frank’s wife pursued post-graduate studies in Portland, Oregon, which meant he needed to find work in the region. He remembered Vancouver from having stayed at a motel on Hayden Island during football road trips. So, after attending a career fair at MSU and talking with a WSDOT recruiter, he submitted an application and quickly found himself in a job inspecting bridges out of the agency’s Southwest Region office. That was the beginning of a fruitful relationship.

“Funny enough, I’m coming up on 20 years at WSDOT now, and it’s just grown,” he says. His most recent management role with the IBR program, however, is his biggest. And compared with his early days as an engineer with the agency, technology and digital communication are some of the factors in delivering successful projects that have changed the most.

“It’s going to be critical to keep the community engaged,” Frank says. “The community is telling us that equity and climate action are important factors for this program. Keeping our partners and the public engaged, and communicating how we are integrating their input in actionable and measurable ways, will be very important in allowing this program to be successful.”

Ray Mabey is an Assistant Program Administrator for the IBR program and also serves as the State Bridge Engineer for ODOT. He has over 30 years of experience as an engineer, administrator and manager with ODOT, where he has worked on hundreds of different bridge programs of various sizes. He has extensive experience with combined project delivery, engineering and program and project management experience.

Ray might be a small-town guy at heart, but he loves nothing more than making a big-time impact on the world around him. As Assistant Program Administrator for the IBR program, Ray is perfectly positioned to do exactly that. In this role, he is supervising and directing much of the day-to-day work of the program, bringing his three decades of experience and expertise with ODOT into play.

Ray has already had a profound effect on Oregon’s system of highway bridges. Early in his career, a routine bridge inspection helped discover engineering weaknesses that resulted in diagonal cracking in numerous bridges constructed in the 1940s and 50s along Interstate 5 and 84, as well as numerous state highways.

“We found that Oregon had a very unique problem,” Ray says. “We had a large inventory of bridges that were cracked and had a potential for failure and it led to a lot of work on routes across the state.”

Ray’s inspection work ultimately led to the passage of the massive Oregon Transportation Investment Act, which began in 2001 and led to the repair or replacement of nearly 200 of Oregon’s bridges. It also helped propel his career into administration and management.

It was a long way from Sitka, Alaska, where he grew up in a “little town on a rock.”
“I came to Oregon to dry out,” he says with a laugh.

That meant heading first to Corvallis, Oregon ­­– which, next to Sitka, seemed like a big city. He ultimately settled in McMinnville with his family, where he now serves on the board of the Celtic Heritage Alliance and takes part in Scottish Highland Games events up and down the West Coast throwing the caber, which is essentially a heavy log.

Before that, Ray earned a degree in Civil Engineering at Oregon State University and worked for several firms in the private sector performing structural work. He landed at ODOT as a bridge designer in 1992 and over the next three decades worked in a variety of roles relating to the state’s bridges. That included his appointment as a Program Manager in 2011 on the Columbia River Crossing project. There, he learned valuable lessons about the importance of communication and equity of process that are more important than ever in his current role helping administer the IBR program.

“How we carry out this program matters more on the equity and climate side than ever before,” Ray says. “We’re taking a very intentional focus on that, as well as the impact on small and minority-owned businesses.”

Acknowledging the historic effects of earlier transportation efforts on Portland’s BIPOC population is also critical, he notes.

“This program is about carrying it out in a way that has net benefit effects on the communities of concern rather than just minimizing harm,” he says. “It’s about benefiting those communities, and it’s a mindset and an approach that is pretty powerful. I like to think we are leading that effort here in the Northwest.”

Paige Schlupp comes to IBR from TriMet, where she most recently served as a Project Director for the $215 million MAX Red Line Extension and Reliability Improvements Project, also known as “Better Red.” Paige is a diligent and dedicated team leader, project manager and landscape architect with over 25 years of experience in design and construction. Her career has taken her from landscape architecture into transportation, which has allowed her to leverage her interpersonal skills and passion for community and excel at a series of challenging positions that have contributed to the region’s livability.

Paige graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in landscape architecture before launching her career with some of Oregon’s top landscape design firms. She joined TriMet in 2007 and has since worked on a wide variety of projects in various capacities, including Assistant Resident Engineer on the Westside Express Service (WES) project, Station Area and Urban Design Lead on the East Segment of the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail (Orange Line) project, and Manager of the Stations & Guideways Department, where she oversaw a team of project managers and associated projects related to refurbishing stations and trackways throughout TriMet’s light rail system.

Her most recent post as Project Director for the Better Red initiative saw her lead the project team through final design, including the negotiation of intergovernmental agreements directly with the Port of Portland and City of Portland, and coordination with entities including the Oregon Department of Transportation and Union Pacific Railroad. The project involved improvements to the Gateway Transit Center, as well as the completion of a second track to Portland International Airport and the extension of MAX Red Line service into Hillsboro. Work was completed in Summer of 2024 four months ahead of schedule and over $10 million under budget.

As IBR Program Transit Assistant Program Administrator, Paige will help oversee the transit element of the program involving the extension of light rail service from the Expo Center in North Portland to Hayden Island and downtown Vancouver as it moves through completion of the environmental phase and into construction.

Born and raised in Utah, Paige enjoys time in the outdoors in Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains doing outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, rafting, fly-fishing and skiing, all of which she can at best claim to have a mediocre of level of skill, but she doesn’t let that stop her from enjoying it. She first moved here to attend the University Oregon, fell in love with the northwest, and never left.  She also enjoys the wonderful things the Portland has to offer for music, arts, food, culture and community. She volunteered with Friends of Trees as a natural area crew leader for fourteen years and served on the board of the Halprin Landscape Conservancy.

“It is an honor to be part of the incredibly talented team working on this project. Linking these two states with a bridge that accommodates all modes of transportation and transit will have a major impact on the future for many who live here and travel through this region.”

Kimberly Pincheira serves as the Communications and External Relations Manager for the Interstate Bridge Replacement program. Prior to that she was the WSDOT Southwest Region Communications Manager and has also served as the Director of Communications and Strategic Partnerships for the Columbia River Economic Development Council. She began her professional career working on public outreach with the offices of U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell and U.S. Congressman Brian Baird.

Kimberly has always been fascinated with how government works and how good communication can form strong bonds with the public it serves. As a young child in Florida, she got to see firsthand how the fruits of those relationships play out at the Kennedy Space Center. Her father worked for Boeing on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Space Shuttle program. She vividly remembers watching shuttle launches and wanted very much to be an astronaut herself. Later in life, Kimberly realized that the public’s fascination with space travel was at least partially the result of excellent communication with the public on the part of NASA and other agencies and companies involved. That lesson stuck with her as she completed her college education and started her career.

“So much of any type of governmental relations work is about communicating,” she says. “And that’s what I realized as I entered the professional world.”

After graduating, she honed her skills as a local representative for several elected officials in the Vancouver area before moving on to the nonprofit sector and economic development. At each stop, the importance of building relationships through collaboration and communication became more apparent.

“It really is about the relationships and understanding different viewpoints. So often, everyone shares the same basic goal – to make things better – but comes at it from a slightly different perspective on what that means or how to get there,” she says.

Three years ago, she shifted her focus back to public service and became Communications Manager for the Washington State Department of Transportation’s Southwest Region. In part, she says, it was because this role allowed her to apply her talents to infrastructure.

“I see daily how much of an impact large infrastructure projects can have on the community and how transformational they can be ,” she says. “It’s something that most of us tend to take for granted. We don’t really think about what has to go into making it happen and what happens if it’s not there.”

Understanding the opportunities transportation projects can create for the community, how many benefits and how much vibrancy all comes with it, are what drive her forward in her work with the IBR program today. Transit equity, climate change, earthquake resilience, economic imperatives and smoother transportation are all critical to the success of her work with the program. Kimberly relishes the challenge of ensuring that each of them receives equal consideration.

“One of the key aspects of this program being successful is making sure we are having those ongoing and meaningful conversations with the community,” she says. “We are truly taking into account what the community perspectives are and the full range of perspectives that are out there.”

A good manager is a problem solver. And as one of the foremost experts on mass transit in the United States today, that’s exactly the approach Grace Crunican is bringing to the IBR program.

Grace has worked as a deputy administrator for the Federal Transit Administration, overseen the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and led the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, from which she retired in 2019. She has even co-authored “Boots on the Ground, Flats in the Boardroom,” a book that features profiles of 18 pioneering women in transportation. Of course, she had to wait until her two sons left home to attend college to find the time.

“I took that time and set up interviews with women to capture their stories,” she says.

With all that in her background, Grace recently joined the IBR program team as a strategic advisor to support and facilitate the program team in developing solutions that are responsive to the values and interests of the program owners, partner agencies and community members.

The replacement of the aging Interstate Bridge has been a priority for Grace since the late 1990s when she became the first woman to serve as ODOT Director.

“In the ‘90s, it was obvious that we needed to reach across the river if we wanted to do something practical about the bridge,” she says. “It links Oregon to Washington and everywhere else in this country.”

At ODOT, Grace also oversaw the first replacement of one of the lift span trunnions on the Interstate Bridge in 1997. That key part supports the weight of the bridge and the counterweights that help raise and lower the lift span.

“It was clear when they brought that project to me that the bridge needed to be replaced,” she said. “It’s going to come down in an earthquake and people know that it’s a 100-year-old bridge that is seismically vulnerable.”

Grace started a lifetime of public service while she was still an undergraduate at Gonzaga University, serving an internship in the office of then-Portland Mayor Neil Goldschmidt. She accepted the top job at ODOT in 1996 and focused on community engagement and equity, which have since become priorities of transportation and transit agencies and departments around the country.

“Equity today stems from the injustices of the past,” she says. “Twenty years ago, we focused on community solutions in housing, economic development and transportation, and we worked with local partners to come up with solutions that were needed.” How those types of concerns are addressed will be a key part of Grace’s role with the IBR program. “I have to listen to all the partners,” she says. “And my background helps me do that and understand their perspectives.”

The more complex and complicated the project, the more Kristen Leonard feels right at home. That makes her a perfect fit for her current position as IBR program Public Affairs Executive Advisor. In that role she’s engaged in day-to-day work that involves juggling strategy, communications, and community engagement with a mix of local, state, and federal government officials, numerous stakeholders and regulatory agencies. And none of it ever stops moving.
“I love big complex projects that involve every level of government, multiple stakeholders, lots of regulatory and policy needs, along with ever-present time and budget constraints,” Kristen says. “I’m one of those rare people who is happy to be right in the middle of all that mess.”

After growing up in the Northwest and attending the University of Arizona, Kristen moved back to Oregon, where she has lived ever since. She spent a decade as a contract lobbyist, representing over 30 different clients ranging from labor interests to environmental projects, legal associations and human service providers. This work brought her into regular contact with the Oregon Legislature and various state agencies, where she made a name for herself as someone who got results.

Kristen went on to become chief public affairs officer for the Port of Portland but took a leave of absence to serve as chief of staff to Oregon Governor Kate Brown before returning to the Port. This fall she joined consulting firm Parametrix and immediately went to work on the IBR program. It’s one of her biggest challenges yet, but she wouldn’t be anywhere else.

“When you’ve got local, state, and federal government interests, stakeholders, and community engagement processes; building partnerships and navigating the path to success is where I want to be,” she says.

The intersection of politics and public affairs with construction and engineering on large infrastructure projects is also fascinating to Kristen.

“I’m intrigued with how public affairs and the more technical aspects of this project can be merged,” she says. “I’ve had the privilege of working on several complex projects in my career with many levels of government, community representation, interest groups, regulators, engineers, attorneys, and technicians. The best outcomes are the result of making sure diverse viewpoints and backgrounds are represented at the table and issues are approached through the lens of our common goals. While it can be messy along the way, the reward of finding a path forward is all the greater.”

When Kristen is not busy developing a strategy for the next big project, she can often be found hiking, kayaking, and exploring the limitless scenic locations tucked in every corner of the Northwest with her husband and her Oregon State University-student son.

Aidan Gronauer, Assistant Director of Civil Rights & Equity, is a helper by nature. It’s a trait that lends itself perfectly to a career focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion. “That’s just who I am,” says Gronauer. “It’s - part of my nature to – advocate for underserved and marginalized communities.” 

Aidan grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, the location of the July 1959 Freedom Rally led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. This event is widely acknowledged as the beginning of the modern American civil rights movement. 

“Growing up in Memphis and being surrounded by major civil rights issues and passionate advocates really made me an activist at heart,” he says. Learning from the best civil rights leaders in the world taught me how to use my voice and fight for communities that have less privilege than me, and to fight for those marginalized communities to which I belong.” 

Aidan moved to Portland over 20 years ago and previously worked for Metro and TriMet, where he focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, civil rights, and sustainability. 

In his role for the program, Aidan champions IBR’s efforts to bring equity front and center. As an official representative for the Oregon and Washington state departments of transportation and the program’s eight partner agencies, his work involves ensuring compliance with federal and state laws and regulations, leading efforts to involve Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBEs) in the program and working with workforce development programs. 

“My position gives me a lot of opportunities to create work that is impactful, unique and collaborative,” he says. “I’ve done everything from transit and transportation to housing and schools, to multiple public arenas that all tie perfectly together with IBR. This program brings with it the ability to be innovative and collaborate with some of the brightest minds across the nation. I feel like I can help create something that has a true positive impact on local communities and can set a precedent for future megaprojects going forward.”  

Meghan Hodges currently serves as Community and Government Relations Manager for the IBR program. Prior to that she was the Executive Administrative and External Response Manager for the WSDOT Southwest Region. She attended the University of Puget Sound and has worked in executive project management at Intel, and also as the campaign manager for Washington State Rep. Monica Stonier. She lives in Vancouver with her husband and five-year-old daughter.

Trekking across Vancouver’s Confluence Land Bridge, which spans Washington State Route 14 always reminds Meghan of how multimodal infrastructure improves the wider community. This is one of her favorite activities to share with her husband and five-year-old daughter. Together, they enjoy long walks around nearby historic Fort Vancouver, usually stopping to appreciate the Fort’s flower garden and apple orchard. When they cross the popular Land Bridge, they can see the Columbia River, the train tracks and the Interstate Bridge, and they almost always stop to appreciate the Native American art that adorns the structure.

Those walks also serve as a regular reminder that successful infrastructure projects must take into account all viewpoints and needs of the communities they serve. And that is especially important today in her work as the Community and Government Relations Manager for the Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) program.

“Big projects are where we can further regional and community interests,” she says, “in a way that works for community members and community stakeholders – so that it’s not just a road and it’s not just a bridge.”

Meghan learned about the importance of communication and collaboration in college and later as a field representative for elected officials. After stepping into the corporate world, she eventually returned to the public sector and the Washington State Department of Transportation because of a desire to harness the power of government for the greater good.

“What appeals to me is public service. I like helping people, and doing the right thing, and furthering the interests of the community.” As part of the IBR team, she emphasizes that this means equity is a vital part of infrastructure. She points to the manner in which Interstate 5 was originally carved through Vancouver with little regard for historic and sacred Native American burial sites as just one example of what happens when this is ignored. “Tribal history is in this area, and the larger public process did not take that into account,” she says.

Meghan is hopeful for what replacing the I-5 bridge will mean in terms of present-day equity. As increased housing costs have caused the displacement of BIPOC communities from Portland to Vancouver and other outlying cities, she sees the IBR program as a way of improving those communities’ access to jobs and essential services.

“A lot of people in Vancouver have no choice but to go to Portland,” she says. “This is one metro area, and we have a responsibility to ensure it stays connected.”

Chris Regan is the Environmental Manager for the IBR program. He comes from the WSDOT, where he most recently served as the Southwest Region Environmental Manager. Prior to working for WSDOT, he worked for 16 years for the Washington State Parks Department. For fun, Chris enjoys bicycling, fishing, hunting, hiking, DIY projects and traveling with his wife and their five children.

Chris grew up on Salmon Beach in Tacoma, where he enjoyed living in the midst of the incredible diversity of fish, wildlife and nature of the Puget Sound. That love of nature and the outdoors drove him to study biology at Western Washington University. As a capstone to his studies, Chris took a nine-week, nine-island nation, scuba-intensive course studying reef ecology in the South Pacific that really drove home the connection between society’s actions and their consequences for the natural environment. After school, Chris pursued a career in environmental policy with the Washington State Parks Department and later the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Today, Chris is the Environmental Manager for the IBR program. In this role, he is knee deep in the work to determine how to steer a course that balances the realities of global climate change and environmental justice with the clear need to rethink and craft a new multimodal transportation solution for the most important piece of infrastructure linking Oregon and Washington.

Chris acknowledges that environmental justice, diversity, equity and inclusion have always been part of the environmental field. When it comes to the IBR program, these tenants are more relevant than ever, and Chris’ experience up to this point has prepared him well for the work at hand. He says it’s less about vehicles and the roads, and more about looking at the urban ecology of the Portland-Vancouver metro area, the transportation ecology and the role of transportation agencies to ensure the project takes into account the history of earlier interstate projects that negatively impacted local communities of concern.

“What I love in transportation is that there is something new every single day, and there are great minds working together to figure out our problems,” Chris says. “Recognizing and being motivated to do the best we possibly can, to find ways to create consensus agreements, and especially with multiple partners like we have with IBR, is incredibly rewarding.”

Johnell Bell, Principal Equity Officer for IBR, is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Espousal Strategies LLC, a boutique consultancy that provides government relations, public and stakeholder engagement services to businesses, private-public partnerships, nonprofits, and government agencies.

His efforts have lead the creation of the program's national equity recognition including developing the Equity Advisory group (EAG), equity framework, and outreach efforts to engage equity priority communities.

He works with an array of partners-- international construction firms, D/M/W/ESB enterprises, and government officials – to design, implement, monitor, and document successful initiatives for D/M/W/ESB utilization, equity and inclusion, community engagement, and business, workforce, and community development. He’s also nationally recognized for best practices advancing equitable access to public contracting opportunities for TriMet, Portland’s regional public transit agency. Under his leadership, TriMet achieved record-breaking utilization of minority and women-owned firms during the construction of the MAX Orange Line, awarding over $150 million to DBE firms, at the time, the largest awarded to DBE firms on a public project in the state’s history. A sought-after speaker on public engagement, business development and transit and environmental equity, Johnell’s presented and served on panels for national transportation conferences and organizations, bodies, and agencies. Before he launched Espousal Strategies, Johnell served as State Field Director for U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, where he lead the Senator's statewide field team and outreach operations. Johnell also served as an advisor to Portland Mayor Tom Potter and Multnomah County Chair Ted Wheeler. In those roles, Johnell created an economic development office, and co-created an office of diversity and inclusion.

Compliance with the multitude of environmental regulations governing infrastructure projects is always a complicated job for a project team. This is particularly true when the project involves crossing one of the largest and most critical waterways in North America. As Environmental Lead for the IBR program, Angela Findley is tasked with overseeing around 70 employees and compiling over two dozen different environmental and technical reports, all dealing with local, state and federal regulatory compliance issues. It’s a complicated job, but one that she has been preparing for her entire career.

“The challenge is not in any one area, it’s juggling 20 balls at once in terms of compliance,” Angela says. “We deal with a huge range of subject areas, from air quality and wetlands to working with the Coast Guard to make sure navigation is maintained, and working with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers. It’s all things environmental and it’s all types of regulations.”

Angela is a part of the WSP engineering and consulting team and lives in Vancouver with her family. After earning degrees from the University of Washington and Oregon State University, her entire 23-year career has been spent on the consulting side, primarily working on regulatory issues.

“I went to OSU to complete a master’s of science in forest resources, focusing more on the policy side as opposed to the science side,” she says. “That’s how I got involved in the consulting world with NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act).”

Since then, she’s had the opportunity to work on a diverse set of projects, much of it involving transportation. These have included serving as technical lead on the massive $3.35 billion Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Program in Seattle, as well as project management roles on the Hood River Bridge Replacement project and the U.S, 97 Bend North Corridor project in Oregon.

All of this has prepared her well for her current role on the IBR program. Because the IBR program has the advantage of building upon work that has already been carried out, much of Angela’s job involves documenting changes in the Portland-Vancouver program area that could affect local, state and federal regulations and the program’s ability to obtain permits from those authorities. Those changes fall in three main areas: physical changes on the ground, notably the development of the Vancouver Waterfront; regulatory changes in laws such as the Endangered Species Act; and community priorities, particularly those surrounding equity and climate.

“The focus on climate and equity, those are both evaluated and those have taken on a greater importance and permeated through more elements of the program than they had 10 years ago,” Angela says. Living in Vancouver, Angela has the advantage of being intimately familiar with the project area already. “I use this bridge all the time and I commuted across it for years,” she says. “This project is so needed and to be a part of it, thinking about the future and what it will do for our communities is probably why each one of us continues to get up and do our best on this project.”

As a civil engineering student at the University of Portland, Ryan LeProwse soon realized two things. The first was that he was fascinated by the world of traffic engineering, with its complex modeling and real-world implications. The second was that his career in soccer, where he reached the NCAA Final Four as a member of the university’s men’s team, was good preparation for a future career in transportation.

“You learn teamwork,” Ryan says. “I love team sports, and in soccer, you learn that you have to work together as one and get along with many different people to move the team forward and towards its goal – just like this industry.”

Today, Ryan serves as the Transportation Planning Manager for the IBR program. Not only does he work with a large team of engineers, planners, communicators, and other transportation professionals, he also regularly shares the program’s progress with the public and assorted stakeholders.

“Many users of the facility are aware of the current issues,” he says. “We take in a lot of information on traffic data, freight, transit, active transportation data, and issues users encounter. Data helps us understand the current problems and develop solutions to them.”

Like many engineers, Ryan’s career path was inspired by family.

“My mom is an engineer; she worked for the Army Corps of Engineers for 30 years before retirement. On every family trip, she would point out the wastewater treatment plants, bridges, dams, or environmental cleanup areas she worked on.”

Ryan’s family was also dedicated to volunteerism, undertaking projects such as helping construct a lookout gazebo at Mud Mountain Dam near Enumclaw, WA with other employees from the Army Corps of Engineers. “It was always on our family to be building stuff at home or helping others rebuild decks or fences at their homes,” he says.

Ryan currently holds a senior position at Parametrix, a multi-disciplinary firm offering engineering, planning, and environmental services.

“I’ve worked on the I-5 corridor in the Portland metro region for almost 20 years now, and the IBR program is a big challenge,” he shares. “We need to thread the needle in this program area with a multimodal solution that works for all the different user types.”

In his spare time, Ryan enjoys hiking, bicycling, wake surfing, and coaching/attending his two sons’ sports activities.

"Structural engineering is not a job, it’s a calling," says Rob Turton.

Rob is the IBR program Structures Lead and Vice President and Complex Structures Manager for WSP, the international multidisciplinary firm responsible for designing the replacement for the century-old Interstate Bridge.

Rob has over four decades of experience as a professional engineer and is the lead for the IBR program structural and civil engineering team. It’s a herculean task, replete with both the challenges any mega-project of this size is bound to face.

“The IBR program will improve the safety of the traveling public. But it's also something that will allow our metropolis - the combined communities on both sides of the Columbia River - to grow in a smart way. Better multimodal connectivity is needed to realize our region's full potential. I see the Interstate Bridge as being key to improving safety and creating connectivity."

The IBR program is just the latest in an extensive list of massive bridge projects Rob has worked on. It started in the early 1980s with a variety of smaller projects, but it was his work on the replacement of the historic Navajo Bridge, a long-span bridge over the Colorado River at the entrance to Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, that routed his career. That project lasted nearly 10 years, par for the course for work of this kind.

“Since then, I’ve had an incredible thirst for working on these complex projects,” he says. “I love a challenge.” Like many young people, however, Rob wasn’t at all sure what direction life would take after graduation. “There was no real pre-planned path,” he says. He graduated from Boston University with a degree in aerospace engineering and completed a year of graduate studies at the same institution before he ran out of money. “I was in the Army Reserve at that point going through officer training and working two jobs at the same time I was going to school,” he recounted.

Rob ended up in Tucson, Arizona, after getting a job lead from a friend. Otherwise, he says, he was headed to Alaska to be a smokejumper or work on the oil pipelines. Instead, he wound up with a mining company designing structures and soon enrolled in graduate school at the University of Arizona to formally study structural engineering. From there, he followed his childhood calling - designing the same kind of bridges that had fascinated him as a child growing up in Rhode Island.

“My dad was a career soldier who served in the 1st Infantry Division in World War Two,” he said. “After the war he transferred to combat engineers, and they built temporary structures and bridges, Bailey Bridges, and I was always kind of intrigued by that.”

That fascination led him to working on iconic structures like the Golden Gate Bridge, the Oakland Bay Bridge, the Gerald Desmond Bridges in California, and the massive Corpus Christi Harbor Bridge in Texas. He also aided in the engineering work on the original Columbia River Crossing project.

Now, he is proud to be a part of the IBR program, as work enters a stage where critical design decisions will be made.

“There are fundamental decisions that have to be made by the collective program and we determine how to accommodate that,” Rob says. “The decisions are how many lanes, climate, equity and other wants and desires. Someone has to inform us and then we can design it.”

• Co-Chair, Senator Annette Cleveland
• Representative Jake Fey
• Representative Paul Harris
• Senator Marko Liias
• Representative Ed Orcutt
• Senator Ann Rivers
• Co-Chair, Senator Lynda Wilson
• Co-Chair, Representative Sharon Wylie

• Co-Chair, Senator Chris Gorsek
• Co-Chair, Representative Susan McLain
• Senator Brian Boquist
• Senator Lynn Findley
• Senator Lew Frederick
• Representative Shelly Boshart Davis
• Representative Khanh Pham
• Representative Kevin Mannix

Due to the magnitude and complexity of a bi-state bridge replacement program, it is critical that key agency partners have a shared understanding of how to work together. Beginning in the winter of 2019, ODOT and WSDOT reengaged the following regional entities central to program development.

• TriMet
• C-TRAN
• Oregon Metro
• Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council
• City of Portland
• City of Vancouver
• Port of Portland
• Port of Vancouver USA

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) will oversee the federal environmental review process, as defined by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and may have a funding role if federal funding sources are identified. These agencies are responsible for ensuring that the program complies with the requirements of NEPA along with other applicable federal regulations.

Other federal agencies will have regulatory oversight in the program, including:

• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
• U.S. Coast Guard
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
• U.S. General Services Administration
• Federal Aviation Administration
• National Marine Fisheries Service
• National Park Service