Amit Armstrong, Ph.D., P.E., is a technology deployment engineer at FHWA's WFLHD in Vancouver, WA. He has been with FHWA for 7 years, coordinating deployment of new, innovative, emerging, and underutilized technologies in design and construction of roads on Federal lands projects. He has more than 15 years of experience in numerical simulation and visualization of natural systems and is a licensed professional engineer.
Armstrong received his doctorate in civil engineering from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX.
George J. Cannelos serves as Federal Co-chair of the Denali Commission. He was appointed by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez in September 2005. Prior to his appointment, he served as President and Chief Operating Officer of the architecture & design firm, Koonce Pfeffer Bettis, Inc. and Director of the Heritage Land Bank for the Municipality of Anchorage. He capped a 32-year military career as a Brigadier General commanding the Alaska Air National Guard.
Mr. Cannelos has extensive experience in rural Alaska, and has lived in Anchorage, Bethel and Juneau. He began his career in Alaska in 1975 with the Department of Community & Regional Affairs. He completed planning and community development projects in over 50 Alaskan communities, in the public and private sectors, to include comprehensive, strategic, and transportation planning, feasibility studies, training and land management. He served as Chief Operating Officer for Chugach Alaska, Inc., as Land Manager and General Manager for Bethel Native Corporation.
He earned a Bachelors degree in Economics from Lewis and Clark College and a Masters of Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Cannelos is a member of the Urban Land Institute, the American Institute of Certified Planners, Anchorage Rotary, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He is Board Chair for the Anchorage Community Land Trust, Vice Chair of Anchorage Winter Cities and a board member of the Foraker Group.
Mr. Carr has been employed by the Alaska Railroad since 1980 in a number of senior management positions, most recently as Director, Strategic Planning in the Executive Office. After purchase of the Railroad by the State of Alaska in 1985, he led the newly formed Corporation through its first successful independent audit while converting previous manual accounting, supply and logistic systems into an integrated automated system. Mr. Carr successfully negotiated the first lines of credit for the new Corporation establishing a base of financial credibility in the local Alaska banking industry as well as national financial markets. Other accomplishments include converting the former federal-based procurement system to a more business-based driven system while maintaining compliance with mandated State regulations. Mr. Carr was part of a team of local planners and other government officials establishing a regional transportation planning organization comprised of elected officials in the Mat-Su Borough, Municipality of Anchorage, Assemblies, and other senior officials in government and industry. Mr. Carr represents the Railroad in a number of local transportation planning organizations including Metropolitan Planning Organizations in Anchorage and Fairbanks. Most recently, he represented the Railroad as a member of the bi-lateral working group comprised of officials from the State of Alaska and Canada responsible for investigating the potential rail link between Alaska and Canada to connect the Alaska Railroad with the Lower 48 rail system.
Mr. Carr holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Campbell University and a Masters of Business Administration with an emphasis in finance and economics from Chapman University. Mr. Carr was honored as an outstanding member of the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Anchorage Association (now Downtown Partnership), and Junior Achievement. He has been a Cub Scout leader and is active in his community church.
The AUTC needs to establish its credibility and need in the public’s mind by producing concrete, relatable results to the citizens of Alaska. Meaningful research results in tangible benefits. Those benefits must be appreciated by the public in order for the AUTC to be viewed as something more than just an academic institute.
Downing is a department manager for HDR Engineering Oregon. Before that, Downing worked as a senior transportation project manager in HDR's Anchorage office. He previously worked for CH2MHill as a project manager and for the Alaska Department of Transportation.
He holds a Master of Arts in psychology from the University of Santa Monica and a Master of Science in civil engineering from Stanford.
Gary Gustafson works at British Petroleum, where he is responsible for the regulatory approvals that will be needed for the proposed Alaska Gas Pipeline, the largest private construction project ever proposed in North America. He is part of the BP negotiation team working to achieve a fiscal contract on the pipeline with the State of Alaska. Mr. Gustafson is also Chair the ROW team composed of the oil & gas producers, Alaska DNR and DOT/PF, BLM, FERC and other regulatory agencies working to prepare for the gas pipeline.
Mr. Gustafson notes that he would like to see the AUTC work on projects that will assist the oil & gas industry in Alaska and other northern climates. Acting as a liaison with the Alaska Oil & Gas Association, He would like to see focus placed upon the planning, designing, construction and operation of pipelines and related infrastructure in northern regions. The placement of pipelines in permafrost is a particular issue of interest. In addition, the influence of climate change on our northern region transportation system needs attention.
Mr. Rick Kessler has a dual role as the President and CEO of Horizon Services Group (HSG) and as a VP and CIO of their parent company, Horizon Lines. Horizon Lines is the largest Jones Act Ocean Carrier and HSG is their third party IT development and R&D group. Mr. Kessler is responsible for all of Horizon Lines back office and inland operations of "Order to Cash" services, sales & marketing, and information technology.
Rick first joined the CSX corporate family with Sea-Land in March of 1996, where he handled multiple positions within the Information Technology organization, including Global IT Director of Terminals. Mr. Kessler holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from the University of South Dakota and an MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.
Now that Mr. Kessler is running the inland budget for Horizon Lines, $120 million out of a $170M budget expense, he has brought his technical vision to focus on solving the biggest gap that exist within ocean container management: inland container visibility. Without visualization equipment, the inland group struggles to minimize empty mileage and optimize matching of inbound deliveries with empty pick-up, not to mention the problems shippers have with knowing what containers are incurring Detention and Demurrage at their stores and container yards. Since Mr. Kessler has taken over Horizon's inland budget, he has focused all his energy on finding a variety of solutions to solve the inland visibility gaps. These have included RFID implementations on containers, working with Alaska DOT on readers on the highways, GPS and Wireless on high end refrigerated boxes, and web based trucker access to Horizon systems to allow them to update events.
Robert N. Lewis serves as the Regional Executive Manager for the Federal Aviation Administration's Alaskan Region, and currently is the acting Regional Administrator. He joined the FAA in Anchorage in 1966 after serving a tour with the U. S. Army. Prior to that he served two years as a Cost Accountant with the Aerojet General Corporation in California. An accountant by training, Mr. Lewis has held a variety of management positions within the FAA in the areas of Accounting, Budget, Resource Management, Logistics, and Airway Facilities. He was appointed Regional Executive Manager in 1997.
Mr. Lewis holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from Brigham Young University and has done graduate work at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He has been a long time Boy Scout leader and also served as a member of the Advisory Board for the Western Alaska Council. He has received the Silver Beaver award in recognition of his many years of service to the Boy Scouts. Bob is a licensed private pilot
Lance Wilber serves as the Traffic Department Director for the Municipality of Anchorage. His oversees the direction and administration of long-range transportation planning and programming, traffic engineering services, signage and signal operations as well as the municipal area wide communications system from pagers to transmissions towers.
Prior to his position in Traffic, Lance worked within the Municipal Planning Department for 8 years where he served as the Transportation Planning Division Manager. In that capacity, he was the Coordinator for the Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions (AMATS) organization. As the Traffic Director, he serves as the Chair of the AMATS Technical Advisory Committee. The organization is comprised of local and state representatives responsible for the development of transportation plan elements for roads, trails, freight, transit, congestion management as well as the programming of Federal Highway and Federal Transit funds for the Anchorage area.
He attended Oregon State University where he received a Bachelors of Science Degree in Geography and earned his Master’s Degree in Urban & Regional Planning in 1992 from Eastern Washington University. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, Anchorage East Rotary, Alaska Chapter for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Board and has had several opportunities to serve on regional and statewide efforts to enhance the transportation systems for the state. Lance was recognized as one of “Alaska’s Top Forty Under 40” in 2000. He served on the national committee for American Public Works Association’s Task Force for the Reauthorization of the federal legislation guiding and funding transportation improvements with federal dollars (known as SAFETEA-LU).
As a 43 year resident of Alaska, he has witnessed substantial changes in the transportation network across the state, not all of it positive. He sees great potential and benefit to transportation in the future and believes the AUTC should play a role in helping address the challenges in our northern climate. Innovation and leadership in the field of transportation research towards practical and usable solutions to our unique challenges will serve people and goods movement for future generations.
Alaska University
Transportation Center
For questions about the AUTC, contact Sandy Jefko at (907) 474-7330.
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Duckering Building Room 245
