Improving Communications in our Profession
Written By: Doug Smith, Public Relations Committee Chair

Being the parent of two middle school children (yes, I know what you are thinking…I started a little late!), it is not unusual to be standing around at a school function, birthday party or soccer tournament and get the inevitable question – “What do you do? Or What do you do for a living?” I usually handle this question with one of two responses. Sometimes, I say I am an engineer or civil engineer which leads to more questions. Or I’ll go into an in depth explanation about being a traffic engineer and what great things I do. This is often followed by more questions which lead to me explaining that I am a transportation professional and what I work on and why it is important. They usually lose interest pretty quickly. I don’t think that ever happens to doctors or lawyers! We still have a ways to go to educate the public on what we as a profession do and what is our value to them.

Even in a region like southern California where transportation issues are at the forefront of political campaigns and the subject of front page news in the LA Times, the perception of what we do and how well we do our jobs varies from person to person.  As mobility becomes a bigger part of our lives it seems like the challenge gets bigger and our jobs get more complex. I think this is why the Western District Board created the Public Relations Committee.

The Public Relations (PR) Committee’s strategic plan states that their mission is to “inform the public about ITE and promote the successes of ITE and its members through proactive and coordinated public relations and outreach.” Great mission statement, right?  But, what does it mean and how do we go about achieving this lofty goal?  Just like any difficult problem, tackling “bite-sized” pieces of this challenge seems to be the best approach.  So let’s look at the Committee’s primary long-term goals one by one:

1. Promote the successes and accomplishments of ITE and its members. This is something that we are already doing within our ITE community through our printed newsletter (WesternITE) and District website (westernite.org).  But how can we take this a step further?  We need to find ways to reach out our other audiences like local government officials, community organizations, and media outlets.  On the District’s level, this is a daunting task since we are spread out over 13 states.  To accomplish this goal, we need the assistance of our Sections and Chapters who are more familiar with their local areas and the available avenues to distribute information.
2. Coordinate public relations efforts District-wide by working as a liaison to local Sections and Chapters. We need to establish a network of liaisons on the Section and Chapter levels to distribute information from the District.  We will be contacting each Section and Chapter President and asking them to designate PR liaisons to the District.  In addition, we will be recruiting additional PR Committee members to work on refining our strategic plan and disseminating information to our audiences.
3. Coordinate responses to media report and public relations issues that impact ITE and its members. The PR Committee will work with our network of liaisons on the Section and Chapter level to identify issues that impact ITE that should be addressed.  Our committee previously produced a series of articles regarding the issue of “Engineer Bashing” that were distributed through the District’s media venues and published in the ITE Journal.  The next step for our committee would be to generate similar responses to other issues and find ways to disseminate this information to the general public as well as our members.

This means that you will be hearing from us more frequently through the District’s website and social media outlets.  We will be asking for your input regarding issues that affect ITE and its members, as well as recruiting more volunteers for our committee.  For example, the Career Guidance Committee has planned a Young Professional’s Leadership Session at this year’s Albuquerque Annual Meeting that will allow us to tap our young professionals for great ideas regarding initiatives for the PR Committee.  In addition, we will be working with the District’s other Committee Chairs to find new avenues for communication and the exchange of ideas.  In the following months I will be contacting local sections and chapters to identify a lead to work with in each region. We will also look to gather more ideas from members before and at the Annual Meeting. We look forward to more interaction with our District representatives and local Section/Chapter leaders so that we can build a strategic plan that meets our goals as an organization.