Texas DOT Engineer Nees Earns 2014 ARTBA Women Leaders Award

AASHTO Journal, 12 September 2014

Katherine Nees, Texas Department of Transportation’s deputy director for the Strategic Projects Division, this week received the Ethel S. Birchland Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association’s Transportation Development Foundation “Women Leaders in Transportation Design & Construction Awards” program.

Nees leads TxDOT’s $26 billion P3 and Design-Build program. She also served on the Texas Transportation Institute Advisory Board, TxDOT Blue-Ribbon Transportation Committee, Dallas Fort Worth Regional Transportation Committee, and will become a board member of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association this fall.

According to ARTBA, Nees has more than 30 years of experience managing, financing, procuring, planning, and designing construction projects totaling more than $25 billion in Texas and across America. She was the first female construction engineer and the youngest director of administration at TxDOT’s Dallas District. In 1998, she joined the North Texas Tollway Authority as deputy executive director, where she oversaw the delivery of complex multi-agency toll projects including the $1 billion President George Bush Turnpike, Addison Toll Tunnel, DNT Extension and the nation’s first open-road toll facility. At Jacobs Engineering, Nees served as a division vice president and developed the practice’s National Toll and Public-Private-Partnership group, which managed over $15 billion in innovative projects for 10 state DOTs, the Harris County Toll Authority and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

The Ethel S. Birchland Lifetime Achievement Award, named for ARTBA’s executive director from the mid-1920s, is given to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding leadership, long-term service in the industry’s public or private sectors and dedication to the advancement of innovation and other women leaders.

For more information, including a full list of honorees and additional award details, visit the ARTBA web site.

This entry was posted in General News, Legislative / Political, News. Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.