Welcome – 2015 Annual Meeting

Welcome to the 2015 ITS Georgia Annual Meeting! We are glad to have you with us on beautiful Jekyll Island. We are confident that your experience here will be valuable. As always, we have an excellent technical program for you. We have also tried to provide you a number of opportunities to connect with other professionals and organizations involved in ITS.
Our annual meeting theme this year is Back to the ITSGA Annual Meeting. After the outstanding ITS 3C Summit with ITS Florida and Gulf Region ITS in 2014, we are returning back to having our own meeting this year. Since 2015 is the year Doc Brown took Marty McFly to in the future, we are also going to have
fun tying in various parts of the program to the Back to the Future movies. As my kids have told me, Steven Spielberg had quite a vision for 2015. It included Hoverboards, Mr. Fusion and flying cars.
Since we still need roads for most of our daily travel, our ITS industry goal to use technology to improve the safety, security, and efficiency of surface transportation is still essential to the public. To help you meet that goal, the technical program will focus on the current and upcoming trends in ITS at the state and national level.
Your conference features keynote speaker Paul Feenstra, Senior Vice President of ITS America. Mr. Feenstra will provide a “Washington Update” about the status of a long term transportation funding bill for the future of America’s surface transportation system. He will also give us some insight into ITS’ potential funding status in the different bills being put forward.
Please make sure to visit ALL of the vendor exhibits. The exhibitors have worked hard to provide you with a look at new products and new ways to use existing products. Time has been set aside to enable you to visit with them, so please take advantage of this opportunity to learn. Our exhibitors are one of the keys to a successful time here together and giving you new ideas to take back for the future of ITS.
I would like to recognize all of our sponsors whose financial support is essential to having an annual meeting. Utilicom Supply, Intelight, and Serco lead the way this year as Diamond Sponsors. Please make sure to give them a special “thank you” for their generosity while showing your appreciation to all of the sponsors.
Please join me in thanking our Conference Planning Committee led by the staff from Atkins (one of our Platinum Sponsors). Whitney Nottage with Atkins led the Technical Committee in putting together our program with a dynamic group of moderators and informative speakers. Both committees were comprised of an outstanding group of volunteers whose effort is what makes this meeting and ITS Georgia successful.
My hope is that you enjoy this learning opportunity and will have the ideas and ITS solutions to make transportation systems better when we send you… BACK TO THE FUTURE.