About our Instructors
Gerson J. Alexander, CPE
Mr. Alexander is a certified ergonomics/human factors consultant and is the founder and president of Positive Guidance Applications, Inc. The company conducts seminars on human factors in highway design, traffic operations and safety, the analysis of hazardous highway locations, and in the development of highway information’s system.
He left the Federal Highway Administration with more than 15 years of experience and since leaving the FHA in October 1985, he has conducted numerous seminars in abundant locations including: 12 states, six Canadian and two Australian provinces, and South America and Europe addressing more than 1,000 highway engineers and technicians, attorneys, safety specialist, enforcement personnel, accident investigators, reconstructionist, erogonomists, educators and graduate students.
His expertise on matters of traffic control and traffic control devices has been utilized by the states of Maryland, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Arizona, as well as the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia.
Mr. Alexander has served in a leadership capacity on several committees of the Institute of Transportation Engineers as well as the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. He has also been retained as an ergonomics/human factors expert by defenses and plaintiff attorneys in 42 states, the District of Columbia and the province of New Brunswick.
Ronald W. Eck, P.E.
Mr. Eck is a Professor of Civil Engineering at West Virginia University (WVU) and is also the Director of the West Virginia T2 Center. He has been involved in traffic engineering and traffic safety for over 25 years. He teaches Introduction to Traffic Engineering and Traffic Engineering Operations at WVU. He has developed and teaches one-day, two-day and three-day workshops on traffic engineering for various Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) centers and state highway agencies.
Alan Gesford, P.E.
Mr. Gesford is in "working" retirement, having departed from his position as Senior Research Assistant for Penn State University. He serves as a Technology Transfer Specialist providing training and training development services on road maintenance topics for various LTAP Centers, Universities, and State Departments of Transportation. He served more than 16 years with the PA LTAP program training local governments. His prior work includes over 20 years of practical engineering experience in both the private and public sectors covering roadway design, maintenance, construction, and environmental projects, having served as Public works director in several municipalities. Alan has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master’s Degree in Education - Training and Development from Penn State University.
David Grouchy, P.E.
Mr. Grouchy is a civil and environmental engineer with a career’s worth of experience in leading and managing people in public and private agencies. He is the former director of the Louisiana LTAP Center. In his career, he has been involved in restoring the fragile coast of Louisiana, improving navigation on the Mississippi and Red Rivers, and various projects related to planning, designing and constructing drainage and irrigation systems, subdivisions and transportation systems.
Janet Grouchy
Mrs. Grouchy holds a Masters degree in Philosophy and a Bachelors degree in Math Education. She has 35 years of teaching experience at all grade levels, most recently 15 years experience teaching logic at Louisiana State University. Her primary focus areas include Interpersonal Communication, Ethics, and Organizational Skills. Janet has extensive and broad experience in community service.
Richard C. Hawthorne, P.E.
He is a chief of transportation planning in the Montgomery County Park and Planning Department. He has been with the Park and Planning Department for over 15 years. His current job involves responsibility for transportation planning support in the areas of development review, community planning, transportation forecasting, highway coordination, and multi-modal planning. He teaches transportation planning in the University of Virginia graduate planning program in Northern Virginia. He has previous job experience in consulting and regional planning. He holds an M.S. in civil Engineering from Virginia Tech.
Thomas Hicks, P. E.
Mr. Hick’s has more than 50 years of experience in the transportation engineering industry. He has worked as a traffic engineer in Washington, D.C. as well as for the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Division, and for the Oklahoma Department of Highways. He has also served as an Associate Professor of civil engineering at the University of Oklahoma. He has also worked with the Maryland State Highway Administration and is currently the Director of the Office of Traffic and Safety.
He received the 1999 Theodore M. Matson Award presented by the Theodore M. Matson Awards Committee. He has been a registered professional engineer since 1970 and is a member of numerous Institutions and Associations, of which he has held various positions.
Mark Hood, P.E.
Mr. Hood is a Traffic Safety Engineer for Pennoni Associates Inc. and provides training and technical assistance for the Pennsylvania Local Technical Assistance Program (PA LTAP). For the last eight years, he has provided training and technical assistance to PA's 2,500 local governments to help define and solve their engineering and safety problems. He also teaches on topics such as Low Cost Safety Improvement, Pedestrian Safety, Roadside Safety Features, Traffic Sign & Risk Management/Tort Liability, etc. His prior work experience includes over seven years of experience in the safety, engineering, technology transfer, and planning fields through the transportation consulting industry.
Woody Hood
Mr. Hood has been employed by the Maryland SHA since 1982, and has worked in the traffic engineering field since 1987. He is currently the Program Manager for the SHA’s Traffic Signal Timing Optimization Program. This includes managing the daily timing and operation of 200 signal systems containing approximately 1200 traffic signals across the State. Woody has extensive experience in the timing and operation of closed-loop traffic responsive systems, and has developed several unique phasing concepts to improve traffic flow through these systems.
Currently he chairs both the Washington and Baltimore Regional Traffic Signal Working Groups. He has taught signal timing and operation elements of SHA’s Graduate Engineer Training Program, and has provided training to SHA’s in-house traffic engineering staff.
John Hopkins
Mr. Hopkins is a Technology Transfer Engineer at Penn State University and has over 20 years experience in securing funding and directing operation providing on-site assistance to local transportation agencies. He has provided technical assistance and training both nationally and internationally; and has been requested by the Federal Highway Administration to serve as a consultant on developing training programs for local agencies each year since 1990.
Dane Ismart
Mr. Ismart of Louis Berger & Associates, retired from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) after 25 years of service in a variety of policy, planning and engineering positions. He was responsible for implementing the Intermodal Management Systems regulations. Mr. Ismart has authored manuals and taught NHI courses on Capacity Analysis, Access Management, Financial Management, Travel Demand Forecasting and Intermodal Planning, and is a member of the TRB Highway Capacity Subcommittee on Unsignalized Intersections. Mr. Ismart is a graduate of Georgia Tech with a Bachelors Degree and received his Masters Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota.
Alan Kercher, P.E.
Mr. Kercher has had more than 27 years of experience as a graduate engineer in the Civil and Structural Engineering fields. He is President of Kercher Engineering, Inc., an engineering and surveying consulting firm. Projects range from the design of roads, bridges, buildings and retaining structures to the preparation of contract documents and providing contract administration for a wide variety of municipal projects including pavement maintenance and rehabilitation, community parks and drainage improvement projects.
For more than thirteen years, Mr. Kercher served as the engineering consultant for the Delaware Technology Transfer (T2) Center. His responsibilities included providing technical assistance and training in the latest technologies to the municipal governments in Delaware. The main areas of focus were on infrastructure asset management, pavement design, alternative construction techniques, utility control policies, contracts and specifications, construction inspection, drainage improvements, and construction trouble-shooting. Additionally, he has provided training for the Delaware Department of Transportation, the Delaware River and Bay Authority, the University of Delaware, the Maryland Technology Transfer (T2) Center, the Pennsylvania Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) and the Federal Highway Administration – Eastern and Central Lands Divisions in the areas of infrastructure asset management, pavement maintenance/rehabilitation, construction inspection and preparation of contract documents.
Juan Morales
Mr. Morales is the president of Morales & Associates, and has over 22 years of transportation engineering experience. Prior to starting his transportation engineering consulting firm, Mr. Morales was the director of technical programs for the Institute of Transportation Engineers. Prior to joining ITE, Mr. Morales worked as a traffic and research engineer for the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) in McLean, VA. While at the FHA, he was actively involved in traffic control, highway safety, congestion management, and traffic simulation. Mr. Morales holds a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico and a Master’s degree from Georgia Tech. He is a registered professional engineer in Virginia.
Brian C. Roberts, P.E.
Mr. Roberts has held several significant hydraulic positions including President of Water Resource Consultants, Hydraulic Engineer for FHWA, Project Engineer for Fairfax County Stormwater Management, and Chief Engineer of the National Corrugated Steel Pipe Association. He has a BS and MS in Civil Engineering (Water Resources).
Ed Stellfox
Mr. Edwin C. Stellfox is a civil engineer and a technical specialist for LTAP programs. He has a B.S. in Civil Engineering, a Master's in Education from Penn State University, and has more than 20 years of experience in transferring transportation technology. Mr. Stellfox is the Maryland T2 Center’s LTAP Program Manager. Mr. Stellfox is also the head instructor for the Road Scholar Program.
Wamahdri W. Williams, P.E.
Mr. Williams is President and transportation engineer/planner with Williams Associates-Engineers. His experience includes transportation system planning and engineering, with an emphasis on traffic engineering; airport planning and forecasting; and related studies and analyses. He led the development of a spreadsheet ground access model for Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) Airport. Mr. Williams also led the development of incident management plans for the Maryland State Highway Administration. He helped develop diversion routing and options for freeways throughout Maryland. He also developed ridership projections as part of the planning for new commuter rail service in Providence, RI, and he was lead planner in creating concepts for an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS)-driven Baltimore downtown transit circulator plan.
As a traffic engineer with the Prince George’s County, Maryland, Department of Public Works and Transportation, he was responsible for traffic engineering including signage, signalization, and traffic mitigation throughout the county. Mr. Williams has analyzed both commercial vehicle and private vehicle access to airports, ground access operations, and commercial vehicle controls for airports including Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway Airports, Lambert-St. Louis, and the new Seoul Metropolitan Airport in Korea. His roadway planning experience includes analysis, planning, and traffic engineering of roadway elements, especially in the airport environment. He is also called upon to review construction plans and develop traffic control plans to minimize negative impacts of traffic pattern changes; in-flight and in-terminal passenger survey design and implementation, and analysis of passenger survey results. He is a member of the Transportation Research Board, the Institute of Transportation Engineers, the National Society of Professional Engineers, and the Consulting Engineers Council of Maryland.
