Annual Report to the Vice President of Research

for Calendar Year 2020

Director: Tim Colling, PhD, PE

Submitted January 28, 2021

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.0 MISSION STATEMENT .................................................................................................... 1

2.0 CENTER OVERVIEW ........................................................................................................ 1

3.0 CENTER HIGHLIGHTS ...................................................................................................... 1

4.0 CENTER EDUCATION ACTIVITY ....................................................................................... 2

5.0 CENTER STAFF .............................................................................................................. 7

6.0 FISCAL SUMMARIES ..................................................................................................... 10

7.0 INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTER FUNDING .............................. 12

8.0 SPACE AND FACILITIES ................................................................................................. 14

9.0 FUTURE PLANS: ........................................................................................................... 16

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1.0 MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of the Center for Technology & Training is:

To foster innovation in the civil and environmental infrastructure management field by providing access to a highly talented, multidisciplinary, technical team capable of providing expert advice, data, tools, and training to both private entities and state, local, and federal governmental units that own and manage infrastructure.

2.0 CENTER OVERVIEW

The Center for Technology & Training (CTT) started from a single soft-money-funded program (Michigan Local Technical Assistance Program, or LTAP) in 1986. The Michigan LTAP served as a gateway project that allowed the development and growth of soft-money-funded research staff working in the field of transportation. Since 1986, the center has grown in size and diversification, transitioning from a narrow focus on transportation to a broader civil infrastructure focus.

Since its inception, the CTT has operated as an “informal” university center and has been continuously managed as a soft-money, staff-based center. Operating as an informal center allowed the CTT to grow and change as necessary and to develop from a loosely run single project into a more formally managed, professional organization. During this transition, the CTT has experienced wider name recognition with clients, assumed its own business process, and developed a management structure that allows the CTT to make a positive impact on accomplishing Michigan Technological University’s (Michigan Tech’s) mission.

In October of 2017, the CTT petitioned the Vice President of Research at Michigan Tech to formally organize as a university center within the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. The request to organize was approved November 6, 2017.

The CTT focuses on four action areas to create an impact in the infrastructure community: applied research; training and education; technical assistance; and the development of software tools. All projects within the center include one or more of these activities to support and advance the state of practice in public infrastructure.

3.0 CENTER HIGHLIGHTS

In a normal year there is a CTT staff member traveling to deliver services at least three out of four weeks of any given month. Covid-19 forced a drastic change in normal center operations in everything from how we organize as a team to how we deliver services.

In late February, CTT began preparing for the possibility of the need to work remotely. This included the purchase of additional computer and telecommunication equipment, setup and testing of remote access to necessary systems, instituting the use of a center-wide chat

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application, forwarding of incoming calls to cellular devices, and changes to the center’s webpages.

The center management issued a directive for employees to prepare home offices and executed a work from home testing day in advance of the governor’s mandate to work from home. This planning helped the center transition to remote work with minimal disruption. The center put in place routine Zoom meetings including a standing center-wide meeting (Figure 1), working group meetings, and daily “open door” office-hour meetings for management staff. Overall, CTT fared very well in the transition to remote work as a result of this preparedness.

Figure 1: CTT’s first all-staff remote meeting during a preparatory work from home readiness day.

CTT was able to complete all of its funded project deliverables during the program year even with the switch to remote work, a prohibition on travel, and gathering restrictions. CTT was also able to maintain previous proposal and awarded metrics levels even as significant budget cuts in state and local government spending went into place during 2020.

4.0 CENTER EDUCATION ACTIVITY

A major role of the CTT is to extend the University’s reach beyond graduation to practicing engineers and other technical staff working with civil infrastructure. In an average year the CTT typically provides over 100 training opportunities that include instructor-led traditional classroom events, web-based instructor-led training, and multi-day technical conferences. The CTT’s education audience includes: local, state, and federal infrastructure owners; engineering

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consultants; and elected officials. The CTT delivers almost 100% of its educational events off of Michigan Tech’s campus to reach this audience efficiently. This high level of offsite educational activity broadens the profile and extends the reach of Michigan Tech in the national infrastructure engineering community.

Limitations on travel and in-person gathering due to the Covid-19 crisis resulted in the transition of CTT’s in-person training events to remote learning. A few of CTT’s training events which were scheduled directly following the statewide work-from-home order in March of 2020 were canceled, leading to overall reductions in reach. The switch to online training events reduced the number of contact hours that could be delivered per training session, which resulted in a significant reduction in contact hours from previous years. Attendance for training events suffered as a result of budget cuts and prohibitions to attending training as a result of the Covid-19 crisis.

While 2020 offered many challenges to the center for delivering on its educational mission, it did provide some benefits. CTT was forced to re-evaluate the technology it uses for delivering online continuing education classes due to class size limitations, audio quality, and reliability issues. During 2020 the average online class size increased dramatically as travel and gathering restrictions set in. This led to CTT successfully holding some of the largest online events it has done to date easily tripling its maximum online class sizes in excess of 250 attendees. One such event was the CTT hosted Transportation Asset Management virtual conference which not only surpassed the CTT online class size record but nearly doubled the typical in-person attendance at the annual event (Figure 2). CTT was required to upgrade some its Adobe Connect (webinar software) license to increase class size, which came at a significant cost.

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Figure 2: 2020 Transportation Asset Management Virtual Conference, which set a new CTT record for online attendance of 291 total participant and instructors and nearly doubled the typical in-person attendance of the annual event.

In 2020 CTT delivered 93 training events which represents about a 10% decrease of from last year’s. These events consisted of over 290 hours of training delivered to 3,893 participants, representing a 20% decrease in attendance from 2019. Table 1 lists the attendance and contact hours for all the CTT training events completed in 2020.

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Table 1: Year 2020 Training Events and Attendance

Training Title Number

of Trainings

Class Length

(Hr.)

Total Training

Hours

Total Attendance

Contact Hours

2020 Advanced Roadsoft Training 6-Part Webinar Series - Pavement Management

1 6 6 27 162

2020 Advanced Topics in Bridge Load Rating Part 1 2 2 4 13 26

2020 Advanced Topics in Bridge Load Rating Part 2 2 2 4 11 22

2020 Bridge Asset Management Training Remote Workshop 1 8 8 15 120

2020 Bridge Asset Management Webinar Part 1 2 2 4 34 68

2020 Bridge Asset Management Webinar Part 2 2 2 4 31 62

2020 Bridge Asset Management Workshop - Baraga 1 4 4 10 40

2020 Bridge Load Rating: The Basics - From Plans to Load Rating 2 2 4 19 38

2020 Bridge Load Rating Remote Workshop 1 6.5 6.5 9 58.5

2020 Bridge Load Rating - Theory & Policy 2 2 4 24 48

2020 Compliance Plan Training Webinar 3 1.5 4.5 44 66

2020 Constructing Pedestrian Facilities for Accessibility - Lansing 5 4 20 270 1080

2020 Construction Quality of Asphalt Paving Workshop - Gaylord 3 5 15 100 500

2020 Contract Management Conference - Mt Pleasant 1 5.5 5.5 136 748

2020 Culvert Condition Evaluation 3 3 9 67 201

2020 Culvert Data Collection using Roadsoft 2 2 4 42 84

2020 Local Concrete Seminar 2 4.5 9 136 612

2020 Fall Transportation Asset Management Virtual Conference 1 6 6 255 1530

2020 FHWA - Basic Uniform Act Appraisal Requirements 1 2 2 32 64

2020 FHWA - Eminent Domain Appraisal Concepts 1 2 2 32 64

2020 FHWA - Introduction to Federal Acquisition & Relocation Requirements

1 2 2 35 70

2020 FHWA - Introduction to Federal Uniform Act Requirements 1 2 2 43 86

2020 Gravel Road Basics for Local Officials - Houghton 1 3 3 7 21

2020 Gravel Road Basics for Local Officials Webinar 2 2.5 5 117 292.5

2020 Small Water Systems Finance Series - Part 1: Having Enough Money for Today and Tomorrow

1 1 1 30 30

2020 IBR System for Rating Unpaved Roads 3 1.5 4.5 215 322.5

2020 Introduction to Roadsoft (Hands-on) Training 1 6 6 24 144

2020 Introduction to Roadsoft - Webinar 2 2 4 56 112

2020 Introduction to Thawcaster 1 1 1 50 50

2020 Keeping Your Agency Connected at a Distance: A Webinar on Remote Work Tools

1 1.5 1.5 113 169.5

2020 Master the RS Data Collection Cycle for Planning Organizations 1 2 2 27 54

2020 Materials Acceptance Process Seminar 2 6 12 56 336

2020 MDOT LAP: Fabrication Inspection for the Local Agency Program Projects

1 2 2 37 74

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Training Title Number of

Trainings

Class Length

(Hr)

Total Training

Hours Total

Attendance Contact Hours

2020 MDOT LAP: Fed Aid 101 for Office Technicians 1 2 2 56 112

2020 MDOT LAP: Federal Aid 101 for Local Agency Construction Inspectors 1 2 2 108 216

2020 MDOT LAP: Threatened & Endangered Species 1 1.5 1.5 72 108

2020 MDOT LAP: What to do When your Project Needs Right-of-Way Parcels

1 1.5 1.5 122 183

2020 Meeting the TAMC Investment Reporting Requirements using Roadsoft - April

2 1.5 3 87 130.5

2020 MERL Project Estimator 2 2 4 68 136

2020 MERL Bid Utility 2 1 2 18 18

2020 MERL Local Job Manager 2 1 2 16 16

2020 Michigan County Engineers' Workshop - Manistee 1 15 15 214 3210

2020 Michigan Winter Operations Virtual Conference 1 9 9 172 1548

2020 PASER Training 3 4 12 182 728

2020 PASER Training Webinar 4 2.5 10 220 550

2020 Pavement Asset Management Plan Training Remote Workshop 1 5 5 12 60

2020 Pavement Asset Management Plan Training Webinar 1 3 3 26 78

2020 Pavement Warranty Administration and Inspection Training 1 2 2 72 144

2020 Presentation Skills Webinar 1 3 3 14 42

2020 Roadsoft Pavement Management (Hands-on) Training 1 6 6 9 54

2020 RUCUS 1 7 7 43 301

2020 Special Topics in Roadsoft: A Quickstart Guide to Using the LDC 1 1 1 18 18

2020 Special Topics in Roadsoft: Getting Started with the Mobile App 1 2 2 23 46

2020 Special Topics in Roadsoft: The Drainage Module Network 1 1.5 1.5 19 28.5

2020 Steel Plate Bridge Girder Design Workshop 2 4 8 106 424

2020 Transportation Asset Management for Local Officials – Bessemer 2 3 6 18 54

2020 Transportation Asset Management for Local Officials Webinar 1 3 3 34 102

2020 Writing Skills Webinar: Clear & Concise Sentences 1 3 3 20 60

2020 Writing Skills Webinar: Structures 1 6 6 27 162

Totals 93 197 292 3893 15884

In 2020 the CTT center director (Tim Colling) participated as an adjunct faculty in the team instruction of CE 3404 – Introduction to Transportation Engineering. This class was recently reformatted by CEE transportation faculty to give students a wider exposure to a variety of areas of transportation. The class engaged four to six faculty from different areas of the transportation field to teach their specialties. Dr. Colling instructed modules on transportation safety and transportation asset management. Team teaching allows the CEE faculty to supplement their areas of expertise in a field that is very broad and specialized.

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5.0 CENTER STAFF

The CTT staff consists of twenty-three full-time professional staff, two part-time professional staff, and from seven to fifteen student interns. Currently CTT has two open software engineering positions.

The CTT staff are 100% funded by soft money external research projects and receive no general fund support. Currently, there are no tenure track faculty in the CTT. However, two CTT staff, Dr. Tim Colling, and Dr. Chris Gilbertson, have adjunct faculty appointments with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The current CTT staff roster is as follows:

Management Tim Colling, PhD, PE, Director Chris Gilbertson, PhD, PE, Associate Director Chris Codere, Senior Project Manager, Training & Operations Nick Koszykowski, Senior Software Architect Gary Schlaff, Senior Project Manager, Software and IT Systems

Research Engineers Dale Lighthizer, PhD, PE, Senior Research Engineer John Sullivan, PE, Senior Research Engineer Zack Fredin, PE, Research Engineer II Andy Manty, PE, Research Engineer II Pete Torola, PE, Research Engineer II Peter Meingast, EIT, Research Engineer

Software Engineers and Developers Luke Peterson, Principal Programmer Norman Clerman, Scientific Programmer Mike Pionke, MS, Senior Software Engineer Jeremy Guinn, Software Engineer Blaine Thorpe, Software Developer Jacob Coulson, Software Developer/IT Support Specialist Christoforo Delreal, System Administrator Currently Vacant – Software Engineer Currently Vacant – Software Engineer

Support and Communications Allison Berryman, Data Support and Account Specialist Scott Bershing, Technical Specialist Cynthia Elder, Workshop Coordinator Victoria Sage, MS, Technical Writer/Training Coordinator Lindsey Wells, User Interface/User Experience Specialist

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Balancing staff resources to project funding is a major challenge for the center; since a staff level that exceeds externally funded support requires overhead funds to make payroll, and an overly conservative staff level risks non-delivery of project tasks. In the over 30 years that the CTT has been operating, there has never been a staff layoff. A track record of providing a stable, well-funded center is critical to attracting and retaining talented, efficient staff.

The CTT believes it is important to invest in developing employee talent, and actively encourages continuing education among its employees. Historically, the CTT has had a number of employees that have furthered their formal education while working at the CTT. CTT employees have completed degrees ranging from a BS in business to a PhD in civil engineering. During 2020 two full-time CTT employees completed advanced degrees from Michigan Tech. Research Engineer Andy Manty and Data Support and Account Specialist Allison Berryman completed MBA degrees in Michigan Tech’s School of Business. Research Engineer Zack Fredin is pursuing a Master of Science degree in civil engineering with a focus in transportation. Software engineer Jeremy Guinn completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science. During 2020 one software engineering staff member that had served the university for several decades, retired from CTT. Over the next three years CTT will have three staff, two of which are in management positions, retire. CTT has already started to phase in the transfer of skills and responsibilities to new staff in order to maintain smooth operation. However, during this transition period the center remains vulnerable to further staff loss and the erosion of skills. CTT currently has two open positions and is attempting to maintain a staff heavy posture to try to minimize operational issues due to retirements. The current Covid-19 restrictions and work-from-home mandate are making staff hiring and the transfer of skills difficult. A significant component of the CTT’s workforce are student interns drawn from civil engineering, mechanical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, and scientific and technical writing. Student interns act as a workforce multiplier for full-time professional staff. The CTT also depends on student interns as a talent pipeline for full-time positions that are often hard-to-fill, specifically in the software engineering field. Student interns work directly with professionals in their field, as well as with students and professionals outside their field on common projects. The CTT intern program is focused on providing real world technical experience in the student’s subject area. As students gain experience on projects they are encouraged to work more directly with the center’s industry and government clients, providing project management and leadership skills. The student intern program at the CTT serves as a pipeline, whereby students establish contacts not only within the CTT, but also with CTT clients. These client relationships have

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historically lead to post-graduation employment opportunities. The CTT has also extended temporary post-graduation employment to students while they explore their career options.

Students interns were asked to give feedback about their experience working at CTT as part of an effort to recruit more student employees. The following comments were received:

• Came in as a confused/lost student and with the deadlines, responsibilities, and connections have been slowly finding the real me. There are no words to truly describe the mental growth I've experienced in this time frame and CTT has a lot to do with it. Having the stability and ability to work with a great group on meaningful projects has helped to keep me continuously growing positively.

• Positive, encouraging learning experience. • Flexible, student-first work schedule and good pay (better pay than almost any other on-

campus job). • Opportunity to write for a newsletter that reaches 15,000 readers. Being published and

having your work actually read by the public is BIG for a writer and looks great in a portfolio/resume.

• Employee culture that values interns. The CTT relies on interns for their work, everyone is friendly and not intimidating, students are included and really welcomed in workplace celebrations and general CTT community.

• I think students should apply to work at the CTT, especially in the technical writing area, because the work and experience is real. The projects we work on are real projects for real events that involve real people - and have deadlines and very real consequences. There isn't any 'busywork' assigned, every project has a purpose and you are responsible for seeing your projects through. It's a lot of responsibility to be put into an outside-facing role very quickly, but at the same time you will be able to get help to see those projects through if you need it. It's a very adaptive work environment.

• Unlike some workplaces, the interns aren't 'hidden.' Student writers get publishing credits in the newsletter for the articles they write and also interact one-on-one with people from outside agencies some of whom I don't think fully realized I was an intern.

While these comments are not a broad anonymous survey of student intern sentiment, it does provide some evidence that the intern program is accomplishing its goals, which are: to provide real world experience, foster a welcoming and professional environment, provide mentorship opportunities with professionals in their direct field, and help students develop a portfolio of work.

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6.0 FISCAL SUMMARIES

The CTT is a 100% soft money funded center and does not receive any general fund monies for its operation. As a result, the CTT employees spend the vast majority of their time working on funded projects. Tasks that are required for administration of the center, or are general university business (mandatory training/engagement with administration), or are in excess of project contract values, are funded through Institutional Research and Development (IRAD) funds from the center.

The CTT measures utilization rate, or the percentage of employee time spent working on funded projects respective to the total hours available for work after leave and vacation time are removed. Aggregate annual utilization rates for full time employees have historically been in the mid to low 90% range. High utilization rates (above 85%) are positive from the perspective that they correspond with a lower use rate of IRAD funds for salary; however, high use rates also indicate that staff have little free time to pursue new proposals, learn new skills, and secure new projects. Lower utilization rates afford staff the time to write proposals and papers, but comes at the cost of higher IRAD usage.

The CTT tries to maintain utilization rates between 85% and 90% to provide a balance between economy and readily available staffing. Over the last several years, the CTT has made a conscious attempt to lower its utilization rate from its recent high of 95% to a more sustainable level. The 2020 utilization rate was 88% which allowed more capacity to take on new projects and conduct internal training. The CTT has started an internal training program for software engineers to transfer skills from staff on the cusp of retirement to newer staff. This training program is funded by CTT IRAD and will result in continued lower utilization rates.

The historical utilization rate for the CTT is illustrated in Figure 3.

Figure 3: CTT Staff utilization rate.

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In 2020, the Center for Technology & Training submitted proposals with the following metrics:

• 13 Proposals submitted and 1 pre-proposal submitted • 11 Different project sponsors or divisions • $3,791,357 in funding requested*

Seven of the fourteen proposals that CTT directly submitted or participated in were successful and awarded for a total of $2,810,656 in funds. Four proposals are still pending final contracts from the sponsor but have been given verbal approval by the sponsor and are anticipated to be awarded early in 2021. These four contracts total $820,701.

One of the three unsuccessful proposals was a very large multi-year negotiated scope project with Michigan Department of Transportation. *This project was proposed as a subcontract to WSP Consulting and was expected to be approximately $10 million in total contract value, with CTT services expected in the $500,000 to $1,000,000 range. This proposal volume does not appear in the funding requested values above since it was a negotiated scope project where total dollar volumes would be determined only for the successful team.

The twelve-month 2021 spending horizon for CTT is approximately $ 2,955,281 which includes $452,103 from an existing multiyear project from previous years. The total center-secured funding under contract, which includes new awards from 2020 and remaining multiyear projects is $3,504,671, which does not include the totals for the four yet to be awarded proposals.

The CTT’s proposal success rate in 2020 was 85% counting the four pending projects as successful and 50% if these proposals are counted as unsuccessful. A high proposal success rate is necessary for the CTT’s success because proposal writing activities are an investment funded by center IRAD dollars, which are always a scarce commodity.

Externally funded project awards and project expenditures both illustrate steady growth over the last nine years. Research awards from 2019 significantly peaked due to four multi-year awards, two of which are of a significant size. Even with the Covid-19 crisis in 2020 the CTT was able to keep awards and an overall upward spending trend. Figure 4 illustrates the historical growth of research awards and expenditures over time. Peaks in the award history of Figure 4 denote years when large multiyear contracts were awarded.

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Figure 4: Externally Funded Awards and Expenditures

7.0 INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTER FUNDING

The CTT receives Institutional Research and Development (IRAD) returns for all of its externally funded research. IRAD returns follow standard distributions that match most other academic based Centers and Institutes, which are: Principal Investigator (PI) 10%, Department 9%, College 9%, and Center 18%. These rates were set by the VP of Research, effective July 1, 2017.

IRAD is used by the CTT to meet three primary needs: funding staff administrative time to manage the center, funding maintenance of the center facilities, and funding a reserve fund to provide security for soft money staff during periods of financial downturn. Figure 5 illustrates the historical IRAD revenue and expense volume for the CTT.

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Figure 5: IRAD Expenses, revenue and fiscal yearend balance.

The annual salary and benefit load for full- and part-time staff at the CTT is approximately $2,190,000. This is approximately $84,000 every two weeks which must be charged to projects, annual or sick leave, or IRAD to maintain staff employment. The CTT has historically only spent approximately $130,000 to $150,000 per year in IRAD for staff salary and benefits associated with non-project, administrative, activities due to its high utilization rates in the mid to low 90’s. This expenditure jumped significantly in 2020 due to impacts associated with Covid-19 and the institution of an internal training program to prepare for planned staff retirements. An additional $30,000 to $50,000 of IRAD is annually spent on supplies and services which are typical of computers and facility equipment, while non-project travel is typically between $2,000 and $10,000 annually.

Over the next two to three years the CTT will have several staff retirements, and will attempt to maintain attritional staff in anticipation of these retirements. The CTT will be required to add staff in excess of the CTT’s external funding based staffing level, which will put a stress on IRAD reserves over the next few years.

Table 2 illustrates the CTT’s fiscal year-end IRAD balance and expense categories which includes PI and Center IRAD accounts. The FY 2020 IRAD balance provides the CTT staff with approximately 7.9 weeks of full salary and benefits in the event of a funding disruption. The Center’s long-term goal is to secure four to six months of salary and benefits as a reserve fund to maintain staff in the event of a financial downturn. Future expansion of office space or renovation to keep up with wear and tear is expected to have a significant financial impact on

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IRAD in upcoming years. During 2020 the Center reserve remained static as IRAD spending matched income.

Table 2: IRAD Fiscal Year Balance and Spending Categories

8.0 SPACE AND FACILITIES

The CTT maintains space within several rooms in Dillman Hall; 305, 308, 309, and 317. The CTT also shares 315 with the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

Dillman 309 is the location of the main office and houses management, office staff, professional engineers, technical writers, and student interns from civil and mechanical engineering, as well as humanities. This space provides a collaborative work environment where professional staff and students from varied disciplines work alongside each other to successfully gain experience, complete projects, and compete for new awards. In addition to individual and shared office spaces, 309 contains a conference room with seating for 24 that is used by the CTT, MTTI, CEE, and others for internal and multi-center meetings and teleconferences with project sponsors.

Dillman 308 provides workspace for document assembly, computer repairs, and inventory for the LTAP lending library. This space also houses a copy machine and the CTT mailroom. This space is also used as overflow office space.

Dillman 317 provides office space for the CTT professional staff and student programmers and developers who work collaboratively on the development of in-house software programs and sponsored research projects. This space has been arranged to provide a large, central, shared space for students with professional staff offices located on the perimeter. This arrangement allowed more student work spaces to be created.

Dillman 305 houses additional programmer and developer space along with the CTT IT and technical assistance professionals and students who work with the CTT staff and clients to provide technical assistance on both in-house software and external technical support projects.

FY 2013 FY 2014 FY 2015 FY 2016 FY 2017 FY 2018 FY 2019 FY 2020Carryforward Budget 229,254$ 217,841$ 247,104$ 254,475$ 86,535$ 206,678$ 224,979$ 332,430$ Transfers-In 156,308$ 218,529$ 223,340$ 229,098$ 300,071$ 237,396$ 305,895$ 309,604$ Less Expenses: Salary & Wages 91,097$ 90,685$ 100,520$ 123,635$ 100,913$ 111,110$ 99,522$ 172,887$ Fringe 29,841$ 28,345$ 30,129$ 35,315$ 30,565$ 34,601$ 29,312$ 57,035$ Supplies & Service 44,895$ 54,271$ 84,566$ 43,875$ 47,946$ 40,178$ 46,836$ 59,180$ Designated Fund Admin Fee -$ -$ -$ -$ -$ 8,393$ 11,110$ -$ Travel 1,889$ 15,965$ 755$ 5,713$ 2,587$ 12,082$ 516$ 3,312$ Total Expenses 167,721$ 189,266$ 215,969$ 208,538$ 182,010$ 206,364$ 187,296$ 292,414$ Encumbrances -$ (24,261.24)$ -$ -$ -$ -$ Transfers-Out -$ -$ -$ (188,500.0)$ -$ 12,732$ 11,147$ 13,796$ Balance on June 30th 217,841$ 222,843$ 254,475$ 86,535$ 204,596$ 224,979$ 332,430$ 335,824$

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Dillman 315 is a shared CEE conference room that additionally houses the CTT’s audio and video equipment used to host webinars.

The space maintained by the CTT is adequate to meet current needs. Additional professional staff have been hired and assigned office spaces and sufficient space remains to meet the needs of projected growth for several years before reconfiguration of existing space will be required.

The CTT maintains a high degree of interactivity with our student workforce and depends on these students for the successes of the CTT. Being located on the 3rd floor of Dillman Hall provides convenience and opportunity for student workers to schedule work around their academic commitments. This location also provides easy access to the CTT staff by faculty and staff who collaborate with the CTT on research projects, training opportunities, and speaking events.

The Covid-19 pandemic outlined the need to have adequate office space for students and staff to maintain social distancing. The walled offices and conference rooms that the CTT maintains were critical for students and staff normally housed in cubicles to use for Zoom meetings and conference calls without the need to wear a mask. The Civil and Environmental Engineering department was generous enough to offer the use of two offices in the 301 Dillman wing of faculty offices to allow CTT staff more hard walled office space to further separate on-site operations.

The Covid-19 pandemic underlined the need to have significant mobile / portable IT equipment and telecommunications hardware to maintain operations during a campus shutdown. The CTT was prepared to meet the need by maintaining a stock of training laptops that could be redeployed to remote employees. The CTT will continue to invest in these resources as the supply chain for ordering new computer and phone hardware has become significantly longer, stretching into months vs days.

Productivity of space can be measured in many different ways; one of which is to look at the annual expenditure of externally generated funding per square foot of space. These values for the past 7 years are shown in Figure 6. In 2016, the CTT completed a significant renovation that resulted in a 42% increase in its space as illustrated by the drop in expenditure per square foot.

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Figure 6: The CTT Annual research expenditures per square foot of facility space. In 2016 there was a 42% increase in space, leading to a difference in metrics for previous years.

9.0 FUTURE PLANS:

The CTT will continue to deliver its continuing education program in the format that best meets the needs of its adult learners modified by any necessary restrictions. This will likely mean that many of the CTT traditionally in-person learning events may need to be wholly or partially reconfigured for remote attendance, even after the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. This transition will require the CTT to secure other IT and telecommunications equipment and people with the necessary skills to operate it.

The CTT will continue its student intern program, and in the future will focus on individual development of student interns through guided research or development projects. Students will be given a selected topic and will develop a literature review, technology briefing or other synthesis that will be presented to peers and the CTT staff. Students will be encouraged to pursue opportunities for presentation or publication of their projects.

The CTT plans to continue to diversify the type and source of its project funding over the next few years to add stability to the center.

The CTT will continue to secure an increased number of longer term, multiyear contracts, which provide a base to build new programs and capacities.

The CTT will examine the environmental infrastructure sector, and transportation structures sector as project growth areas for future years.

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The CTT will continue to increase its fiscal stability by maintaining an unspent IRAD balance with a goal of securing a fund equal to a minimum of four-months of staff wages and benefits.