We’re proud to present the 2024 winners of the Transportation Association of Canada (TAC)’s Volunteer Recognition and Young Professional Awards. Congratulations to these deserving individuals! Click on the award titles to learn more about each award and the past winners.
Distinguished Service Award
This award is TAC’s highest honour. It recognizes leaders who have had a tangible and enduring impact on the association’s progress toward its vision and mission and, thereby, Canada’s transportation sector. The recipient has contributed actively to TAC councils and committees for at least 15 years, among their 25 years or more of industry experience.
Geoffrey Ho, G. Ho Engineering Consultants
Geoff has demonstrated a commitment to excellence and innovation over more than two decades of active service on TAC’s Road Safety Committee. Over his more than 30-year career, he has had a significant impact on road safety engineering in Canada, providing expertise and guidance to all orders of government and his colleagues within TAC. He previously received TAC’s Award for Service in 2013.
Geoff has been a driving force behind the national advancement and application of road safety audits and in-service road safety reviews. During his time (2002-2019) as Co-Chair of the Canadian Road Safety Handbook (CRaSH) Subcommittee, it produced Guidelines for the Network Screening of Collision-Prone Locations, the Applied Human Factors in Road Safety Guide, and the Speed Management Guide. Among many other volunteer roles, he co-authored TAC’s Road Safety Engineering Management Guide and Canadian Road Safety Audit Guide, sat on the Project Steering Committee for the Canadian Guide to In-Service Road Safety Reviews, and provided a pre-publication safety-focused review of TAC’s Geometric Design Guide for Canadian Roads. Outside TAC, Geoff participated in developing the National Road Safety Vision 2010 and has actively contributed his expertise to global organizations, including PIARC, the International Road Federation, and the International Standards Organization.
Jeannette Montufar-MacKay, MORR Transportation Consulting Ltd.
Jeannette has played a uniquely important role as an innovator and leader in road safety, freight systems and traffic engineering in North America and Latin America for well over two decades. As a professor at the University of Manitoba for almost 15 years and then as a founding partner of MORR Transportation Consulting, her work continues to forge a lasting impact on transportation engineering in Canada and to inspire others to enter the field.
As a consultant, Jeannette has played senior roles in the development of TAC publications such as Developing Highly Qualified Personnel for an Era of Connected and Automated Vehicles, Performance-Based Decision Making for Asset Management, Safety Performance of Bicycle Infrastructure in Canada, Pedestrian Crossing Control Guide – Third Edition, and Traffic Monitoring Practices Guide for Canadian Provinces and Municipalities. She is a member of TAC’s Board of Directors, Past Chair of its Technology Council, and a long-standing member of the Road Safety Committee and Traffic Operations & Management Committee. She has also been a TAC Foundation board member, President of ITE Canada, and a leader in other organizations including the Transportation Research Board, the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professionals, Engineers Geoscientists Manitoba, and the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce. She previously received ITE’s H. Robert Burton Distinguished Service Award and Wilbur Smith Distinguished Transportation Educator Award.
Lisa Salsberg, Access Planning
Over her 30-year career, Lisa has built a legacy of innovation in public service, leadership within TAC, and mentorship for emerging professionals. She has shaped many of Canada’s largest metropolitan regions for the better, holding leadership positions for ten years at Metrolinx and leading major planning assignments as a consultant for TransLink in Greater Vancouver and the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain in the Montréal region. During Lisa’s time in Ontario’s public service, her major accomplishments included key roles in the 2006 Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and Metrolinx’s 2041 Regional Transportation Plan, plus follow-up projects on mobility hubs and urban freight.
Lisa has been actively engaged as a TAC volunteer since 2008, including leadership roles on the Mobility Council and Transportation Finance Committee. She was a driving force behind the TAC publications Changing Practices in Data Collection on the Movement of People and Transportation Funding and Governance in Canada’s Large Metropolitan Areas. She has also organized and participated in many TAC conference panel discussions on pricing, public-private partnerships, and performance-based decision-making. Lisa previously received TAC’s Individual Contribution Award in 2021.
Leadership Award
This award recognizes individual volunteers who have provided continuous, effective leadership during ten or more years of active participation on TAC councils and committees and who have earned a reputation among other TAC volunteers for their dedication, collaboration, knowledge, and integrity.
John Bolger, City of Calgary
John has led many Geometric Design Committee (GDC) activities over the last decade. In addition to terms on the Executive, including as GDC Chair in 2019-2021, he was a Project Steering Committee member for the pooled-fund projects that led to TAC’s Geometric Design Guide for Canadian Roads and its Canadian Roundabout Design Guide. He has also played a key role in bringing different councils and committees together on issues where effective geometric design is closely related to other objectives. He has been an important and collegial liaison on mobility and active transportation issues since 2015, including as a member of the Mobility Council and the Active Transportation Integrated Committee. Over the same timeframe, he has also been a member of the Joint Roundabouts Subcommittee where design, operations and road safety practitioners come together.
Dawn Irish, Ontario Ministry of Transportation
Since 2012, Dawn has provided leadership in Executive and volunteer roles on the Environment & Climate Change Council and its Environmental Legislation Committee and Environmental Issues Committee, where her passion and expertise have helped advance important initiatives. She has been instrumental in guiding the Council in its work toward a collaborative approach to Indigenous participation in project delivery and was Chair of the Project Steering Committee for the pooled-fund project leading to the 2019 TAC publication Beneficial Practices for Compliance with the Migratory Birds Convention Act and Regulations. Even while fulfilling her Executive duties, Dawn remains a dedicated and knowledgeable volunteer who contributes significant value to technical discussions and projects.
Individual Contribution Award
This award recognizes individual volunteers who have exhibited notable levels of initiative, creativity, effort and/or technical excellence in contributing to the work of TAC councils or committees over the preceding five years.
Raheem Dilgir, TranSafe Consulting Ltd.
Over the last decade, Raheem has contributed to several TAC committees including the Road Safety Committee (RSC), with a notable role as founding Co-Chair of the RSC’s Vision Zero & Safe System Subcommittee (VZSSS). The VZSSS has had an outsized impact since its creation in 2020. Raheem was a consistent, dedicated presence throughout that time as a small group of dedicated volunteers connected with partner organizations, conducted multiple conference sessions each year, presented to many other TAC councils and committees, surveyed the status of Vision Zero and the Safe System Approach in Canadian jurisdictions, and developed TAC’s 2023 publication Vision Zero and the Safe System Approach: A Primer for Canada.
Félix Doucet, Ministère des Transports et de la Mobilité durable du Québec
Félix has actively participated in the Soils & Materials Committee and the Pavements Committee since 2016. He has contributed his expertise on pavement design to the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Subcommittee since 2010 and was a TAC liaison to the AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design Task Force from 2015 to 2022. Félix is a member of the Recycled Asphalt Pavement (RAP) Working Group and the Project Steering Committee for TAC’s pooled-fund project on using RAP in asphalt mixtures.
David Kriger, David Kriger Consultants Inc.
David has been a long-standing member of the Transportation Planning Committee and Transportation Finance Committee, where he has shared his deep knowledge of goods movement and planning processes, including mobility data collection and modelling. As Chair of the Transportation Finance Committee from 2019 to 2021, David led members through a participatory exercise to identify the group’s strategic priorities. Afterward, he led a volunteer working group that fulfilled one of those priorities by creating the report “Importance of Transportation Funding: Framing the Issues” and presenting it to other TAC volunteer groups.
Zane Sloan, Arcadis
Zane has been a member of the Geometric Design Committee (GDC) for almost two decades and, in recent years, has been a leader in addressing the need to create more resilient road systems in response to climate change. As Chair of the committee’s Adaptation to Climate Change Working Group, he has helped develop, promote, and conduct a series of volunteer workshops where attendees applied PIEVC processes to TAC’s Geometric Design Guide for Canadian Roads, with the goal of identifying the priority risks posed by climate change to safety and resilience. He has presented the results to TAC’s Chief Engineers and other volunteer groups, effectively balancing the issue’s urgency against the need to ensure technical rigour and buy-in from various stakeholders.
Roy Symons, ISL Engineering and Land Services Ltd.
Roy has been a member of the Transportation Planning Committee since 2013 and the Active Transportation Integrated Committee (ATIC) since 2019. Over that time, he has generously shared his experiences with innovative facilities for walking and cycling, ultimately chairing an ATIC working group on continuous sidewalks. Roy was the lead author of the report produced by that group, which was published as TAC’s first-ever “Emerging Practice Briefing” in 2023. In addition, he prepared and presented a TAC webinar on the topic that attracted a near-record 450 attendees.
Committee Excellence Award
This award recognizes excellence and innovation from TAC’s volunteer committees, subcommittees, working groups, and project steering committees. Recipient groups have contributed to TAC’s vision and mission through knowledge-building, professional development, and member engagement initiatives.
Active Transportation Integrated Committee (ATIC)
ATIC is one of TAC’s four “integrated committees” created as hubs for collaboration on technical issues that interest multiple groups. Since its launch in 2020, ATIC has grown to be one of TAC’s largest committees, with more than 100 practitioners representing 67 different member organizations. It has developed internal tools and procedures to identify and address emerging challenges and opportunities, and fosters active engagement with about ten other committees including those focused on design, safety and operational issues. ATIC also holds regular Lunch & Learn and online roundtable events, developed TAC’s first-ever “Emerging Practice Briefing” on the topic of continuous sidewalks and bike paths, and in 2024, is sponsoring the most sessions of any committee at the TAC conference.
Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Subcommittee
Since it evolved from a user group in 2020, this subcommittee has provided Canadian leadership for users of the AASHTOWare pavement design software. It helps users understand the tool’s features, benefits, and limitations, and it has created a Canadian guide to default parameters that support locally appropriate pavement designs. The subcommittee seeks the resolution of software bugs and other issues, and advocates for improvements in updated releases. Its members test new versions of AASHTOWare by running trials and presenting results at the TAC conference, and also invite international experts to share their work at the subcommittee’s meetings and conference sessions.
Non-Standard Pavement Markings for Crosswalks Project Steering Committee
This Project Steering Committee successfully guided a challenging research project investigating the safety of non-standard pavement markings for crosswalks, such as rainbow crossings and other decorative treatments. Representatives from 20 funding partner organizations provided their expertise and worked closely with the consulting team to conduct innovative simulated field testing and understand potential impacts on a wide range of potential road users, while rigorously addressing technical issues such as visibility, comprehension, distraction, slip and skid resistance, and automated vehicles. The project will inform future updates to TAC’s Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Canada.
Young Transportation Professional Award
This award recognizes an employee of a TAC member organization who is 35 years old or less and who has demonstrated personal accomplishments, industry and professional contributions, and leadership.
Maggie Boeske, City of Edmonton
In less than a decade of professional practice, Maggie has established herself as a local and national leader in planning and designing for active transportation, actively contributing at both vision and implementation levels. She has been a key player in several ambitious and innovative transportation projects in Edmonton including its Bike Plan, Safe Mobility Strategy and Complete Streets Design and Construction Standards. Outside her focus on corridor renewal projects, Maggie has also worked to build capacity by presenting to groups across the city about new transportation standards, policies and tools, by organizing cycling tours to help City staff understand how design impacts different users, and by working with internal stakeholders to overcome the challenges presented by new approaches.
Maggie is an active member of the Active Transportation Integrated Committee, where she contributed to TAC’s recent Emerging Practice Briefing: Continuous Sidewalks and Bike Paths. She has also made technical presentations to TAC’s Road Safety Committee and Active Transportation Integrated Committee and to a national audience during a TAC webinar on traffic calming. She is a registered professional engineer and holds a civil engineering degree from the University of Alberta.
Grant for Young Innovators in Transportation
This grant provides financial support to help a young professional attend TAC’s technical meetings and annual conference. It is made possible by the generosity of Scott Stewart & Associates.
Jacob Malleau, Arcadis
Jacob is a Product Manager and Curbside Mobility Specialist with Arcadis, a role that began with a winning hackathon idea and led to the CurbIQ data management platform. He has overseen the collection of more than 10,000 km of curb data for clients, creating analytics and visualization tools and integrating them with a mobile app to offer real-time parking availability, wayfinding, and payment. In four years, he has advanced from being the only full-time team member to managing a team of five and overseeing CurbIQ’s system architecture and features.
Allan Widger Consulting Corporation Grant for Young Geotechnical Engineers in Transportation
This grant provides financial support to help a young geotechnical engineer attend TAC’s technical meetings and annual conference.
Jean-Gabriel Dorval, Ministère des Transports et de la Mobilité durable du Québec (MTMDQ)
Jean-Gabriel brings a wide range of experience to his role at MTMDQ, with a focus on northern regions. He has been an engineer for construction firms and the provincial government and completed a Master’s degree in Nordic Engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. For the last three years, he has worked to improve gravel runways and other structures at airports in northern Quebec, introducing innovations such as a granular wearing course stabilized at depth for Hudson Bay’s busiest airport.
