TRB's 2012 Annual Conference is "Risky Business" for KAI's Chris Brehmer
January 16, 2012
Knowledge about tort law and risk management, interaction with teaming partners, university professors and the people behind transportation research – the opportunities presented by the upcoming Transportation Research Board’s 91st Annual Meeting abound for Christopher Brehmer.
A KAI principal engineer and member of TRB’s Tort Liability and Risk Management Committee, Brehmer is helping facilitate committee workshops, one of which will highlight risk management and liability issues engineers and practitioners should be aware of with respect to highway and street geometric design. KAI principal engineer Brian Ray, chair of TRB’s Geometric Design Committee, and associate engineer Hermanus Steyn are organizing the workshop with the support of many volunteers.
Brehmer said the workshop promises to be compelling because it will address the “art and finesse of geometric design versus the cookbook requirements” for safe and efficient roadways.
“We’ll be exploring the process to determine the best design possible considering safety, capacity, operating speeds and all the different factors that go into geometric design,” he said.
Brehmer also is helping facilitate a workshop about tort liability and risk management, an event that will differ from the above workshop in that it will focus on the history and evolution of tort law related to transportation; the guidebooks that led, for example, to a uniform standard of design and construction during development of the nation’s interstate highway system; and the current state of practice.
The tort liability and risk management workshop is timely given our more litigious society and the fact that states, local jurisdictions and practitioners may be subject to legal action when issues arise over transportation facility design.
“TRB is really trying to raise awareness among agencies about these important issues,” Brehmer said.
Beyond the technical learning opportunities, Brehmer is excited about attending the TRB annual meeting with mentee Johnny Lin, a student at the University of Queensland, Australia who is interning this winter at KAI’s Portland office. In addition to attending TRB events, Brehmer and Lin will visit KAI’s Baltimore office for three days.
“It’s a great chance for us to get to know each other better and to attend an event that has an international presence,” Brehmer said.
TRB also offers relationship-building opportunities. Brehmer noted that he and other KAI staff members will meet with college students interested in internships and employment in the transportation engineering field.
“It’s a great chance to meet and greet those folks and learn about their interests,” he said.
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