Tag Archives: Professional Excellence Award

Recognition & Awards, Resources, Transportation & Mobility

2020 IPMI Professional Excellence Award – Innovation: David Wallace

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David WallaceDavid Wallace

SENIOR WEBSITE DESIGNER/DEVELOPER
Parking & Transportation Services, University of Arizona

David Wallace has been with the University of Arizona Parking & Transportation Services for over three years. He started as a website designer and developer, updating internal and external webpages. As a senior website designer and developer, he has designed and developed several programs and apps for different parking section heads that have improved efficiency tremendously in a wide variety of areas. The apps have reduced the need for paperwork and redundancy, helping better serve customers.

Paperwork is no longer required when officers go out to assist customers. Instead, the app on the officers’ tablets allows customers to sign the consent form electronically. Officers can now do boots and tows and provide motor assist without carrying around all the paperwork that was once linked to those tasks.

Wallace also created a program that tracks the equipment employees check out. This is also on a tablet that requires filling out only a few fields. Wallace recently created a check-in/out form for special events employees. The program logs the time employees sign in so they can get to their stations faster. Plus, it cuts down on the congestion of 80–100 employees trying to log in at the same time.

Wallace created an online shuttle request form for the Cat Tran Shuttles rental, again eliminating paperwork and improving speed. Another project he created was a program that bills a hotel that uses one of the university garages for their guests. The program is based on a contract with the hotel that stipulates that it pays extra for any spaces its guests use over 50. The new program tracks the guests’ ins and outs and bills accordingly.

Beyond these new developments, Wallace has also created several dashboards for the different parking sections. One allows that section’s employees to go to one spot for all their announcements, training, time reporting, and operational documents. It includes a section for supervisors to post daily briefings and tasks for employees. The dashboard includes a report that list trends and other stats.

Wallace has taken every task he has been given and created and improved upon each one. He has illustrated that he can find creative solutions to solve problems. Furthermore, he’s always available to lend a hand to his co-workers and has excellent listening skills, which are critical as he works with co-workers and supervisors to come up with the best solutions to the problems they are trying to solve.

Recognition & Awards, Resources

2020 IPMI Professional Excellence Award – Leadership: Hugo Contreras

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Hugo ContrerasHugo Contreras

SUPERVISOR
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport

Hugo Contreras joined Dallas/ Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport in March 2013 as a guest assistant in the Guest Transportation Operations section of what is now the Transportation Business Unit (TBU). After a year of service, he was promoted to ground transportation agent, and in June 2016, he became a quality agent in the Guest Contract Services section, where he was quickly promoted to Supervisor in May 2017.

In the supervisor role, Contreras has provided significant leadership. He supervises the evening and overnight shifts of quality agents, provides leadership of daily operations, and oversees a variety of special operations and projects. He oversees as many as 12 permanent employees and four contract employees. He also works closely with contract managers to incorporate DFW values and objectives into their dayto-day operations.

Contreras leads the infrastructure and construction, emergency response, communications, and career development committees within Guest Contract Services; he was the lead member of TBU’s Lifesaver Steering Committee (emergency response drills), a member of the Military Exodus Planning Committee, and a coach for Q1 FY20 Quarterly Department Meeting hosts.

He regularly collaborates with the TBU project manager to assess the operational impact of planned construction projects on Guest Contract Services’ business. This collaboration has included six major projects in the past year alone. In 2019, he reached beyond his assignment to provide leadership for the TBU Guest Services Section during a transitional period. Guest Services assists the public by providing customer service and transportation for aircraft hardstands, special events, and emergency response.

Contreras’ leadership skills are especially apparent when he is called on to mediate conflicts between employees. Contreras consistently motivates the team to perform at an optimal level, keeping safety and customer experience at the forefront. His focus on emergency operations has made him a key contributor to TBU’s emergency planning; he created the emergency operations protocols for Guest Contract Services.

Contreras also serves as a founding member of TBU’s Support Desk, where he helped establish procedures for department-wide collaboration in sharing information during routine and irregular operations. Contreras’s fluency in English and Spanish adds to his ability to connect and communicate effectively with customers and colleagues.

Recognition & Awards, Resources

2020 IPMI Professional Excellence Award- Marketing: Megan Smit

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Megan SmitMegan Smit

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
PayByPhone

At heart, Megan Smit is a brand evangelist. As PayByPhone’s director of marketing and communications, she develops and maintains the North American marketing strategy to increase adoption, usage, and reactivation of users on a global scale. She has created a marketing presence from ground zero and is focused on growing PayByPhone’s monthly active users as the company’s coverage increases worldwide.

Smit challenges the status quo and forges long-term relationships with key partners, clients, prospects, and departments. When she joined PayByPhone, Smit created a full marketing department in a remarkably short amount of time. She used her experience and knowledge from building brands and experiences with global companies within Africa and Europe to scale a high-performance team with specific skill sets that include mobile growth, digital marketing, media and communications, operations, and strategic campaign management led by an aggressive growth strategy.

Smit introduced processes and agile frameworks that brought structure and scale to all projects and tasks that involved multiple departments, including product management and client management. This was new for the company and disrupted it in the best possible way. Most importantly, however, Smit achieved this while forging strong relationships with these stakeholders.

Her tireless efforts and expertise were recognized through four IPMI awards in two years that recognized innovative and creative campaigns.

Smit has presented on the industry on various stages around North America.

Recognition & Awards, Resources

2020 IPMI Professional Excellence Award- Marketing: Melissa Maraj-Bubela

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Melissa_Marja_BubelaMelissa Maraj-Bubela

MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER
Texas A&M Transportation Service

The Texas A&M University Transportation Services Marketing and Communications unit is a powerhouse of creativity charged with safeguarding the public image, promoting services, and telling the university’s story. As manager of this unit, Melissa Maraj-Bubela leads the marketing and communications charge for one of the largest parking and transportations operations on any college campus in the country.

Maraj-Bubela joined the department in 2015. Since then, the department has garnered national and international recognition, including being awarded an IPMI Parking Matters Marketing & Communications Award for three consecutive years. She manages two websites and two mobile apps that target nearly 200,000 combined users each year. She also oversees seven social media platforms, leads branding and image campaigns, and maintains media relationships and media inquiries, community relations, and public engagement.

Throughout her time with the department, Maraj-Bubela has been at the forefront of the department’s most impactful initiatives, successfully spearheading the communications and media outreach for noteworthy campaigns such as the rollout of the largest bike-share program for a university and the implementation of the first U.S. Dutch-style unsignalized and glow-in-dark intersection installed on a university campus.

She has also led the implementation of the university’s Donations for Citations initiative and collaborated with the university’s Football Thursday gameday communications committee, which resulted in unprecedented social media engagement for the university, international media coverage, and university-wide recognition. Furthermore, she has participated in some of the university’s most notable events, providing communications support for events such as the 2017 Hurricane Harvey response and the George H.W. and Barbara Bush interments. ,

Recognition & Awards, Resources, Transportation & Mobility

2020 IPMI Professional Excellence Award – Operations: Corrine O’Connor

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Corinne_OConnorCorrine O’Connor

DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Philadelphia Parking Authority

In May 1990, Corrine O’Connor started her career at the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) in Pennsylvania as a parking enforcement officer. Over the years, she worked her way up and now serves as deputy executive director. She led four major projects last year that led to the integration of many customer conveniences. First, she led the roll-out of meterUP, a mobile payment application that has had over 5 million transactions and approximately 440,000 downloads. MeterUP accounts for roughly 30 percent of the parking authority’s meter revenue.

The PPA procured and began installation of new touch screen kiosks in Center City. Ultimately, over 8,000 single-head meters throughout the city will be replaced, along with 2,000 older kiosks.

The conversion of ticketing and enforcement was a major initiative and automates the towing and booting processes. O’Connor spearheaded the strategic thinking necessary to craft new solutions to a very complicated system that has been in place for over 35 years.

The PPA was tasked with overseeing the installation of speed cameras on Roosevelt Boulevard, one of the deadliest highways in the country. Last year, a vendor was selected and the cameras installed. The program has been married with the red light camera enforcement program already administered by the PPA.

O’Connor has testified before the city council and provided input into many ordinances involving on-street regulation. She has also testified before a state Senate committee regarding taxi enforcement, which is part of the PPA’s responsibilities. She has provided input into various proposed state laws regarding license-plate recognition; traffic cameras; taxi, limo, and transportation network companies; and ride-sharing.

The PPA is also preparing various technologies to assist with managing the curb. O’Connor is on several committees for related projects that include an ability to monitor truck loading zones, create and enforce demand pricing, and provide an application to determine real-time availability.