The 2024 Symposium Engineering and Airside Track hosts share their sessions including Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), changes in materials and techniques, and PFAS. Please join us today to hear about the session topics and thoughts that went into picking these topics.

The Hold Room, Season 2 Episode 15 – Curtis Brown and Danielle Tran

Transcript

[Introduction]

TJ: Welcome to The Hold Room with ACC: a quick update on all things relating to airport development as well as the Airport Consultants Council.

Laura Canham: This episode is part of the passenger experience headers hosted by ACC's Terminal and Facilities Committee in this series. We are collecting the experiences and perspectives about the future of passenger travel, including changing demographics such as the U.S. population, aging and becoming more multicultural, new technologies, labor, and supply chain. Shortages and what the future may have in store. Thank you for joining us in the Hold Room.

[Interview]

Laura: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to The Hold Room. I'm Laura.

Kisa Hanlon: And I'm Kisa.

Laura: And we're here today to talk about the 2024 Symposium, Engineering and Airside track. And so Danielle and Curtis, would you please introduce yourselves?

Danielle Tran: My name is Danielle Tran. I'm a project manager at Woolpert and I just started there in February of this year and I was so lucky to have Curtis bring me on as his YP for this track host. Super excited to be here.

Curtis Brown: Great. Thank you, Danielle. And I am Curtis Brown, the track host and senior project manager with Woolpert and doing airfield design for over 30 years and part of the organization and previous speaker. I'm so glad to be able to support the organization and miss you all. Thank you, Laura and Kisa.

Kisa: Well, we're excited to have it brought back to Salt Lake City. I think it's been a couple of years since it's been there. So, everyone's excited and definitely the engineering/airside track is always one of the most popular ones out there. So digging right into it, what are the sessions that you guys have planned thus far?

Curtis: Excellent. Yeah, we have a pretty wide swath of engineering topics. It's starting from Envision and ISIS certification. Toing through potentially looking at just some PFAS and other contaminants and that session is still developing a little bit. Safety and risk management for smaller and mid-size airports. Is that new initiatives rolling down with them. Changes in materials and techniques for airfield rehabilitation and products and then kind of summing it up with AAM for airfield engineers. Kind of getting away from the planning and what we as consulting engineers need to know. But I am really excited about this broad spectrum of topics and what we get to do.

Laura: Great. Is there one in particular that either of you are most excited about?

Danielle: I'd say I'm most excited for the AAM topic because that's something that I'm just not familiar with and it's something that I am interested in. I'm kind of like a gadgety person and so like anytime you bring like super cool new tech into something I'm very interested in it.

Curtis: And I'd have to second that I am excited about the AAM and such emerging and changing the routinely and just what that means is so we can be better consultants. Close second to that is the changes in the airfield rehabilitation. I'm very much a materials person and love to see us new in the industry and what things are coming down with the changes and specifications as well as just environmental initiatives and what that means to our industry.

Kisa: And it seems like you guys have a nice variety there. So how did you come up with just the selection that you have?

Curtis:  At the end of last year, we had a no solicitation of topics and I can't remember one like over 200 some odd topics were submitted and we clustered those for the airside engineering and found some common themes and so we created a session for each of those common themes created by those within our industry.

Kisa: Very good. Now, have you both been to the Symposium before and if so, what's been your experience at the design symposium?

Curtis: Yes, I've been to the symposium numerous times and really enjoy the technical feedback and the networking and just what's happening. I’ll speak for Danielle as a new hire to consulting coming to us from Air Force. This is her first experience as a YP coming to this and I am really glad that she gets to be part of this role and get plugged in and make a lot of great connections. That probably took me several years to develop as just an attendee. And so just so neat to build help facilitate that.

Laura: Danielle, since this is your first time, what have you heard? What are you excited about? Anything in particular of how this conference may be different from others?

Danielle: I won't say that I've been to a lot of conferences, but I'm really excited to go to this one. I've been to the Air Force’s design and Construction symposium, which was interesting because it was very focused on Department of Defense design and construction and how that works. So it'll it'll be interesting to kind of see it from the consultant side as well as like Curtis said, making those connections because like he said, the civilian world, the consultant world and making those connections and enlarging my network is going to be, I think, key to having success in my career.

Laura: Well, how neat that your first conference that you're attending is one that you're also helping host a track that's exciting.

Kisa: Yes!

Danielle: Yeah, it seems like a little bit of press. But I think that with my past that I'm definitely able to handle it, to step up and to be a great YP Curtis.

Curtis: I definitely would second what Danielle and others said. She has shown herself to be more than capable on those leadership skills, so already been a great help.

Danielle: Thanks Curtis.

Kisa: So, my first YP event was at the ACC Design Symposium in Salt Lake City and it was probably like 10 years ago or something, but it actually created connections that still to this day moved forward. So it's definitely definitely good want to be a part of.

Curtis: Yes, I'm envious of that. When I was young, YP didn't really have those programs and just the way that you get to develop those cross-company connections and the team building as well as the networking, it's just an amazing program that ACC started and I'm really supportive of that. Glad for being able to do.

Laura: Great. Well, thank you both so much. Any parting words before we wrap this up?

Curtis: Come to our track. It is going to be the best one ever. The planning is just pretty pictures engineering is where it's at.

Kisa: Perfect.

Danielle: We have a lot of interesting topics and a lot of great people that are moderating and and speaking on those topics so it'll be a good time. Definitely put in a good word for our track.

Laura: Great. Well, thank you both so much for taking the time and walking us through your track.

Curtis: No, glad for the discussion, Laura and Kisa. So much.

Kisa: Thank you both.

[Outro]

Wendy Hageman: Thanks for joining us in The Hold Room for this special podcast series exploring the new passenger experience. You can find more from this series on the ACC Training Hub—that’s training.acconline.org/the-hold-room—or wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, etc. Follow us for more content from the Airport Consultants Council. You can support this podcast by leaving a rating or review and by telling your friends and colleagues about the podcast. Thanks again.