VTCA President's Letter to the Membership

VTCA Members:

It is with humility and reverence that I assume the commitment and responsibility of serving as your President.

As one of the premier State Transportation Construction and non-mineral mining industry advocacy organization in the United States, our reputation and standards have been set high. We must always be cognizant of this and assure that we continue to grow, stay relevant, and be proactively engaged in assuring the future success of our members.

None of us know what will bestow us over the upcoming year but some items remain paramount and will warrant all our efforts.

Workforce development will continue to be an essential need. With this large challenge, we must find specific actionable items to assure we can all contribute on paying forward.

Assuring preservation of and growth of transportation funding in the Commonwealth must always be paramount, and nothing can be taken for granted. Our VTCA Political Action Committee must remain engaged and relevant. As political perspectives become more extreme “left and right”, and as the average tenure of our legislators likely becomes smaller as part of the redistricting process, we need larger participation. Our members need to help with education and assure smart decisions are being made by elected officials. We will continue to monitor legislation and take proactive positions on bills.

Our working relationships with the Virginia Department of Transportation, the Virginia Department of Energy, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, and other state agencies must never be taken for granted. Our decisions must always be altruistic in nature and our discussions with the agencies must always be open honest and transparent. 

The collective diversity of our 300-plus member companies’ (contractors, aggregate producers, engineering consultants, and suppliers) is what gives us our cooperative strength. We must also look to assure we are being diverse and inclusive in our decisions for our Board of Directors and different leadership committees.

For close to eighty years our organization has been a leader in shaping Transportation in the Commonwealth. As leaders in your companies and communities, I trust and hope that you can be actively engaged in our mission. I encourage all our members to get out of our comfort zones and help steer us for the future. At the same time, I hope we can all have a little fun.

Please be sure to reach out to me or the VTCA staff with any of your suggestions, ideas, or concerns.

Respectfully, 

Bob