IDOT RESTRUCTURING UPPER MANAGEMENT

IN HIGHWAYS DIVISION

Greater Emphasis to be Placed on District Offices

SPRINGFIELD – Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) Secretary, Timothy W. Martin, announced today the reorganization of the Department's Division of Highways senior management structure. The reorganization, which will take effect November 15, 2004 , and will retain the current IDOT structure of 9 districts, but will now include 5 regions that will allow the Department to maximize technical and personnel strengths and to better manage the reduced staffing that has occurred over the past ten years.

“These revisions will put a greater emphasis than ever before on work out in the field, away from the central office,” Secretary Martin said. “The district offices will be entirely responsible project scopes, schedule and budgets, as well as day to day maintenance, snow removal and answering questions from the people they serve in their districts.”

The Central Office will focus on providing assistance in technical areas, auditing of processes at the regional and district levels, ensuring quality in all areas of the Division, and most importantly performing safety audits and improving IDOT's focus on safety throughout the Department.

“It's important to realize that the Department is entering a new era based on a smaller agency,” Secretary Martin said. “This new organization will continue to be accountable to the communities we serve on the district level and we will be more responsive to safety, economic impacts and an improved level of service with more flexibility.”

In order to strengthen the organization, the following changes are being made to the upper management structure within the Division of Highways. The nine districts will remain with separate budgets, with some of the district boundaries being redrawn. Each district will have a District Chief Engineer, an Operations/Maintenance Manager and an Administrative Manager. These positions will report to a Deputy Director/Regional Engineer, who in turn reports to the Director of Highways/Chief Engineer, Victor A. Modeer, P.E. In addition, Eric Harm will remain as Deputy Director/Assistant Chief Engineer and Priscilla Tobias will become the State Safety Engineer. The new regional boundaries are organized along demographic lines that predominantly follow the east to west interstate routes.

Region One - Region One Engineer Diane O'Keefe, PE. Encompasses the former District One. This region includes Chicago and the collar counties.

Region Two - Region Two Engineer Gregory Mounts, PE. Encompasses Districts Two and Three. This region includes Rockford , the Quad Cities , the La Salle-Peru-Ottawa areas and the Kankakee metropolitan area.

Region Three – Region Three Engineer Joseph Crowe, PE. Encompasses Districts Four and Five. This region includes Galesburg , Peoria , Bloomington , Champaign-Urbana and Danville.

Region Four - Region Four Engineer Christine Reed, PE. Encompasses Districts Six and Seven. This includes Quincy , Jacksonville , Springfield , Decatur, Mattoon-Charleston area and Effingham. Also included is the I-70 corridor from Vandalia to the Indiana state line.

Region Five - Region Five Engineer, Mary Lamie, PE. Encompasses Districts Eight and Nine. This includes the Metro East St Louis region, Mt Vernon, Marion and Carbondale . Region Five includes the entire I-64 corridor.

A map depicting the revised boundaries and the new reporting structure are available on IDOT website at http://www.dot.il.gov/press/districtregionmap.pdf .