Transportation Department Well Represented at the OFA Awards for Excellence

On April 27, the Office of Finance and Administration held its annual Awards for Excellence ceremony. This year there were 28 nominees with six winners advancing to being recognized at the University Level. The nominees were recognized for going above and beyond in one of the following categories: Customer Service, Efficiency and Innovation, Human Relations, Oustanding State Government Service, Public Service, Safety and Heroism, and Spirit of North Carolina.

The Transportation Department had three nominees out of the 28, Ray Housley, Dean Jacques, and Connor Jones. Connor was selected as one of the six to represent the Office of Finance and Administration at the University Level. You can read more about their efforts below.

The ceremony can be watched on the PackTV YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/live/fOwlJHUGh08?t=0

For more information about the University’s Awards for Excellence visit https://hr.ncsu.edu/extraordinary-pack/awards-for-excellence/.

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Ray Housley

Ray Housley is a Facilities Maintenance Technician Mechanic and was nominated by Than Austin for the Efficiency and Innovation category. 

Ray’s initiative brings efficiency and innovation to the External Operations Unit of Transportation, which is charged with the maintenance of all campus parking facilities and assets.

One example of his initiative was his restoration of an old Transportation trailer that was in poor condition and was ready to be surplused. But Ray saw an opportunity to save the department several thousand dollars and volunteered to take on the project of restoring the trailer. He completed a comprehensive restoration of the trailer and it is now in daily use.

Ray also developed and implemented a program to renew all of the crosswalks around parking facilities on campus. Ray took the initiative to develop a system from scratch to inventory all crosswalks, assess and rate their condition, and organize an efficient system of restriping the crosswalks. This work has started and is progressing quickly thanks to Ray’s leadership. Not only did Ray devise a plan to get this work done in a way that had not been done in the past, but his work is directly impacting and improving pedestrian safety on campus.

Dean Jacques

Dean Jaques is a Parking Enforcement Officer nominated by Than Austin for the Efficiency and Innovation category. 

Dean routinely goes above and beyond the call of duty to add value to the Transportation department and the University as a whole. While Dean’s typical day revolves around patrolling campus and issuing parking citations, he recently realized an important need on campus: improving ADA handicap parking signs. Over time, the style, design and wording of handicap parking signs on campus have evolved, which resulted in a wide variety of signs across campus. This can cause confusion for customers with accessibility and mobility needs and makes it more difficult for the Transportation Department to consistently enforce ADA parking regulations. Through his own initiative, Dean inspected every ADA parking sign across our three campuses by collecting photos of each type of ADA sign, and then categorizing them by intended purpose. Without Dean’s efforts in the field, Transportation would not be able to move forward with standardizing all of the accessible signage on campus, which will be a tremendous benefit for customers.

Connor Jones

Connor Jones is the Transit Manager and was nominated by Than Austin for the Efficiency and Innovation category. 

Connor has managed the day-to-day operations of the Wolfline bus system through challenging times. Connor started working at NC State shortly after Covid-related budget impacts required Transportation to reduce the size of the Wolfline fleet from 45 buses to 35. In a very short period of time, Connor completely redesigned the Wolfline routes and schedules to account for fewer buses and changing ridership patterns.

In the past year, Connor has faced bus driver shortages head-on and implemented a variety of innovative approaches and strategies to mitigate the impacts of the shortage, including: negotiating a significant rise in the hourly rate for drivers, using data and analytics to make daily decisions about which routes to modify, and using social media to maintain transparency with customers. 

The Power Forward infrastructure project has significantly impacted campus roadways, which Wolfline buses traverse. Transit systems aim to maintain consistent routes and schedules to enhance predictability and improve customer service. But the Power Forward project has closed major bus routes. In response, Connor used data and ridership trends and analytics to develop route detours that would still guarantee high levels of access and service.