Bill Kloos' Passing

A note I posted on Bill Kloos' Caringbridge site. It was comforting to read the memories of Bill, Paul Olson's comment that a bright signal went dark hits the mark best, here was my offering.

I was so very fortunate to work with Bill and want to let you know that he’s one of the inspirations in my professional life. His deft ability to create opportunities to improve the operations of signals for the City have affected so many of us that have had the pleasure of learning from him. Much of my understanding of signal operations stems from the opportunities that were initiated by Bill’s Team and a lot of the examples I share as I work in the various communities are those that have been demonstrated by the City of Portland.

Every day I come downtown for work, I appreciate the thoughtful way Bill and the City staff developed signal timing plans in the Central City. Just today, I was sharing with the newest staff at Kittelson why the downtown signals are able to provide progression in both directions within the grid and why the traffic speeds adjacent to our office are so conducive to a vibrant pedestrian environment.

Bill’s inspiration for innovation as it is rarely seen in the communities I have travel to. Whether it be with pedestrians detection, HAWK signals, truck priority, or incident management plans, his ability and interest to push into new areas was unrivaled. We will miss the creativity and humor he brought to the profession and in all of our lives.

Abby's Social Calendar

Abby is going to Amazin' Glazin, a local pottery shop to celebrate Katie's birthday. Katie is a few months older than Abby and lives down Lexington Street. It should be a good time for her. I am hanging with Amelia and will join them later. Sheila and Dan are supposed to come in for dinner to celebrate her birthday and I fly to Baltimore on the red eye, so it looks to be a busy day. Time to do some editing on the Signal Timing Manual.

Happy New Year

A new year and exciting new opportunities with life, work, and making connections. I am trying to be more planful about life and get thing schedule so I can create the sort of role I want. I'd like to make stronger personal connections and not just go through life. I have to be careful not to take a shotgun approach, rather one that is more meaningful.

It seems that without building relationships, you just tread water. There are a lot of people that I would enjoy learning from that requires time commitment on my part to generate that sort of opportunity. Let's see how it goes...