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The Gold Standard

OpEd from the desk of Transporter Editor Reed Hollinshead

Sometime before the calendar flips from September to October, ITD will win its 100th national award since Director Ness took over in 2010. He said that national recognition will be one of the telltale signs that we are becoming one of the best transportation departments in the country. Clearly, that is already happening.

Among those 100 are some very significant milestones. ITD’s people, projects and programs have won 11 AASHTO President’s Awards, which are considered the benchmark in the transportation industry. We had won just five of them in the three decades prior.

Also counted among the 100 are four “People’s Choice” America’s Transportation Awards. All four have come since 2013, and we have never finished lower than third in the national voting, a testament to our reputation for quality. It’s not just the “people” who have chosen ITD – we were selected by AASHTO, AAA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to even make it to the finals.

One hundred is a big accomplishment. In fact, the number 100 is still the gold standard in many pursuits.

In sports, a football field is 100 yards long, and the standard for a great rushing or receiving day is 100 yards. The 100, whether yards or meters, is the premier sprinting event in running and swimming. Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game is still the NBA’s best ever. In currency, a $100-dollar bill still has cache. For those of us in a lower tax bracket, having one of those bills still signifies wealth, if only temporary.

The century mark remains the benchmark for old age. A 100-degree day is still way too hot. And a perfect score is 100 percent.

One hundred has come to signify things that are well established, are not easily shaken, and have the proven track record to last.

To paraphrase Will Rogers, we can be on the right track, but if we just sit there, we’ll get run over. We must keep moving forward. This is the forward-thinking mindset of an organization that knows relevance and significance cannot be achieved by being static.

Years ago, when my oldest daughter was learning to count, she liked to say “1…2…skip a few…99…100” to get to the century mark. My advice to her then was that she needed to learn because it doesn’t stop at 100. That’s my response today – 100 awards is just a step along the way, not a final destination.