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Friends gather as Raino rides into retirement

Patti Raino traveled a long and winding road through 29 years with the Idaho Transportation Department, and she saw a lot of that road from the seat of a bicycle.

Raino often rode her bicycle to work at ITD Headquarters – a reflection of her commitment to improving the environment through alternative transportation and maintaining good health through exercise. She retired May 29 as Intermodal Planning Manager for the Division of Transportation Planning.

Her career extended to 1980 when she accepted a position in the Office of Highway Safety. While there, she managed a DUI law enforcement evaluation of a successful alcohol-related accident reduction program. She also co-authored a paper about the program that was published in the Transportation Research Record.

Upward mobile, she became a senior transportation planner in the Office of Highway Programming and was promoted to Intermodal Planning Manager, a position she held from 1996 until her retirement.

“Patti is deeply committed and dedicated to the goals and growth of ITD as an employee and manager,” according to her peers who nominated her for the ITD Career Achievement Award this year. She also was considered for the Professional of the Year award.

“She is always looking at better ways to do things and encourages others to do so as well through more training, experience of a ‘just get out there and do it’ kind of attitude.”

Raino’s influence on ITD and intermodal travel will extend long after her successful career – perhaps for another two decades.

She was co-manager of a 30-year visioning process “Idaho’s Long-Range Transportation Vision: Getting There Together,” an extensive planning process that involved public input (2,500 individuals) from throughout the state. It was the precursor to the Forum on Transportation Investment that considered Idaho’s infrastructure needs through year 2033.

“Idaho’s Long-Range Transportation Vision,” which Patti co-managed, is used to provide guidance and vision for most or all planning studies at ITD and will continue to do so well into the future,” her colleagues predict.

Raino also helped develop a State Transportation Systems Plan that will implement one of the findings of a 2008 Legislative Audit and also promises to have positive long-term impacts on how ITD plans its investments and resource allocations well into the future.

In nearly three decades of service, Raino also championed innovative techniques such as:

Corridor planning, planning and environmental linkages,
Freight planning
An interactive Statewide Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) document
Online applications for enhancement and Congestion, Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) programs
Idaho’s Scenic Byways program
Integration of ITD transportation development agreements with local governments and developers, and
Laying the groundwork for improving ITD’s role in greenhouse gas reduction

In addition to her professional accomplishments, Raino also serves on the board of directors for the Idaho Folklore Society and Healthwise, a provider of health information.