A Conversation with IBTTA 2022 President Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti About Resilience, Leadership and Opportunity

Tolling Points had the distinguished opportunity to sit down and talk with IBTTA 2022 President and New Jersey Department of Transportation Commissioner, Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti, to talk about her focus for IBTTA in 2022—Resilience, Leadership and Opportunity. Below is a lightly-edited transcript of the conversation.

What was on your mind when you chose the theme "Resilience. Leadership. Opportunity." for 2022?

When I was thinking about the theme, I really thought a whole lot about how we invest in our people. This is the third season of the COVID virus, and I think we are all tired. But the one thing we know is that our folks have really been stressed. We need to make sure that as an industry we can continue to press forward and deliver to our customers what they need. And as leaders, we need to be certain that we take the opportunity to speak with our employees, to engage with them, and to make sure they have what they need so they feel good about what they're doing.

How do you think the widespread impact of work and pandemic-related stress applies to the tolling industry specifically?

They have demanding jobs in the toll industry. We are self-financing; we answer to customers. We really have to deliver every day, and we really can't look at the pandemic as a reason not to be where we need to be. But we also need to care for the people that work for us.

We talk about building bridges, pavement preservation, and all those very important things like revenue generation—but we also need to look at the preservation of those who work for us and generate the enthusiasm that we need from them to do the work that we do. At the end of the day, tolling provides a tremendous service. It’s a very powerful tool in transportation, and it doesn't get the notoriety it deserves for what it does.
 
Can you talk more specifically about each piece of the theme? How about resilience?

Resilience is not so much environmental resilience--although that's very important to what we do—but I also think resilience means the resilience of the human spirit. We sometimes forget that, in and amongst putting contracts out on the street, delivering services, making sure that our customers understand our toll schedules, how we finance projects, and explaining why we do what we do—we forget to take care of the folks that work for us every day.
 
As leadership, our job is really to make sure they have the tools necessary to do their jobs, but also to make sure that in this very stressful time, they're taking care of themselves. Self-care is not something we often talk about when we talk to our employees, but it's really critical to the success of our organizations. Our employees should not only feel good physically, but they should feel strong mentally, and feel that their employer cares what happens to them.

Talk more about what leadership means to you.

I’ve seen a really interesting meme where it's a pack of wolves, and they talk about the order of the wolves in the pack—who goes first, who's in the middle. They always talk about the real leader being at the end, all the way at the back, to make sure all the other members of the pack are able to move forward. Whether or not that’s the way wolves actually behave, I think that's a good description of leadership. We need to engage as leaders and show that we’re out and about with our folks every day.

Leadership is not just a position in an organization. It happens all through an organization at levels where some people don’t realize they are actually leaders. It’s not a defined term on your organizational chart; it’s how you choose to execute your responsibilities and encourage others to do theirs.

What did you have in mind when it comes to opportunity?

Opportunity is creating those moments when we can help folks advance, to do better, to find their niche, so to speak. Not everyone desires to be at the top of an organization. Some people are very happy being in the middle part of the organization where the machine moves every day. We need to look at that. We need to understand people's goals and help them develop into the professional that they want to be. 

That will be a significant part of what we talk about through mentorship; we can create forums and opportunities for young people to begin to be encouraged to get into transportation. It's a phenomenally interesting business, but you can't tell that necessarily until you get on the inside. We need to make those opportunities available.

Besides mentorship and welcoming younger professionals into the fold, what other opportunities do you think IBTTA should focus on creating?

We need to make opportunities available for “coffee talk.” The art of small talk has gone by the wayside in the pandemic. You'll go in many meetings, and they're scheduled from 12 noon to 1pm, and heaven forbid you ask someone how they are. They’ll say, “we only have an hour and we have to get right to it.” But getting right to it sometimes is a lot more effective when you at least have an initial opportunity to say “how are you? How are things going? What's new in your world? How's your family?”

Those are nice things to ask people. I think when you do those things, pushing the work out the door becomes much easier.