Supporting Diversity Recruitment Efforts for State DOTs

In 2014, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) launched a program aimed at developing and recruiting students from Historic Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) into transportation-specific career opportunities.

And since that inaugural year of MDOT’s Transportation Diversity Recruitment Program (TDRP), WSP USA has played a role in its early and continued success.

It started with grant funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration that enabled four students to participate in MDOT’s paid summer internship program that first year.

A decade later, not only has the program developed and grown, but other state departments of transportation are also taking notice.

“I got involved in year one, when MDOT’s James Jackson, who was leading the program,” said Edwin Tatem, WSP vice president and regional construction services manager for Transportation. “Paul Ajegba who became the director of MDOT, asked if I would sit down with those first four participants and speak with them about the future of the transportation industry and the career opportunities that are available.

“Afterward, I told Paul and James I’d love to do this again,” Tatem added. “So for the first few years I was able to have conversations with prospective interns through the MDOT program.”

The three main goals of MDOT’s TDRP:

• expose underrepresented groups of students to transportation-specific career opportunities;
• enrich the education and professional development of tomorrow’s transportation leaders; and
• help the state recruit, develop and retain a high-performing workforce.

Eventually Tatem began to wonder, “Could the program be expanded to the entire engineering community?”

That question was soon answered when the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) joined the effort in 2020, extending the program’s reach.

By 2022, there were 63 interns working through the program, and this year there are 54 interns at MDOT or one of the ACEC partner agencies. Additionally, the City of Detroit has several departments that have sponsored interns through the program.

“It's really grown into a sizable program,” said Mikki Taylor-Hendrix, communications and public involvement specialist at WSP. “When I started working in the WSP Detroit office two years ago, they asked me if I wanted to support the TDRP program. Like Ed, I jumped in, too. I like to support the program on a personal level and make the connections with the HBCUs.”

In 2022, WSP helped MDOT organize a multimodal tour of Detroit for the interns. It included a ride on the city’s Q-line streetcar and a bike tour using MoGo, the region’s bikeshare. The event showcased the city, local businesses, and various transportation projects. It also provided the interns with an opportunity to talk about all the various projects they were working on during their internship and see other projects that were underway in the region.

The overall objective is to bring engineering students to Michigan and show them that there are fulfilling and impactful career opportunities for them in the state.

The program starts with a kickoff gathering in Detroit that welcomes all the interns for the summer and includes representatives from engineering firms and other partners, like the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials. After that, the interns go to work in several cities across the state. At the end of the summer, they gather again for a recap of the program and to show off their work.

Taylor-Hendrix and Tatem both stressed the urgent need for programs like this to encourage Black students to pursue transportation and engineering careers. In 2022, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that of the 482,000 civil engineers in the U.S., only 6,500 identify as Black or African American. 

In general, most of the students participating in the MDOT program are civil engineering majors. Some are in construction or urban planning, and others are working towards mechanical engineering degrees. In addition to that, the students themselves are from states all over the country. 

So far, 138 transportation engineering majors from 14 accredited HBCUs have participated in the program, which provides students the opportunity to develop professional competence, long-range career goals, and the ability to integrate work experiences with academic knowledge.

“On top of that, participants are also able to build a professional network and earn income that can assist with college expenses,” Taylor-Hendrix said. “Students work alongside internal staff and other MDOT-sponsored on-the-job training program participants.”

The interns also work with external professionals who provide engineering, inspection, project management, and project management services for state road and bridge projects.

At one point, the director of MDOT told WSP that the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) was looking at starting a similar program, so Tatem spoke with the ODOT director Jack Marchbanks and WSP helped them get started.

“They wanted to start off small, so they have six students this year,” he said, adding that WSP is helping to spearhead that effort.

“Ohio includes not only students of color, but also women and people with disabilities, too,” Taylor-Hendricks added. “They might see better recruitment, as far as retention, from that, because if they're recruiting students who are already in Ohio and from the state, they might be willing to take a job there, too.”

Meanwhile there is a team effort underway at WSP to identify other state DOTs that could also benefit from a similar program.

This initiative is part of a wider-reaching effort for the firm, according to Lou Cornell, WSP USA president and CEO.

In a recent interview with Civil Engineering, Cornell said that diversity, equity and inclusion is a “top priority in everything we do, from hiring to training to serving our clients.” The firm’s Inclusion and Diversity Council ensures that “our leadership team, our employees, our work environment, and our strategies inspire a diverse and inclusive culture across the entire organization and within the communities in which we work.”

Since 2021, WSP has sponsored three TDRP program participants each year, teaching and training the interns like they are the firm’s own engineers.

Two program participants, Chris Cockerell and La’Morris McClelland — who are both graduates of Texas Southern University — are currently working in WSP’s Houston office.

Cockerell, who has a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering and a master’s in transportation studies, is currently working for the firm as an intern. He heard about the MDOT program while attending a Transportation Research Board convention in January 2022 and participated in the program that summer.

“Not only did I gain valuable experience working a job in my field, but I also got a feel for other work outside of my area of concentration,” he said. “In those three months alone, I gained more experience than in all of my years spent in school.”

McClelland, a civil engineer and assistant consultant at WSP, describes his participation in the MDOT program as invaluable and a life-changing experience.

“I’ve told just about everyone about it and how it pushes every participant to be the best version of themselves,” McClelland said. He is currently studying for the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, which he plans to take in December. It will be a critical test along his path to becoming a licensed engineer.

“I’m hoping that this program is around for a very long time and that more state transportation departments will join in with what MDOT has started,” Cockerell added.

Editor’s note: For more information about careers with WSP, please visit https://www.wsp.com/careers

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