Chad Baker (California Department of Transportation)
Chad Baker has been the Statewide Model Branch Chief for Caltrans since 2009. In this capacity, he is responsible for all aspects of the model, including quality control, operation, scenario development, post-processing, and reporting. In his role as Branch Chief, he provides technical reviews and reports for various planning efforts such as travel surveys, regional demand modeling, freight modeling, and passenger rail modeling. Prior to his current engagement, he has worked for the Department performing design, project study, programming, and macro and microsimulation work.
Prior to working for Caltrans, Mr. Baker worked for a private engineering firm performing design, construction, and open channel flow simulation work. Mr. Baker graduated from the University of California at Davis with both a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in Civil Engineering. Mr. Baker is an active participant with the Transportation Research Board as the Chair for NCFRP Project 38, Improving Freight System Performance in Metropolitan Areas, as well as other panels. He is also a member of the technical expert panel for SHRP2 Project C10B.
Jim Benson (Texas Transportation Institute)
Dr. Benson has more than 45 years of experience in transportation planning and engineering. During his 40+ years with the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), his research has focused in the areas of transportation planning and travel forecasting. He has served as Principal Investigator or Study Director for numerous projects in these areas. During the past 10 years, Dr. Benson's research and development efforts have focused primarily on the provision of technical support and assistance in the area of travel demand model development, travel demand model applications, and travel model software support. Through his work with the Transportation Planning and Programming Division of the Texas Department of Transportation (TX DOT), he has been directly or indirectly involved with the model development efforts for most of the metropolitan areas in Texas. He played a major role in TX DOT's migration to the TransCAD software platform for travel demand modeling. Through his work with the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC), he has provided management and technical guidance in the development of the travel demand models for the region for over 30 years.
Dr. Benson has served on various panels and committees, including: the Peer Review Panel for the Development of the Oahu MPO Travel Demand Models and the Texas Statewide Analysis Model Review Panel. He is currently a member of the TMIP Peer Review Panel for the ADOT statewide model.
Karen Faussett (Michigan Department of Transportation)
Karen Faussett is the Statewide Model Specialist at the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT). She is responsible for the update and maintenance of the Michigan statewide travel demand model and leads the statewide model team.
Ms. Faussett was also project manager for MDOT's 2004-2005, 2009, and 2015 statewide household travel surveys. Before moving to statewide modeling, she spent several years developing small urban models at MDOT. Prior to MDOT, Ms. Faussett worked at the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG). She has a Bachelor of Science in Urban Planning from Michigan State University and a Master's Certificate in Project Management from the George Washington University.
Greg Giaimo (Ohio Department of Transportation)
Greg Giaimo graduated from the Ohio State University with BSCE (1989) and MS (1991) degrees. He has worked for Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) as a travel modeler for almost two decades and is a registered professional engineer in Ohio. Besides day-to-day project and corridor analyses, he is in charge of new model development, data collection, and development of technical methods related to the planning process. In this role, he develops methods for producing project-level forecasts from models and other inputs and creates those forecasts for complex projects in the northwest quadrant of the state.
Mr. Giaimo estimates/calibrates new travel demand models, or manages consultant contracts, for the statewide model and 17 Ohio MPO models and has actively guided Ohio's adoption of advanced modeling techniques focusing on activity micro-simulation, freight, land use, and integration of traffic operations models. He develops data collection protocols and implements new technologies for household surveys, intercept surveys, and travel time data collection programs and oversees staff and consultants collecting these data. He has also developed various other related planning processes, including the statewide congestion management system, bypass project analysis process, transportation review advisory council scoring factors, planning level Highway Capacity Manual program, and toll revenue forecasting process.
