I-15/Limonite Ave Interchange
Improvement Project
Mario Garcia-Gillespie
As a student at Cal Poly Pomona, I engage myself in active learning by Cal Poly's "Learn by Doing" motto. I am an optimistic person always looking for ways to improve myself and my peers. I studied Architecture for four years in high school and two years in college providing me with a well-developed background in aesthetic and presentation design. My architecture background has also made me confident with communicating project designs, process development, and ideas that focus on user experience. Transferring to engineering has helped me to look at projects from multiple points of views. Continuing with my civil engineering degree I have developed my technical and communication skills in general civil engineering. Through college, I have worked part time at IKEA starting as a cashier and gaining promotions into leadership roles. I have been able to be involved in multiple organizations holding the position of webmaster for ITE and WTS, and Vice-President for ITE. This past year I married my wonderful wife and I took the opportunity to be the co-lead coordinator for the ITE Student Leadership Summit 2016. Through my involvement in organizations and class selection, I have chosen to emphasize my civil engineering degree in Transportation Engineering. I am a hard worker, problem seeker, team builder, and outward thinker who works towards a better stronger future for all.
Transportation is a field that has many possibilities with its main focus on how the public moves from A to B. I am aiming to work with Intelligent Transportation Systems because of the increased connectivity the public world is experiencing. If a home can be controlled from a phone, why can’t a city be controlled from a control center. The Corona and Los Angeles transportation management centers can do a small portion of controlling their networks, but with solar roads and self-driving cars the possibilities are increasing. I am also interested in improving active transportation and public transit in cities and connecting them to suburbs. If a more efficient system is implemented freeways and corridors will become less congested and make daily movement less stressful. Impacting the world by changing and creating transportation is my career goal.
After completing a year of senior project work and presentations there are multiple aspect I have learned from this experience. First I have developed my communication by communicating with a team of twelve all on different schedules and tasks, create a presentation poster, digital flythrough, and PowerPoint presentation. Multiple presentations were made to Caltrans board members, design engineers, the Parsons Ontario office, and private civil engineering professionals. Next, would be the use of software through the project requirements and ambitions. Some of the softwares are as follows, AutoCAD Civil 3D, AutoTurn, Synchro 9, PTV VISSIM, SketchUp, Infraworks, Lumion 6, Adobe Suite, and web design. Lastly, the greatest lesson I learned was team work. This year has given me the ability to work and learn from talented individuals. They taught me how to deal with good and bad work relationships, stressful deadlines, and sharing the knowledge we needed to complete our project. At the end of the year we all came together to deliver a great presentation and I am proud to call them my team and friends.