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About our Instructors

Ronald W. Eck, P.E.

Dr. Eck is Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at West Virginia University (WVU) and is also a Senior Advisor with the West Virginia Local Technical Assistance Program. He has been involved in traffic engineering and traffic safety for over 35 years.


David Grouchy, P.E.

Mr. Grouchy is a civil and environmental engineer with a career’s worth of experience in leading and managing people in public and private agencies. He is the former director of the Louisiana LTAP Center. In his career, he has been involved in restoring the fragile coast of Louisiana, improving navigation on the Mississippi and Red Rivers, and various projects related to planning, designing and constructing drainage and irrigation systems, subdivisions and transportation systems.


Janet Grouchy

Mrs. Grouchy holds a Masters degree in Philosophy and a Bachelors degree in Math Education. She has 35 years of teaching experience at all grade levels, most recently 15 years experience teaching logic at Louisiana State University. Her primary focus areas include Interpersonal Communication, Ethics, and Organizational Skills. Janet has extensive and broad experience in community service.


Richard A. Hall, P.E.

Richard A. Hall, President of Hall Planning & Engineering, Inc. (HPE) for the past 22 years, is a registered transportation engineer in 22 states, covering many areas of transportation practice. He desires to improve Mobility for all travelers; pedestrian, bike, transit and auto. He focuses on Planning & Preliminary Engineering. Street design, community plans, sector plans and corridor studies are key emphasis areas. Traffic engineering analysis and public participation are routinely performed.

While working for the Florida DOT, he was responsible for training and research in urban transportation modeling. One of his many transportation projects included the 1984 planning for Seaside, performing the traffic impact study and other parking and traffic designs. This included the CR30-A Corridor Study. Since then, he has participated in over 100 Walkable Community charrettes, performing street design with leading New Urbanism designs firms.

He is a Knight Community Building Fellow in the initial class of that University of Miami based program. This fellowship produced research in street design for walkable communities. Rick served as President of the Florida Section ITE and as Chair of the Florida Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU).


Paul Hershkowitz

Mr. Hershkowitz is currently a private transportation consultant who specializes in managing transportation planning, traffic engineering, and environmental projects. He has 42 years of diverse public and private sector experience with projects across the United States worth more than $52 million. He has managed or supported both the technical and policy aspects of a wide variety of application and research projects in the areas of strategic advising, statewide planning studies, corridor feasibility studies, transportation plan updates, subarea planning applications, transportation systems analyses, environmental impact statements, travel demand forecasting applications, and Access Justification Studies. His expertise in different areas has led to understanding and applying a systems integration approach to complex projects.  

Mark Hood, P.E.

Mr. Hood is Technology Transfer Specialist. He provides training and technical assistance to over 2,500 Pennsylvania municipalities to help define and solve their traffic engineering and highway safety problems. Mr. Hood has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Engineering from Swarthmore College, and a Master of Science Degree in Civil Engineering from Villanova University. His prior work experience includes over 20 years of extensive experience in safety, engineering, technology transfer, and planning fields through the transportation consulting industry. His responsibilities included providing consulting and technical assistance services to federal, state, and municipal clients throughout the country resulting in increased client safety; conducting operational analyses increasing efficiency and lowering costs for many municipal transportation systems; co-authoring and contributing to several nationally recognized and distributed training programs. Mr. hood is a member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, American Society of Civil Engineers and Transportation Research Board.


Dane Ismart

Mr. Ismart of Louis Berger & Associates, retired from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) after 35 years of service in a variety of policy, planning and engineering positions. He was responsible for implementing the Intermodal Management Systems regulations. Mr. Ismart has authored manuals and taught NHI courses on Capacity Analysis, Access Management, Financial Management, Travel Demand Forecasting and Intermodal Planning, and is a member of the TRB Highway Capacity Subcommittee on Unsignalized Intersections. Mr. Ismart is a graduate of Georgia Tech with a Bachelors Degree and received his Masters Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota.


Alan Kercher, P.E.

Mr. Kercher has had more than 27 years of experience as a graduate engineer in the Civil and Structural Engineering fields. He is President of Kercher Engineering, Inc., an engineering and surveying consulting firm. Projects range from the design of roads, bridges, buildings and retaining structures to the preparation of contract documents and providing contract administration for a wide variety of municipal projects including pavement maintenance and rehabilitation, community parks and drainage improvement projects.

For more than thirteen years, Mr. Kercher served as the engineering consultant for the Delaware Technology Transfer (T2) Center. His responsibilities included providing technical assistance and training in the latest technologies to the municipal governments in Delaware. The main areas of focus were on infrastructure asset management, pavement design, alternative construction techniques, utility control policies, contracts and specifications, construction inspection, drainage improvements, and construction trouble-shooting. Additionally, he has provided training for the Delaware Department of Transportation, the Delaware River and Bay Authority, the University of Delaware, the Maryland Technology Transfer (T2) Center, the Pennsylvania Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) and the Federal Highway Administration – Eastern and Central Lands Divisions in the areas of infrastructure asset management, pavement maintenance/rehabilitation, construction inspection and preparation of contract documents.


Juan M. Morales, P.E.

President of J.M. Morales & Associates, has over 30 years of transportation engineering experience, specializing in highway safety and work zone safety. Prior to starting his transportation engineering consulting firm, Mr. Morales was the director of technical programs for the Institute of Transportation Engineers and a traffic and research engineer for the Federal Highway Administration in McLean, VA, where he was actively involved in traffic control, highway safety, congestion management, and traffic simulation. Mr. Morales holds a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico and a Master’s degree from Georgia Tech. He is a registered professional engineer in Virginia.


Ed Stellfox

Mr. Edwin C. Stellfox is a civil engineer and former Co-Director of the Maryland T2 Center. He has a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Drexel University, a Master's in Education from Penn State University, and has more than 40 years of public works experience including 23 years of experience in transferring transportation technology with the LTAP program. Mr. Stellfox is also the head instructor for the Road Scholar Program.


Glynn Stoffel, CET

Mr. Stoffel is a certified environmental trainer and owner of GLS Environmental Associates.  He has over 25 years experience in maintaining and managing underground utility systems, most recently serving as the superintendent of water line repair for Anne Arundel County, Maryland.  As a training consultant, he has delivered thousands of hours of training throughout the country on the safe operation, maintenance and construction of water, sewer and storm drain systems, including the development of a series of courses to assist construction inspectors in obtaining NICET certification.  He also provides training in water system security, emergency response planning and asset management and is a regular guest instructor at the Florida Water Utility Management Institute.  He currently conducts training at the University of Florida’s Center for Training, Research and Education for Environmental Occupations (TREEO), the Maryland Center for Environmental Training at the College of Southern Maryland, and the Environmental Training Center at Delaware Technical & Community College.  He has a BS in Business Administration from the University of Baltimore and is recognized as a Certified Environmental Trainer and Certified Instructional Technologist by the National Environmental, Safety and Health Training Association.


Patrick Wright

Traffic Engineer, Pennsylvania Local Technical Assistance Program, Harrisburg, PA, USA. Patrick Wright is a traffic engineer working for the Pennsylvania Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) since 2005. Through LTAP, Pat provides training and technical assistance for local road owners to maintain and operate their roads. Pat teaches about 60 classes per year, completes about 20 presentations/webinars each year, and provides direct technical field assistance over 100 times per year. Common issues that Pat assists municipalities with include intersection safety, traffic studies, curve safety, pedestrian safety, ADA compliance, and traffic signs.