Schedule of Events

This is a bus tour of campus that will orient attendees to Campus buildings, parking lots, and areas of concern that will be discussed at the various sessions. 

Parking the Penn State Way.  Doug Holmes, Assistant Director for Parking will provide an overview of the way that Penn State distributes permits through lot assignments, parking chairpersons, permit allocations, etc. Also discussed are the various issues with student , visitor and employee parking accommodations.

Fleet the Penn State Way.  Bruce Younkin, Fleet Operations Manager, will provide an overview of the way that Penn State operates its rental vehicle system including purchasing strategies, vehicle turnover and final disposition of University vehicles.

Transit at Penn State.  Tour the operating base of the Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA). Learn about CATA’s compressed natural gas (CNG) program (CATA operates a 100% CNG-powered bus fleet), CATA’s new GPS-based bus fleet management system (being developed by Avail Technologies, a local company), and other unique aspects of the transit system that serves Penn State and the surrounding community.

Tour Beaver Stadium and its facilities prior to lunch in the Letterman’s Club Lounge. Also, Penn State’s unofficial football historian and official equipment manager, Brad Caldwell, will provide an interesting talk on the Nittany Lions.

Event/Football Parking.  Parking 30,000 vehicles for a football game with an attendance figure of 110,000 can be a challenge. Especially when there are only 17,000 paved parking spaces on campus. Frank Pope, Event Parking Coordinator, and Mark Bodenschatz, Associate Athletic Director, will discuss the cooperative effort between Intercollegiate Athletics and Transportation Services in getting everyone in and out of the stadium.

Transit/Fleet.  Dr. Joel Anstrom, Director of the Hybrid and Hydrogen Vehicle Research Laboratory, will provide an onsite demonstration of the Air Products hydrogen fueling station and representatives from Penn State’s Office of Physical Plant will offer a tour of the motor pool facility at OPP.

Parking & Stadium Security. Ass’t Chief, Clifford Lutz, University Police, and Kelly Harris, Office of Physical Plant will discuss the impacts of Homeland Security concerns regarding parking at a national major sports venue and how it impacts stadium operations, parking, and stadium access.

Transit/Fleet. Members of the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute will take you on a tour of the Penn State Test Track and continue in depth discussions on alternative fuel and alternative fuel vehicles.

Each attendee will bring an item from his/her respective university to be traded. Suggested items would be hats, jackets, t-shirts, sweatshirts, umbrellas, footballs and other university related items. Do not forget to bring at least one item from your school and be prepared to take home a nice gift from another university.

Service Vehicle Parking.  Service vehicles can be a major issue on campus. Many campuses struggle with the need to provide safe, convenient access to service
vehicles without choking up the core of campus.  This issue has environmental impacts as well safety and esthetic components. Deb Blythe, Director of Facilities Resources, and Doug Holmes will explain how Penn State approached this problem, the research and planning that was involved and the program implementation.

Bicycle Program  Tom Flynn, Architect, Office of Physical Plant, will provide an in depth discussion on the current and future plans of accommodating bicycles on the University Park campus and the integration of those plans with local municipalities.

Fleet.  Gary Langsdale, Penn State’s Risk Management officer will provide information on managing risks associated with fleet operations. Gary will discuss issues such as student drivers, maxi vans, and other associated topics.

Roundtable discussions covering all session topics plus anything else that may be on your mind.  Roundtable groups will be set up for each of the major program areas of the conference.