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In recognition of his service to TRB, Wayne Kittelson is the 2025 recipient of the W.N. Carey, Jr., Distinguished Service Award.
Kittelson, Senior Principal Engineer, Kittelson & Associates, Inc., is recognized for his almost 50 years of service to TRB and for his significant engagement in the highway capacity and quality of service field. The Carey Award—named in honor of W.N. Carey, Jr., TRB’s Executive Director from 1967 to 1980—recognizes individuals who have given leadership and distinguished service to TRB.
The award will be presented Jan. 14, 2026, during the Chair’s Plenary Session portion of the TRB Annual Meeting, January 11-15, 2026, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.
During his almost five decades of TRB engagement, Kittelson has provided sustained technical leadership, notably in shaping the Highway Capacity Manual and advancing the integration of travel time reliability. He served on the Highway Capacity Committee, contributed to National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) and the Second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) projects, and advised the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) on research implementation as a member of TRB’s Research and Technology Coordinating Committee.
As founder of Kittelson & Associates, Kittelson grew a small Portland firm into a 400-person, 29-office practice grounded in research, collaboration, and mentorship. He also launched Digiwest and Quality Counts, expanding data and technology applications in transportation. Nationally, he led SHRP 2, NCHRP, and FHWA projects on reliability, capacity, and system performance. Within his firm, he established influential internship and academic partnership programs, while also serving in leadership roles at the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE).
Kittelson’s contributions to the transportation community span advancing technical practice, shaping national guidance, and mentoring future leaders. His work modernized transportation planning with tools for reliability, multimodal performance, and congestion management, while his projects addressed cutting-edge areas like electric vehicles and hydrogen fueling networks. He built enduring mentorship pipelines, ensuring the profession’s strength for decades to come. His global service includes co-founding the Kittelson Charitable Foundation, which has transformed the lives of students in Rwanda and Tanzania—some of whom have gone on to present research at TRB and pursue careers improving their own communities.
Kittelson is the 2013 recipient of ITE’s Theodore M. Matson Award for outstanding contributions to the practice of traffic engineering; and the 2009 recipient of the ITE’s Western District’s Individual Achievement Award for his significant individual achievements benefiting the transportation engineering practice. Kittelson is a professional engineer and received his B.S. in civil engineering from Northwestern University and his M.S. in transportation engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.