In November 2002, Patrick J. Natale began his tenure as the Executive Director of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Established in 1852, ASCE is the oldest national professional engineering society. With a membership of over 146,000 and an annual operating budget of over $54 million, the Society is dedicated to advancing the art, science and profession of engineering for the betterment of humanity. Natale is responsible for the day-to-day management of the Society. He provides executive leadership to a staff of more than 260 and an active volunteer workforce of over 7,500, facilitating ASCE's tradition of supplying high-quality and high-value products and services to its members and other customers worldwide. In January of 1999, Natale was appointed the Executive Director of the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), a national organization of 60,000 members representing licensed engineers from all technical disciplines. Prior to joining NSPE, he held numerous top-level management positions with the Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G) of New Jersey. During his 28-year career with PSE&G, he was responsible for managing sales, marketing, strategic planning and customer service. His most recent assignment was to lead the corporate effort to develop the process and systems required for deregulating the energy marketplace in New Jersey.
In his community, Natale has served as Chairman of the Board for Goodwill Industries of New Jersey and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce and the American Red Cross. He has also served as an Assistant District Commissioner for the Boy Scouts of America.
Natale holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Newark College of Engineering, and an M.S. in Engineering Management from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He has completed the Executive Management Program at Yale University, and is a licensed Professional Engineer in New Jersey. He is also a Certified Association Executive (CAE).
Natale and his wife Sheila reside in Alexandria, Virginia, and have two sons, Michael and Jason.
Protecting public safety should be the utmost priority for each and every one of us. According to the Transportation Construction Coalition study, On a Crash Course: the Dangers and Health Costs of Deficient Roadways, about half of all highway fatalities are due to unsafe road conditions. That is one obvious example of how the industry must continue advocating for resources to make the vital repairs and improvements needed to provide the public with safe and efficient transportation. The best infrastructure in the world won’t be able to protect a driver who is engaging in unsafe behavior though, so it just… Read more
The business of infrastructure management is, and needs to be, shared between both the public and private sector. Neither the government nor private operators have monopoly on all the good (or bad) ideas. While some may argue that all infrastructure should be owned and managed by just one of these sides, what we should be arguing for is using all methods and means available to make across the board condition improvements to protect the public’s health, safety and welfare. ASCE’s most recent Report Card for America’s Infrastructure graded all categories, including those traditionally operated by private interests, with low grades.… Read more
As we design and build the transportation system of the future, our financing options are going to have to evolve as well. That’s why ASCE supports the use of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). They may not be feasible for every project, but PPPs have the potential to fill some of the gaps in our financing system. The surface transportation authorization should expand the opportunities to use PPPs, but steps must be taken to ensure that public interest is protected in these deals and that the financing methods augment, not replace, revenues from user fees. Among the criteria PPPs should address… Read more
There was a time in the nation’s history when the federal government led the way in building some of our greatest infrastructure systems, but since then federal leadership has decreased and the condition of the nation's infrastructure suffered. Correcting those decades of underinvestment and lack of maintenance is going to require a strong, national vision, which is why ASCE included increased federal leadership as the first of our five key solutions in 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. While the actual amount spent on public infrastructure continues to increase, this investment as a share of GDP is in decline—from a… Read more
Most everyone agrees that the nation’s transportation infrastructure is in serious condition and that we have to take dramatic action to repair and improve it so we can continue to enjoy its benefits and grow as a nation. Some of the changes we need to make are structural, but many will involve changing our behavior. As we look to plan and design our transportation system of the future, community livability and sustainability will have to be priorities. Civil engineers have long advocated for mode-neutral planning and increased intermodalism. As we plan the communities of tomorrow, we need to do a… Read more
The “Tea Party” protest that descended on the National Mall this month reminds us that any mention of a tax increase galvanizes a loud and passionate opposition. The anti-tax sentiment is a strong force, but advocates for a safe and efficient transportation system are capable of meeting the challenge as long as we are as willing as the other side to stand up for our principles. The message may not fit on a bumper sticker as easily as an anti-tax sound bite, but we should still endeavor to inform the public about the benefits of increasing the gas tax. ASCE… Read more
The events of September 11, 2001 were tragic and will not soon be forgotten. And, while the security steps taken since then have undoubtedly discouraged similar attacks, the nation’s transportation systems, in fact our entire infrastructure, is still in jeopardy. As we saw in New Orleans and more recently in Minneapolis, Mother Nature and design flaws can be just as devastating as acts of terrorism, especially when the infrastructure systems we are relying on lack resiliency and redundancy. While levee failures and a bridge collapse are extreme examples of failing infrastructure, the impact poor road conditions, an overtaxed energy grid… Read more
Freight today rarely travels by truck alone, and the transfer from one mode to the next often adds to costly delays and pollution from idling vehicles. The needs of our global economy demand that we start enhancing and improving connectivity and service to the major intermodal terminals including seaports, airports, rail terminals, ports of entry and inland intermodal terminals. To do this, programs at every level of government need to use a wide range of multimodal options and new technologies when developing their transportation plans. Of course, the key question in all of this is: How do we pay for… Read more
While it won’t be the ‘silver bullet’, we absolutely should consider tolling, even on existing interstate highways, as one of the tools in the solutions toolbox. Over the next five years, funding needs will outpace spending on roads and bridges by nearly $550 billion. With a problem of that magnitude, we can’t afford to take any revenue options off the table when we talk about solutions. And, if we are to have any long-term success, users are going to have to learn to associate an appropriate cost with the benefits they reap. What we need is a bundle of options… Read more
As with most things in life, there’s a little bit of good, a little bit of bad and a whole lot of maybe in this plan. Certainly, we need to have specific performance goals for our infrastructure, and from those goals we need to develop comprehensive, long-term plans. When it comes to transportation, I would argue that increased safety, eased mobility and improved conditions should be the focal points. While the bill does set some specific goals that could produce laudable results, including ones for emissions reduction, such specifics for the infrastructure provisions—VMT reduction, transit use, congestion relief, etc.—are lacking.… Read more
When we strip this argument down to the bare bones, it’s a simple decision: As a nation, we either believe that the challenges facing our transportation systems are a direct and immediate threat to our economic health and well-being, and therefore deserve swift, focused attention, or we don’t. If we believe that they are—which I do—then there really is no question. Delaying the critical reforms and commitment of resources that should/would come from a six-year authorization would, at best, be a band-aid. The argument has been made that the extension would give us more time to hammer out a better… Read more
We live in a global economy. It should be of no great surprise that the successful movement of goods and services across the vast distances they must travel requires a multi-modal approach. It should also be of no great surprise that focusing on fixing problems in individual sectors (i.e., highways, rails, ports, etc.), instead of revamping our thinking and actually treating this infrastructure like an interdependent system, does not constitute a long-term, viable solution. The Interstate Highway System is congested; so are the nation’s freight rail and aviation systems. Our inland waterways are relying on locks that are, on… Read more
Public private partnerships (PPPs) make the public nervous, particularly as they relate to the nation’s critical infrastructure systems. If PPPs are going to become well-established options for infrastructure financing—and they must given the staggering costs of addressing current and future needs—we need to acknowledge that fact and address it head on. In most people’s minds, infrastructure falls in the realm of traditional government authority, and the sense of yielding that control to the private sector that comes with a PPP can be discomforting. It can certainly be argued that this sense of distrust in the minds of the public… Read more
America’s transportation infrastructure is obviously broken and increasing greenhouse gas emissions—and their long-term impact on public health, safety and welfare, and the environment—is one of the major consequences. In recent years we have seen commute times increase dramatically, leaving more and more cars idling in traffic, yet according to the American Public Transportation Association, only 25 percent of Americans have what they consider to be a ‘good’ transit option. And, in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ most recent Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, roads (D-), transit (D) and aviation (D) all received lower grades than in previous reports, while bridges… Read more
Related Link: http://blogs.asce.org/govrel/
