An entry titled “ITD Goes Above and Beyond to Keep Idaho Roads Safe” recently won an APEX Award of Excellence – the second national award recognizing the department’s outstanding winter road-clearing efforts. ITD’s winter efforts also earned a Community Service award a few months ago.
“We appreciate that our Idaho Transportation Department teams are nationally recognized for the best daily customer service and also our public service readiness 24/7 in teamwork during storms with highway partners like ISP for local community safety success,” said ITD Chief Deputy/Chief Operations Officer Dan McElhinney (pictured below).
The winning APEX entry highlighted some of the outstanding work by ITD crews in the recent past. It focused on the above-and-beyond efforts of employees across the state, chronicling the incredible efforts every day by more than 500 workers to keep our roads and bridges clear and open.
“The competition was particularly intense this year,” said Ken Turturo of APEX and Communications Concepts. “There were quite a few entries exhibiting very high-quality work that did not receive an award. The fact that you won should not be taken lightly.”
ITD tracked nearly 7,860 storms this past winter season, about 3,350 more than the previous winter. But despite a more challenging winter, crews kept the state’s roads clear and passable during the storm 80 percent of the time.