Tuesday, 8/26/25

8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.

Continental Room C

View the overview agenda at the 15th National Conference on Transportation Asset Management Event page, or view the full Detailed Agenda online.

Opening Plenary Session Speakers

Moderator: Omar Smadi, InTrans at Iowa State University

Welcome Remarks
Gia Biagi, Illinois Secretary of Transportation

Gia Biagi was appointed secretary of the Illinois Department of Transportation (DOT) by Governor JB Pritzker on December 10, 2024. Biagi brings to the agency decades of experience in urban planning, transportation, public policy, infrastructure and operations.

Biagi’s career spans both private practice and public service and has established her as a visionary leader in planning, policy, and infrastructure management. From 2019 to 2023, she served as commissioner of Chicago’s DOT, where she delivered hundreds of innovative transportation projects citywide and created a nation-leading strategic plan focused on equitable, safe, and sustainable mobility, along with transformational neighborhood investments.

She has held various other private and public roles across the fields of housing, parks, and transportation throughout her career of more than two decades.

Prior to her appointment to the Illinois DOT, she provided executive leadership at Studio Gang, an international, award-winning architecture and urban design firm. There, she led a practice that specialized in urban design, land-use planning, community engagement, and implementation strategy for public and private-sector clients across a range of cities and project types, including housing, waterfronts, aviation, parks, roadways, and public and private buildings and sites.

Biagi recently served on the Shared-Use Mobility Center’s board of directors and was previously appointed secretary of the National Association of City Transportation Officials. She served on the Board of Trustees for the Chicago Architecture Center, is a member of the advisory board of the Women’s Transportation Seminar, and is a member of Lambda Alpha International, an honorary society for the study of land economics. She was also recently named a visiting fellow at the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas.

Biagi earned her Master of Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan.

Welcome Remarks
Erin Aleman, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) Executive Director

Erin Aleman is a planning and public policy expert, accomplished leader, and a positive change agent. She leads the award-winning CMAP—the regional planning agency for 7 counties, 284 municipalities, and 8.6 million residents in northeastern Illinois. She is the first woman to serve in this role and the first professional planner to lead the agency.

The CMAP team is comprised of transportation experts, data analysts, thought leaders, planners, policy influencers, collaborators, and consensus builders. CMAP has earned a revered reputation for advancing sound policy, driving innovative solutions, and leading transformational change.

From helping to create a first-of-its-kind regional economic partnership, developing solutions to transform the region’s transit system, and building consensus among the region’s leaders on the highest-priority transportation projects, Aleman and CMAP have left their mark on this region since Aleman became CMAP’s executive director in July 2019. The region consistently relies on Aleman and her team to share their expertise and knowledge on national, regional, and local conference panels and media interviews.

Aleman’s career journey has brought her full circle. Fresh out of graduate school in 2007, she joined CMAP as the agency’s Phillip D. Peters Regional Planning fellow. Over the next eight years, she rose through the ranks to become principal planner in 2011 and played key roles in creating the highly successful Technical Assistance Program, leading regional outreach for GO TO 2040—the agency’s first long-term comprehensive plan—and completing more than 20 local planning projects.

She also held leadership positions at the Illinois DOT, first as a bureau chief and then as director of the Office of Planning and Programming. During her Illinois DOT tenure, she provided strategic guidance, implemented performance-based tools, developed the state’s first asset management plan, and was responsible for developing multimodal policy initiatives.

In 2019, Aleman was named as one of Crain’s distinguished 40 under 40 designees and the Women in Transportation (WTS) Chicago Chapter’s Woman of the Year in 2020. Aleman holds a Master’s degree in Urban Planning and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking. She holds advisory roles for UIC’s Stuart Handler Real Estate program, the Southland Development Authority, and the Chicago Chapter of WTS. Erin also had the honor of being a strategist for the Obama Foundation Scholars Program in 2018. She has served on the Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors (CAGTC) Board since 2019, was elected secretary in 2021, and currently serves as vice chair.

Aleman is a passionate planner and champion for collaboration with a love for serving people and making a difference.

Keynote Speaker
Katie Zimmerman, Applied Pavement Technology, Inc. (APTech) Executive Vice President

Katie Zimmerman has devoted her more than 40 years in the transportation industry to helping public and private agencies make effective decisions to manage their infrastructure assets. Instrumental in the deployment of pavement management concepts in the mid-1980s, as the field grew to encompass more and more transportation assets she continued to play a leading role in this growth. Today, Zimmerman is the Executive Vice President at APTech, a company she founded in 1994 and helped to grow into a leading provider of transportation consulting services with over 80 employees.

Zimmerman has authored or contributed to most of the guide documents currently in use to shape the application of asset management principles, including both the Asset Management and Pavement Management Guides published by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). She served as chair of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee on Asset Management for 6 years and chaired the 11th National Conference on Transportation Asset Management in Minneapolis. She has attended, presented at, or helped organize every international conference on pavement and asset management since 1987. Over the years, she has valued the opportunities she has had as instructor, mentor, and collaborator to many asset management practitioners.

Zimmerman received both her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois. She is a frequent speaker at technical conferences, where she shares her experience and expertise on a broad range of asset management topics, including lifecycle planning, the management of ancillary assets, and the effective use of pavement management systems.

As she approaches retirement, Zimmerman has enjoyed the opportunity to explore other avenues for applying her leadership and organizational skills, such as at the Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club in Champaign, Illinois. She also enjoys traveling and spending time with her son, granddaughter, sisters, and friends.