Last month more than 20 high school students toured the New Mexico Rail Runner Express and other transportation services as part of the University of New Mexico’s Summer Transportation Institute.
Each summer, UNM’s Engineering Student Success Center offers a 3-week learning experience for teens entering their junior or senior year in high school. The program is geared toward students who are interested in engineering and introduces them to potential career opportunities in the transportation industry.
Program Overview
Students participating in the program stayed on campus in the dorms. They experienced hands-on activities in the classroom and field trips on the weekends. During the first week of the program, they visited local transportation facilities and learned from industry professionals first-hand.
“It’s a pretty diverse program,” said Ben Garland, Program Manager for the Center for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety, who helped coordinate this year’s agency tours. “Some of the classroom learning included computer programming and robot engineering. They went to White Sands and Spaceport America for their field trips.”
Tour Highlights
For the transportation facility tours, students visited ABQ RIDE, the Albuquerque International Sunport, and the New Mexico Rail Runner Express railyard.
ABQ RIDE Experience
“For our first tour, we went to the Alvarado Transportation Center and learned about ABQ RIDE, the City of Albuquerque’s bus service,” said Garland.
Students took an ART bus from campus to the facility, where they learned about ABQ RIDE operations from Deputy Director Bobby Sisneros and other staff. They were then bussed out the Daytona maintenance facility, where they got to see how the buses are maintained and repaired.
Sunport Visit
Upon arriving at the Albuquerque International Sunport, New Mexico’s largest commercial airport, students learned about the airport's history and gained insight into its various operations. The group then boarded small buses to see planes landing on the runway and visit the areas where private aircraft operate. They also toured a vintage 1960s FedEx cargo plane, exploring the cockpit, switches, and other fascinating features.
Rail Runner Tour
The last experience Garland organized for the students was a presentation and tour of the New Mexico Rail Runner Express led by Rail Runner Project Manager Elizabeth Olson. Rail Runner and Rio Metro employees from different departments talked about their jobs and how they came to work in their current careers. The students received an overview of Rail Runner operations and learned about transit connections to the train. Following the talk, everyone got to tour a train locomotive and a passenger car.
“They liked getting in the cab and seeing what it’s like to operate the train,” said Garland. “One of the kids even got to push the button to start the train. They were able to ask questions and learn about what a locomotive engineer does.”
Future Engineers and How to Become One
According to Garland, most of students attending the Summer Transportation Institute live in New Mexico. However, a few came from Texas and two even traveled from Puerto Rico and Ecuador to participate in the program.
“It’s an opportunity for kids who are interested in engineering to learn about how it ties into transportation. It helps give them career guidance by introducing them to things that they could be doing in a specific subset of engineering,” said Garland.
For more information about UNM’s Engineering Student Success Center, which hosts the Institute each summer, visit ess.unm.edu. To learn more about the Center for Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety, where Garland is based, visit pedbikesafety.org.
By Riann Martinez, Marketing Specialist, Rio Metro Regional Transit District
