Robert Davis appointed US Market Leader for Major Programs
With over 20 years of experience in the infrastructure sector, Robert continues to bring a wealth of knowledge, expertise, and enthusiasm to our team as he takes on his new role as Major Programs Market Leader for the US.
Robert has an impressive background, having served as an infrastructure executive and regional general manager (Mid-Continent region) for GHD. He has held leadership roles in Water, Environment, Transportation, Maritime & Coastal, and Energy services which included providing operational and sales leadership, implementing strategies, and managing key accounts.
Throughout his career, Robert has been involved in assessing, planning, designing, and providing program management for large-scale infrastructure projects. Notably, he was a senior program consultant for a 10-year, $1-billion Capital Improvement Program, where he provided programmatic services using an integrated approach with a joint venture partner. He also led a separate $7 billion program managing staff and resources, coordinating subconsultants, and providing comprehensive planning and design services.
Most recently, Robert served as the General Manager of US Mid-Con Region. Overseeing one of the 5 regions that make up our US business, Robert led day-to-day performance and operations while helping deliver on the Americas’ wider strategic initiatives. In this new role, Robert will be looking to help our clients tackle some of their biggest challenges in transportation and water including activating our partnership with tech startup Compass IoT to leverage connected vehicle data and scaling our program management practice to address the impacts of significant needs in the water sector. His recent experience as RGM overseeing both market sectors and his national exposure providing leadership on major programs make him ideal to lead these initiatives.
My personal objective is to leave the world a better place by significantly impacting the built environment. This new role allows me to better meet that objective while better serving our clients through innovative solutions, strategic planning, and sustainable practices all while fostering a collaborative partnership environment. That excites me.
What emerging issues are you seeing in the infrastructure sector that you are helping our clients navigate?
There are several issues, but there are a few that rise to the top of mind for me.
First, ensuring access to clean water and effective sanitation systems remains a critical issue. Water is an increasingly critical function and with the aging of the supporting infrastructure, the scale of the improvements in the sector are escalating. GHD’s experience in asset management, master planning and program management can help address these challenges.
Second, the integration of digital technologies in infrastructure management is crucial. GHD can help clients implement digital solutions for better asset management, predictive maintenance, and efficient operations. As an example, GHD just launched an exclusive partnership in the Connected Vehicle Data space across North America with a start-up called Compass IoT that is helping to revolutionize traffic management and enhancing road safety with real-time road intelligence.
Lastly, the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, such as Renewable Natural Gas (RNG), continues to be a focus area. GHD can drive strategic growth by leveraging waste-to-energy solutions and facilitating this transition. Infrastructure will be central to the energy transition and achieving climate adaptation goals. This includes evolving the energy mix, implementing green infrastructure solutions, while navigating traditional energy solutions.
Given GHD’s future-focused approach, how are you integrating technological innovations in your work?
GHD has just launched an exclusive partnership in the Connected Vehicle Data space across North America with a start-up called Compass IoT.
Compass is helping revolutionize how GHD and our clients understand Road Intelligence by aggregating vehicle telemetry data across 60 vehicle manufacturers, globally. This vehicle data emanates from SIM cads embedded within the vehicle onboard computer, which is sent back to manufactures, anonymized, and sent onwards to Compass, in real time.
This is not only movement data, but detailed vehicle makes and model, positioning data, speed, acceleration, deceleration, G-forces, and unique insights like “near misses” (accidents that almost happened) delivering unappareled near-Realtime road intelligence at scale. GHD is already using this data to help transport agencies in Australia and the United Kingdom across road safety, freight, and asset management use cases. Not only is this data available in a user-friendly, self-service platform, but clients can also download the full underlying raw data to do their own internal modelling and validation.
GHD is looking to bring this innovation to the stewards of our road networks who have an interest in how connected vehicle data could provide insights into road safety, network operations, origin/destination, planning activities, freight analysis, pavement analysis or general analytics (citizen dashboards, before /after analysis on improvements, etc.)
What strategies will you rely on to ensure sustainability and environmental responsibility in large-scale infrastructure projects?
GHD’s legacy DNA in North America is our environmental business. We will need to continue to build that knowledge into these large “built environment” projects. This starts with understanding the potential environmental impacts early in the planning process. Additionally, we plan to stay abreast of green building standards, renewable energy solutions, and promoting resources efficiencies. Finally, we need to work with our client partners to discuss design infrastructure to withstand extreme weather events amongst changing climate conditions.
What assets does GHD have that sets us apart from our competition?
GHD’s greatest asset is our purpose embodied by our people. Together with our clients we create lasting community benefits. With our “North Star” as our guiding principle I have never been around a more driven group of individuals who look to serve clients and leave the world better than we found it.
What do you want to accomplish in this new role?
In this role, I am looking to help clients address some of their most wicked challenges in transportation, water and energy.
For transportation, GHD can help agencies better understand real time road intelligence data to provide the insights to road network safety efficiency and maintenance.
For water, we see the effects of aging infrastructure, climate change and adapting to new regulations. The scale of infrastructure improvements in the built environment has increased requiring large scale programs to address them effectively.
Finally, from my home here in Houston, the energy capital of the world, we see the energy transition unfolding before us. We understand balancing an energy portfolio of existing clean energy with those of future fuels and other low carbon solutions.
What are some of the most pronounced market trends you’re observing in the market and how do you plan to help GHD stand out as a major player in those issues?
We’ve already spoken about the energy transition and decarbonization; technology and digital transformation and resilient and adaptive infrastructure. GHD can stand out by offering innovative solutions in these areas, such as advanced energy management systems and sustainable design practices. Additionally, we need to continue to invest in being a learning organization on the cutting edge.
About GHD
GHD is a leading professional services company operating in the global markets of water, energy and resources, environment, property and buildings, and transportation. Committed to a vision to make water, energy, and communities sustainable for generations to come, GHD delivers advisory, digital, engineering, architecture, environmental and construction solutions to public and private sector clients. Established in 1928 and privately owned by its people, GHD’s network of 12,000+ professionals is connected across 160 offices located on five continents.