AUSTIN, Texas — Humble Independent School District received Transfinder’s Ambassador of the Year award today at Transfinder’s Annual Client Summit at the Hyatt Regency Austin in Austin, Texas.
“Humble ISD represents the type of district that goes above and beyond the call of duty to get the job done,” said Transfinder President and CEO Antonio Civitella. “The district showed ingenuity in how it used Transfinder technology in the midst of very difficult circumstances. With one high school uninhabitable, Humble ISD held two high school sessions in one building, with thousands of students arriving in the morning and departing at noon and a second shift arriving at noon. The district had a week to route two schools under extreme conditions.”
Hurricane Harvey made landfall three times in six days, dumping two feet of rain in the first 24 hours. The only two direct paths to reach the northern parts of the district had water flowing over the bridges and were inaccessible. As routing supervisor Steve Silence put it, “When we should have been starting school routes, we were coordinating getting our buses to evacuate people, bring food and supplies to our flooded families.”
Silence, in accepting the award, thanked Transfinder for helping the district survive Harvey. Humble ISD is the fifth district to receive the Ambassador of the Year award.
Following the Ambassador of the Year Ceremony, Dr. Tracy Ginsberg, executive director of the Texas Association of School Business Officials, addressed Summit attendees about the significant role they play in their communities.
“You have the biggest budget in the community,” she told attendees. “And you certainly interact with more people. … In Texas, just [tallying] regular routing services, we traveled last year 251 million miles [not including special education or extracurricular trips]. That is 525 round trips to the moon that we did last year. Every day we took 1.5 million students somewhere. That’s like taking the entire population of San Antonio, loading them up on a bus and there’d still be some people left over. We do big things. We do great things. And there is absolutely no greater people than the people you work with.”
This year marks the 10th year Transfinder has held its Annual Client Summit, and it was the largest Summit to date, with 270 attendees from 35 states and two Canadian provinces. Attendees take a number of classes during the three-day summit on a variety of topics, including how-to information on Transfinder solutions.
On Monday, Civitella gave clients an exclusive “Glimpse Into the Future,” by describing products Transfinder will be rolling out.
About Transfinder
Founded in 1988 and headquartered in Schenectady, New York, Transfinder is a national leader in intelligent transportation systems, providing transportation management systems and services to school districts, municipalities and adult care facilities. Transfinder, an Inc. magazine “fastest-growing company” for 11 straight years, has offices in Austin, Texas, and Shanghai, China. The software company develops and supports routing and scheduling solutions for optimal transportation logistics. www.transfinder.com
