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“IN MEMORY OF RICHARD ``DICK'' MORGAN, RETIRED EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF FHWA” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Transportation was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1403 on July 7, 2003.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
IN MEMORY OF RICHARD ``DICK'' MORGAN, RETIRED EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF
FHWA
______
HON. FRANK R. WOLF
of virginia
in the house of representatives
Monday, July 7, 2003
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I want to share with our colleagues the recent passing of Richard D. ``Dick'' Morgan, who retired in 1989 as executive director of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the highest civil service post in the FHWA. He died on June 18 at a hospital in Easton, MD, following a year long battle with leukemia. He was 69.
Many of our colleagues who have been here for a while will remember Dick Morgan as the highway expert who helped steer the reauthorization of the federal highway program in 1982, which included a motor fuel tax increase, the first in more than two decades, to fund repairs for what was described then as the nation's crumbling highways and bridges.
Mr. Morgan received a B.S. degree in civil engineering, graduating with honors from Michigan State University in 1956. The following year he began his federal career as a highway engineer trainee with the Bureau of Public Roads, the FHWA's predecessor agency. Except for a stint in the U.S. Army from 1957-58, he stayed with the agency until he retired.
Over the years, Dick Morgan, a registered professional engineer, held a variety of positions at FHWA. After serving in the Arkansas, Ohio, and Texas divisions, he joined the Washington headquarters staff in 1972 as chief of Special Procedures Branch in the Federal-Aid Division. He became chief of that division and later was name director of the Office of Highway Planning before being appointed associate administrator for engineering and operations in 1979. In that slot, he helped develop a program that saved $225 million in bridge construction costs and shepherded a national traffic signal timing demonstration program, which has been credited with saving millions of gallons of fuel.
After assuming the executive director position in 1982, Dick Morgan is widely credited with helping to move the FHWA from an era of highway expansion to an era of highway preservation. He was one of the originators and strongest supporters of the Strategic Highway Research Program developed to identify pavement design and maintenance techniques that work--and those that don't work. That program has evolved over the years to help highway agencies across the nation provide smoother, longer lasting roads.
Mr. Morgan also was a strong backer of innovative techniques for increasing highway capacity, such as ``smart'' highways, surveillance systems, and computer applications which today are working to reduce traffic congestion in the nation's urban areas.
Having played a major role in the construction of the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, Dick Morgan was deeply involved in the FHWA's efforts to plan for the post-Interstate era. With the Interstate program coming to an end in the 1990's, he formed a
``Futures Task Force'' to identify and study alternatives for the Department of Transportation's legislative initiatives and also worked with organizations such as the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials to develop post-Interstate proposals.
Dick Morgan received many honors during his career. His first recognition was a cash award in 1959. Over the years, he received the Secretary's Award for Superior Achievement (1974), the Senior Executive Service Performance Award on several occasions, and the Federal Highway Administrator's Award for Superior Achievement (1983). In 1982, he received the Presidential Rank Award of Meritorious Executive and in 1987 he was given the President Rank Award of Distinguished Executive. The American Public Works Association recognized Mr. Morgan as one of the Top Ten Public Works Leaders of the Year in 1988.
When he retired from the FHWA in 1989, he became vice president of the National Asphalt Pavement Association in Washington, where he remained until 1998.
Mr. Morgan was born in Cleveland and raised in Royal Oak, MI. In addition to his degree from Michigan State, he received a J.D. degree from the Capital School of Law in Columbus, Ohio.
After living in Anne Arundel County, MD, he moved in the late 1990s to Maryland's Eastern Shore community of Easton Club. He remained active in the community, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity in Talbot County and the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, MD, where he was a docent.
He was a member of St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Easton, where his funeral service was held on June 25. We express our sympathies to his wife of 45 years, Anna Louise Morgan of Easton, and their three children, Thomas Richard Morgan of Oakland, CA, Karen Ann Yocum of Churchton, MD, and Anthony Patrick Morgan of Liberty, SC, his three brothers, a sister, and three grandchildren.
Mr. Speaker, we remember Dick Morgan as the ultimate professional whose public service career left a legacy of unparalleled achievement, providing the example for those at the Federal Highway Administration today to follow.
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