With heavy hearts, we announce the passing of John Zegeer, former Senior Principal Engineer at Kittelson – a dedicated colleague, a trusted mentor, and a dear friend to all of us who knew him. John was an outstanding contributor to the fields of highway design, traffic operations, transportation planning, and safety, as well as to our firm’s history and culture. His humble personality and default to serving others first played a foundational role in shaping Kittelson into the type of place we wanted it to be.
John’s distinguished career spanned more than 40 years, during which he worked as a transportation consultant primarily focused on helping public agencies throughout the nation improve their transportation systems. John also played a significant role in advancing the transportation profession. He served as the Principal Investigator or Senior Researcher for critical projects within the National Academy of Science’s Cooperative Research Program. He also served as Chair of the Transportation Research Board’s prestigious Committee on Highway Capacity and Quality of Service and was a key member of Committees dealing with transportation performance measures and highway safety.
John joined Kittelson in May 1996, simultaneously opening the firm’s office in Fort Lauderdale. This milestone event changed Kittelson from a small, single-office West Coast consulting firm into a multi-office firm with a national presence. He said his reason for joining Kittelson midway through his career was to “give back” to the profession by mentoring young people who were just entering it. John retired in 2018, but he never wavered from this personal commitment: when he was asked near the end of his professional career what he would like to do in retirement, his answer was that he would like to teach others.
John Zegeer’s retirement party in 2018.
His family and Kittelson & Associates, Inc. wish to continue John’s legacy through the establishment of the John David Zegeer Memorial Fellowship. The mission of this fellowship is to support the growth, development, and continuing higher education of those entering the transportation profession.
If your life was touched by John in some way, or if you share in his passion to equip the next generation of transportation professionals, we invite you to join his and his family’s cause at https://www.gofundme.com/JohnDavidZegeerMemorialFellowship.