Kittelson is excited to welcome Gibran Hadj-Chikh to our firm as a senior principal planner in a new Chicago office. Gibran brings more than 22 years of experience in transportation planning, smart city technologies, shared mobility, and the funding and implementation of transit systems.
“We are urban cardiologists. Transportation is the connective tissue of civilization; our role is to find the healthiest ways to allow people to flow through the places they inhabit and enrich,” says Gibran. “I got into transportation planning because I saw it to be the best way to advance civilization; 23 years later, I still believe that.”
Gibran has been a connection of our firm for years, originating with our staff in Baltimore.
“I first learned about Kittelson through my work with Yolanda Takesian and Ed Myers, when they supported my team on the Green Line Alternatives Analysis for the Maryland Transit Administration,” he says. “I enjoyed working with Yolanda and Ed, and every time I came to Kittelson’s office, I was impressed with the atmosphere of the office and the portfolio of projects I saw underway. It always struck me as the right place to be as a transportation planner.“
Upon connecting recently with more Kittelson staff, Gibran was struck by Kittelson’s work and research around new technologies that are shaping transportation systems (including connected and automated vehicles, data analytics, and other elements of smart cities). He shares Kittelson’s belief that any application of these new technologies needs to start by considering the needs of the community to be helped, allowing citizens and their representatives to make fair, informed, and equitable decisions.
Kittelson is excited for our clients to have access to Gibran’s national expertise in shared mobility, smart technologies, and multimodal transit funding and planning. Recently, Gibran’s focus and passion has involved supporting public sector clients to understand how disruptive technologies and services (including autonomous vehicles, Smart City infrastructure, and Mobility as a Service (MaaS) strategies) may affect their operations and capital programs.
Feel free to contact Gibran directly, or reach out to any of your connections on the Kittelson team to talk about this further.