FREIGHT RAIL DAY 2022


PRESENTERS

COMMISSIONER YASH WADHWA
Yash Wadhwa, the Wisconsin Commissioner of Railroads since 2016, has over 44 years of consulting experience in numerous engineering fields including civil, environmental, and transportation engineering. He has worked on infrastructure projects for various municipalities in the Milwaukee Metropolitan Area. In addition, Wadhwa has served as a board member for the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and President of the Wisconsin Association of Consulting Engineers, as well as the Wisconsin Society of Professional Engineers. Wadhwa has a M.S. degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. He lives in Glendale with his wife Usha and is active in community organizations.

KURT BRANDT
PhD,CEO LinqThingz, Inc. - Predictive Mobility Solutions. Kurt is a serial entrepreneur and technologist. He received his PhD in Physics from UW-Milwaukee, then started Brandt Innovative Technologies (BIT), which deployed its novel enterprise and manufacturing architecture to companies such as Johnson Controls, Eaton Corporation, and GE Medical Systems. BIT also created cutting edge sensor systems for government organizations, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Defense. BIT also spun out Accipiter Robotic Networks to perform drone-based agriculture, Megatron Electromagnetic Systems to solve power grid security issues and LinqThingz to solve one of the top problems supporting the F35 fighter jet. LinqThingz is now transforming transportation efficiency and safety with their Predictive Mobility System. LinqThingz proprietary and unique military grade sensor systems, cloud services, Application Programming interfaces and mobile applications provide a completely new way to provide advanced notification about blocked Highway Rail Grade Crossings, preventing and reducing congestion and safety related issues and increasing transportation efficiency at railroad crossings.

DON SLICKMAN
Don brings 25 years expertise in sales, marketing and strategic planning for industrial supply chain and business intelligence products. He has deep expertise with technology products including IoT, SaaS, Mobile, and AI. For LinqThingz he evangelizes the value of predictive mobility to solve key problems concerning congestion and safety and builds key partnerships to enable nation-wide roll outs of these game changing solutions.


EMILY TRAIFOROS
Emily Traiforos joined GoRail in March 2006 and oversees its operations in the Upper Midwest and Colorado. Prior to GoRail, she worked in the Strategic Planning and Development Office at an international non-profit in Washington, D.C. Traiforos has volunteered and worked on several political campaigns, interned in the U.S. Senate, and holds a B.S. in political science from Arizona State University.


PETER KAMMER
Peter Kammer majored in political science and international relations at the University of Wisconsin in Madison before attending law school at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago. Peter moved back to Madison to work for the Wisconsin Legislature and later worked as a government affairs consultant. In January of 2011 Peter formed The Kammer Group which provides government affairs, business consulting and association management services.