In charge of a major Boston bridge in 1989, Mary Jane O’Meara was excited as she prepared to meet transportation and infrastructure colleagues from around the world in her first time attending a convention of the International Bridge, Tunnel & Turnpike Association. O’Meara said she was looking forward to swapping stories and jobsite experiences. On the elevator ride down to the event, however, she got a hint of things to come when a male attendee saw O’Meara headed the same way and asked a colleague if “the wives’ tour was over yet?”

Entering the conference ballroom, O’Meara saw 200 men, with the only two other women there both conference staffers. But quickly recovering from her initial surprise, O’Meara plunged in to meet her colleagues. The two men from the elevator later sought her out and apologized. Growing up in Stoneham, Mass., with four brothers and one sister, O’Meara says she learned to cope as one of the only females. But she never forgot those and other early career experiences and became a mentor to a new generation of women leaders in transportation.

Now vice president of HNTB in Boston and a member of the design firm’s national tolling group, O’Meara proudly ticks off prominent transportation and infrastructure sector jobs now held by women, including top positions in state transportation agencies, the federal government and major companies. “You didn’t have that even 10 years ago,” she says.

Featured in a 2015 book about women trailblazers in transportation—“Boots on the Ground, Flats in the Boardroom: Transportation Women Tell Their Stories”—O’Meara notes that while progress was slow at first, the momentum propelling women into the field has been growing in recent years. “The best decisions get made if your table is mixed,” she says. “You don’t get your best decisions if it’s all women, or all men. You need to have the mix.”

For her role in pioneering women in transportation management, and for other accomplishments over a long, ongoing, career, ENR New England has chosen Mary Jane O’Meara to receive its 2021 Legacy Award.

Start in Politics

O’Meara’s first big break came via politics, not transportation. Having spent several years at home raising two daughters, she sought a way to get back into the workforce and onto the career ladder. It was 1982, and her husband, Gregory, had heard the campaign manager for the late Rep. Joseph Moakley, a Democrat whose district included South Boston, needed help. O’Meara landed a job running the campaign manager’s office.

Her work with Moakley led in 1983 to a job with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. The following year, O’Meara, who had interrupted her studies to raise her children, earned a degree in planning from the University of Massachusetts. “I love planning,” she says. “You have to plan before you can move ahead with anything. It’s the way my mind works, and it comes in handy for this type of work.”

奥梅拉（O’Meara）的第一份运输工作是帮助计划扩大通勤铁路服务到菲奇堡（Fitchburg），这是一个北波士顿约50英里的旧工业城市。从那里，她搬进了运输局的建筑规划部门，并在橙色线上工作。A high point came when O’Meara was put in charge of overseeing $100,000 in federal funding that MBTA obtained in 1986 to erect a statue to noted Black civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph in Back Bay Station, one of Boston’s busiest subway and rail hubs. Randolph unionized Black railroad sleeping car porters in the 1920s. “It was fun,” O’Meara says. “I had not done anything in the arts.”

从计划到通行费

O’Meara’s next career move came in a field she had never contemplated. She was approached by a woman colleague at the Massachusetts Port Authority who interested her in taking over as operations manager for the Maurice J. Tobin Bridge, a cantilevered truss toll bridge connecting Boston to commuters from the North Shore that opened in 1950.

尽管她开玩笑地将其描述为工作中令人痛苦的第一天，但​​奥梅拉还是决定取得飞跃。奥梅拉（O’Meara）走进自助餐厅打招呼，以迎接收费工人，在她飞行时刚刚发现了“湿地板”标志。她回忆说：“当我看时，一条鞋走了一条，我的钱包去了另一鞋。”

O’Meara also got acquainted with her office, tucked under the 254-ft-high bridge, nine stories up. “It was like working in a shake and bake,” O’Meara says. “You knew when a 16-wheeler went over.” Later, getting into the elevator, the cab stopped moving between floors. Her two assistants rushed to pry the door open with a broken broom handle and get her down from the elevator, which had stalled 3 feet up. “It’ a miracle I went back after my first day—it couldn’t go anywhere but up,” she says.

O’Meara not only came back, but was promoted to director of the Tobin Bridge two years later. As head of the bridge and its tolls, she oversaw a 100-person team also tucked into a box underneath the bridge, from engineers to toll collectors, auditors, mechanics, electricians and maintenance personnel. O’Meara handled everything except for capital projects, but she was still responsible for keeping the bridge operating.

但是也有建筑物，包括对1991年至1995年之间在阶段进行的桥上和下部的重新构造，甲板和收费广场的扩展以及其他结构维修。一旦O’Meara在深夜接到了不祥的呼唤。她被告知：“有些事情发生了变化，您最好进入这里。”这座桥确实发生了变化，但是在奥梅拉（O'Meara）的方向下，它已经准备好在高峰时段重新开放，工作人员使用钢板工作奇迹。

There were sometimes political issues to deal with as well since the bridge spanned Boston and Chelsea, with mayors and other officials ready to unload their frustration should a traffic accident on the bridge make a mess of rush hour. “It was a bigger operation than I ever envisioned,” O’Meara says. “It opened up so many different doors.” Snowstorms meant 24-hour duty. “If there was a bad storm, I would go in and bring a bag—sometimes I wouldn’t get home for a couple of days,” she says.

She also contended with the bridge’s attraction as a local spot for suicides, with more than one middle-of-the-night call after someone jumped off the deck into the Mystic River below. Among the more infamous jumpers was Charles Stuart, after shooting his pregnant wife in early 1990 and blaming the murder on a Black man. “I was on my way to work when that happened—it had just happened when I got called in,” says O’Meara. “Every media outlet was there—they were just stopping on the bridge.”

During her two-decade-long stint running the Tobin, O’Meara also became heavily involved in bridge, transportation and toll industry organizations, eventually becoming president of the International Bridge, Tunnel & Turnpike Association, while also serving as a board member and on numerous committees.

A longtime member of the Women’s Transportation Seminar Inc., O’Meara is a past president of the Boston chapter and spent time on the chapter board. She also has served as WTS International president.

O ' meara推出新英格兰人数协会to help regional authorities unify electronic toll collection systems and then chaired the group for two decades. She recently was cited for lifetime achievement by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, which noted her “40-plus-year commitment to the transportation industry, including the advancement of female leadership.”

Says O’Meara: “I like fairness—I want everything to be fair for everyone. Also, if you join an association, you get more out of it by getting involved. Hopefully, you can help the next generation.”

除了扮演重要的行业领导角色外，奥梅拉还花了无数小时来指导年轻的同事。她说：“我从不对任何向我寻求帮助的人说不。”总体而言，工程师“倾向于内向的人 - 如果他们伸出援手，您需要伸出援手并帮助他们找到自己的声音。”

她说，她的一些指导涉及帮助才华横溢的年轻女性获得“做自己想做的工作的信心”。这也可能涉及“鼓励他们并通过他们可能遇到的问题与他们合作”。她说，帮助某人找到自己的声音，并要求他们想要什么 - 即使没有立即产生结果，这也是关键。她说：“下次主管要记住你是谁时。”多年来，奥梅拉（O’Meara）表示，她一直密切关注受训者的职业。她说：“我觉得自己像个母亲。”

Last year, the Boston WTS chapter renamed a scholarship in O’Meara’s name, a $4,000 graduate award for higher education in the transportation field eligible to women members who are full-time employees.

Christine Keville, president and CEO of Keville Enterprises Inc., got to know O’Meara from working together in industry organizations. Keville calls her “one of my most esteemed mentors.” She adds that “one piece of advice that Mary Jane has always instilled in me is the importance of mentoring and giving back to industry.”

去年，新英格兰的遗新利18备用产奖得主Keville也称赞O’Meara的领导能力，称它们为“她最著名的特征之一”。根据Keville的说法，O’Meara“认识到他人的价值，并且是团队合作者。只要工作完成，她就不在乎谁获得信用。”

Private Sector

经过数十年的公共服务，奥梅拉（O’Meara）于2011年搬进了私营部门，去了HNTB工作。该公司的全国收费集团（她是她的一部分）提供有关收费系统财务，工程可行性和设计方面以及价格托管车道和全电子通行费转换，互操作性和运营方面的专业咨询。

She says that she came to the job with a long track record of working with teams and a Rolodex of tolling sector contacts. Her focus is business development, with the ability to add to an RFP response the insight of what public sector decision makers may be thinking or seeking in a particular contract or project. “I am able to connect people with people,” O’Meara says. “I am very good at saying ‘when I was in the public sector, this is what I wanted.’” Although not an engineer, O’Meara says she was immediately taken “with the smartness of the group” at HNTB.

O’Meara brought to the private sector her dedication to mentoring employees, who seek “her out for guidance and counsel on what they should do in thinking about their career and engaging in leadership,” says Phil Brake, president of HNTB’s Northeast division.Brake credits O’Meara with giving him and other executives at the company a better understanding of the concerns and ambitions of all employees, with a keen understanding of where they are coming from. “She has really improved our working environment,” Brake says. “Mary Jane is a down-to-earth person who people go to and trust and feel as though she is really interested, as a person and as a professional, in the development of their career.”