Man of the Year
IRF 2007 Man of the Year
H.E. Abdullah A. Al-Mogbel
Deputy Minister of Transport for Roads
Ministry of Transport, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Started in 1951, the Man of the Year Award is IRF’s highest and most prestigious award it gives to an individual. Past recipients of the IRF Man of the Year Award include senators, deputy ministers, chief executives, state and federal transportation leaders – all of whom demonstrated a profound dedication to improving the world’s roads.
The International Road Federation (IRF) has selected H.E. Abdullah A. AL-Mogbel, Deputy Minister of Transport for Roads, Ministry of Transport, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the 2007 IRF Man of the Year. Eng. Al-Mogbel is being recognized for his unwavering, lifelong dedication to build better and safer roads; his leadership in the development of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s exemplary national road network; and his outstanding support of higher education and training for transportation professionals around the world.
“Eng. Al-Mogbel joins this group of extraordinary individuals as a leader and example to the road community,” said Peter J. Boyd, Chairman, IRF World Executive Board. “Through his efforts and others, the IRF Educational Programs have continued to expand, and he has contributed to the impressive highway system in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The IRF is proud to have Eng. Al-Mogbel as our 2007 Man of the Year.”
“I would like to thank the IRF World Executive Board for this honor and recognition,” said Eng. Al-Mogbel. “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Ministry of Transport have worked very hard to develop our highway network and establish good relationships with other national and international organizations to benefit from their experience. I am very pleased to be selected as the IRF Man of the Year, which I think underlines the fact that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a leading country in the highway industry.”
Engineering a Career
As a young engineer, Eng. Al-Mogbel began his career in 1978 with the Ministry of Communications (later renamed the Ministry of Transport) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. When he started with the Ministry they had just begun the project of constructing motorways connecting the major cities in Saudi Arabia as well as the ring roads around the larger cities such as Riyadh. He was made Project Manager of this massive project and thus started him on his career path.
“We worked hard, day and night, almost 20 hours a day. Even weekends,” Eng. Al-Mogbel said. “But this helped in improving my capability and my ability to understand the (road) industry.”
The lessons of hard work and working together with a variety of contractors and consultants have proved most beneficial to Eng. Al-Mogbel. Over the past several years, The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Ibn Abdul Aziz Al Saud has been keen to expand the Kingdom’s development, particularly the highway network. “One of the challenges is the magnitude of the projects that are approved every year in our budget. We have the same number of engineers as we had three years ago, but the number of projects is doubling, five and six times.”
However, this is the right kind of problem to have, says Eng. Al-Mogbel. “There is no question that transport is the key for any kind of development. The higher number of highways you have the greater the economic development will occur. And this is why the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is really supporting the highway program.”
His vision of the road and highway network for Saudi Arabia includes building better and safer highways to shorten commuter travel time, converting four and six lane roads to expressways and freeways, improving safety measures in all aspects of the transport sector to ensure safe and comfortable travel for road users, and continuing the education of the Kingdom’s engineers to keep them up to date on the latest technologies and best practices.
Promoting Education and Training
“Today, I think the transport sector is technology based. It is very important that our engineers have the necessary training and technology,” Eng. Al-Mogbel explains. His philosophy on this is people with more experience will always benefit those with less experience. This philosophy has proven successful as he has not only learned from others’ experiences, but has provided leadership and counsel to others.
This philosophy has also provided leadership within the International Road Educational Foundation (IREF) and Fellowship Program. Since 1951, the IRF Fellowship Program has provided grants to more than 1,170 young engineers from over 110 countries to study at top universities around the world. In 1991 the IREF Future Fund was created to ensure the Fellowship Program could continue to cope with the increasing expenses of higher education. And the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was the first to step forward and contribute to this program with a US $400,000 contribution.
“This is a great idea and a great program,” he said. “This Foundation helps to train many engineers from all over the world through donations to the Foundation from IRF members, and others. It is an excellent program. The Ministry of Transport and all the people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are involved in supporting the Program on almost an annual basis. Also, some of our members in Saudi Arabia are supporting the program because they feel it’s very beneficial to train young engineers and bring them up to date on the technology of the highway industry. And I urge other countries and other members to take care of this program and always support it.”
Safer Roads, Safer World
It’s been nearly 30 years since Eng. Al-Mogbel began his career with the Ministry of Communications. And he is still with the Ministry, working harder than ever to build better, safer roads and road networks in his beloved homeland. And he has targeted road safety as one of his highest priorities.
“Highway safety is a very important issue and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is working very hard to reduce the fatalities and accidents.” One initiative in particular is seeing some great success. Three years ago the Supreme Committee for Highway Safety in the Riyadh Region was established. As a member of this committee, Eng. Al-Mogbel works with other committee members to improve safety in the Riyadh Region and to have it as an example to be applied in other regions of Saudi Arabia. The committee’s work is having the desired success.
“It has now been three years since the committee was created, and accidents and fatalities have decreased tremendously,” he said. “Last year we had 150 accidents in one month. This year, it is below 60, which means the work of the committee and the strategy that was developed is proving to be effective.”