Ted Lane Honored "I have had the privilege of knowing Ted since he served as the Chair of the Value Engineering Task Force responsible for formalizing the Ontario Ministry of Transportation's Value Engineering Program in 1996. His work has led to MTO being recognized as a leader in Canada and the United States in the application of the value methodology to the transportation industry. The MTO Value Engineering Program is also seen as the leading value engineering program throughout all of the Canadian governmental agencies."

Ted Lane, head of planning and design in Eastern Region, was honored by SAVE International, the Value Society, with the "Distinguished Service in Government Award" at the society's 44th Annual Conference in Montreal, Quebec. This award recognizes individual members of SAVE International who have rendered outstanding service by making exceptional contributions in governmental applications of the value methodology. Ted Lane is the first Canadian government official to receive this award in SAVE's 44-year history.

SAVE International is an organization that promotes value engineering (VE) in both the public and private sectors, and has members in 35 countries.

Ted is known for being an advocate for VE at MTO since the early 1990s. In 1996, he was selected to lead the Value Engineering Task Force.

Task force recommendations led to the establishment of a permanent value engineering program within the ministry, including a full-time coordinator, within the Engineering Standards Branch, and part-time coordinators in each region. Ted continues to be actively involved in the Value Engineering Coordinators Committee.

Since those early studies, Ted has played a key role in Eastern Region to encourage consideration of VE principles and application of formal studies to a number of projects, including accommodation of learning and growth. In all, Eastern Region has now conducted 13 studies and trained 32 staff for Module I, the foundation-level education in value engineering. VE has been used to improve projects in every region. It has also been used in a number of head office organizations to improve standards and processes.

Ted's stalwart support for value engineering has paid dividends for MTO: since 1998, the ministry has saved over $150 million through its VE program. Recent MTO projects that incorporated value engineering studies and methods include new commercial vehicle inspection stations (featured in the August 2003 issue of Road Talk) and the widening of the QEW west of Toronto (featured in the June 2003 issue of Road Talk).

VE continues to be a success story for MTO in improving its projects, while still reducing costs whenever possible, thanks to its early adopters such as Ted Lane. Road Talk wishes to commend him for his leadership and congratulate him for all his accomplishments.