CITT News

After dedicating 19 years to the Center for International Trade and Transportation (CITT), our beloved CITT/METRANS Project Coordinator Alix Traver retired on November 30, 2021. Traver initially joined the Center in 2002 as a part-time event coordinator to organize the CITT Town Hall. Her position quickly expanded and blossomed into a full-time role as METRANS Administrator at CSULB. After planning and executing the first-ever International Urban Freight (I-NUF) Conference, Traver gained a strong reputation as a detail-oriented event coordinator who was able to create a welcoming environment and unique experience for participants. Through her dedication and hard work, the subsequent Town Hall meetings and I-NUF conferences became a highly anticipated tradition for attendees from industry, government, and academia. In addition to her event coordination prowess, Traver contributed to the Center’s incredible growth by wearing a myriad of hats. She provided support across a variety of tasks—outreach, digital content development, and finance—by serving as editor of CITT’s Building Bridges newsletter, managing the digital content of the METRANS website, and submitting budgets and payroll.

Traver highlighted the I-NUF conference as one of the “super joys” of her time at CITT. Every conference gave her the opportunity to continue improving and streamlining the next biennial I-NUF. “Each I-NUF event has been a proud achievement,” Traver proclaimed. “I doubt that any other conference does what we do with such a limited staff—and at the level we do.” Working on events like I-NUF required dedication, sweat, and tears, but coordinating events was one of the things that Traver said she would greatly miss. According to Traver, event coordination played such a large role in her life that every event she attended inspired her to even greater heights in optimizing the events she planned. The intrinsic love for her job is why Traver started considering retirement about a year prior, but stayed with CITT until the time felt right. Traver’s departure was a bittersweet goodbye for CITT, and finding someone to fill in her shoes will be a daunting task. 

Traver credited the collaborative culture and relationships among the staff, student research assistants, and the Center’s contractors as the secret to success in pulling off an outstanding conference. “The whole CITT team... Everyone just jumps in and helps,” Traver said. Everyone from the staff to the RAs are all-hands-on deck for the Town Hall and I-NUF, from setting up, working the check-in tables, and physically transporting the equipment and gear. Her secret weapon as an event coordinator: graphic designer Dann Froehlich, who has created the many memorable images that reflected the theme of each event. “Working with Dann Froehlich,” Traver notes, “he’s absolutely the best you could ever work with (for graphic design). Ask him to do something, he gets it. Sometimes you can just give him a concept and he can put together something, so he’s been a true blessing.” 

The memories that most stand out from her long tenure at CITT include her time working with the student research assistants. Another one of Traver’s favorite things about CITT was the opportunity to develop deep personal and lasting relationships with the staff and student research assistants. “I’ve had a chance to get to see them grow and go off into other industries and prosper,” she said, “it has been amazing.” She mentioned meeting and getting to know RAs, past and present, as one of the most rewarding aspects of her time at CITT.

Traver noted how quickly these 19 years at CITT had passed and how ready she was for the next chapter to begin. When asked what she was most looking forward to in her retirement, Traver said she planned to sleep in, focus on projects at home (like personal organization), start a small business to provide proofreading to authors (she already has one client!), and spend more time with her grandkids and granddogs. She loved being part of CITT, watching and helping it grow, as well as the opportunity it gave her to meet and get to know a lot of fascinating people from all over the world. Her last words in closing this long chapter of her life were, “Thank you for letting me do what I love.”