Infrastructure professionals simultaneously participated in a Booz Allen Hamilton ”wargame” simulation from locations in Washington, Chicago and Orlando, Fla. this week to interactively propose and execute potential initiatives and solutions to long-term U.S. transportation issues.
Executive Vice President Mark Gerencser, who leads Booz Allen’s global commercial business, led the simulation, which featured civic, government and industry professionals working on teams representing the financial sector and federal government institutions.
The goal of the teams was to form and explore the power of “megacommunities,” where private, public and civic sector leaders work together to leverage their unique resources to develop unparalleled solutions.
Gerencser has previously led Booz Allen’s efforts to solve infrastructure, transportation, energy and environment issues and strongly advocates that these leaders must unite to solve the world’s most pressing problems in his book of the same title, “Megacommunities.“
Mark Gerencser
“Booz Allen has been working for more than two years to engage stakeholders, conduct research, and inspire the re-imagining of America’s infrastructure”… working towards creating the “lasting connections between government and private leaders for the decisive, unified action needed to achieve them.”
“To meet our nation’s infrastructure challenges by the year 2040, we need bold ideas that do more than just repair or replace failing infrastructure, but completely re-imagines it for a new generation,” said Gerencser.
The simulation factored in the country’s transportation needs in 2040 and featured interactive macroeconomic models of the simulated proposals’ effects on regional and national economic output, jobs, infrastructure capacity and the environment.
The simulation focused on finding sustainable and scalable infrastructure solutions through new business models, alternative financing methods and innovative technologies.
Some solutions included:
- Regional high-speed rail networks
- Automated offshort “super-ports”
- Freight-only airports, highways and shipping corridors
- Rapidly moving freight containers via elevated systems
- “Smart” tunnel enhancements
Booz Allen called the ‘wargame’ simulation the ‘first-ever’ wargame examining such infrastructure solutions, but it is a practice that the firm regularly employs.
Company veterans Mark Herman, Mark Frost and Robert Kurz penned “Wargaming for Leaders: Strategic Decision Making From the Battlefield to the Boardroom,” exploring the impact and potential of the company’s history of crafting wargames for everything from national security to energy to the spread of HIV/Aids.
