Kaitlyn Bedwell serves as the senior research associate for the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) and director of operations for the Dock to Door (D2D) Coalition. Launched in 2023, D2D connects dots across 95+ diverse actors in workforce development, industry needs, and emerging technology, with the mission of improving the supply chain ecosystem for a more resilient and efficient future. Bedwell is a proud two-time Virginia Tech Hokie, with a bachelor’s degree in international development and French and a master’s in public policy and administration. Her career path began with a global focus, shaped by hands-on research and fieldwork in Sri Lanka, Morocco, and Turkey. That work centered on community-based employment initiatives for women and developing mobile technology tools to improve safety and access. Those early experiences sparked her passion for “ecosystems thinking,” where she learned how to spin connective webs between people, policy, and technologies. Her policy background allowed her to begin her work domestically at VTTI, where she started her career in automated vehicle policy work related to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. She fell in love with transportation safety research, from track testing on the VTTI Smart Road, to performing three years of cannabis driving impairment research in Washington state and helping launch the new Supply Chain, Transportation, Automation, and Resource Sustainability initiative team within VTTI.

1. What is your favorite part of your role at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute?

Hands down, it’s being in a place where innovation meets action. At VTTI, I get to watch cutting edge research move out of the lab and into real vehicles, real policy, and real communities. Every day brings new conversations with industry and community partners, which helps shape practical, forward-looking solutions. I also love the culture. Each of us is given the space to be creative, to launch, and to watch something new and innovative take hold and transform. There’s room to experiment, improve, and rethink what’s possible, all while keeping our mission front and center: saving lives and strengthening transportation systems. No two days ever look the same and not every lead may be a good one, but it’s a continual improvement process with the best teams surrounding you for support and challenging you to reach the highest standard of research integrity.

2. What inspired your GO Virginia Region 2 project?

This project started with listening — and we heard our partners loud and clear. Across the Dock to Door Coalition, industry leaders and educators emphasized the urgency of preparing today’s workforce for Automated, Connected, and Electrified technologies. Advanced manufacturing is evolving fast, and that evolution impacts everything from vehicle inspection and safety certifications to how freight moves across the supply chain.

At the same time, community partners stressed the importance of keeping talent local, strengthening rural economies, and creating clearer pathways from education to employment. There was strong interest in practical, flexible options — apprenticeships, short term micro-credentials, and earn while you learn programs that allow people to build skills without stepping completely out of the workforce. This planning grant gives us the opportunity to align those needs and take a strategic first step toward building a future ready D2D Pathways Program that supports the growing Electric and Autonomous Vehicle (EV/AV) landscape in Pulaski, Montgomery, and Roanoke counties and hopefully throughout the commonwealth. 

3. What is the long-term vision for the project, looking 5-10 years into the future?

The long-term vision is bold, connected, and highly adaptable. In five to ten years, we see a fully realized D2D Pathways Program that strengthens cross sector collaboration across industries. Various industries may look different on the surface, but in most cases, they share a common foundation of transferable, systems engineering skills. Whether it’s aerospace, automotive and advanced manufacturing, software development, vehicle testing, or biotech manufacturing, these sectors rely on overlapping competencies. We will tease out those competencies through career lattices at the planning stage of this project.

By focusing on those shared skill sets, the program can help mid-level workers move laterally between industries, or even pivot careers entirely, with the right rapid upskilling and stackable micro-credentials. That flexibility is key for longevity of career progression within one region. Ultimately, this is about creating visible, attainable career mobility while better aligning this region’s incredible assets such as its colleges, employers, research institutions, and innovators into a cohesive, future ready workforce ecosystem.

4. What are you looking forward to learning or doing as you continue work on this project?

I’m most excited about uncovering opportunities to connect and amplify what’s already working in the region. As the project unfolds, our findings can help fine tune early STEM exposure, strengthen education to industry pipelines, and support smarter business attraction and retention efforts. It’s energizing work because it blends listening, research, and action. Turning insight into pathways that truly work for people and employers will be the greatest reward. Learning business attraction and retention needs will also help further inform the work of Dock to Door Coalition as we continue to position the commonwealth as the preferred place of business and future national implementation model for efficiency throughout the supply chain. This pathways program amplifies our partnership work in other program areas such as infrastructure improvement, energy efficient freight technologies, the EV STEM high school talent pipeline, data sharing platform technologies for improved logistics visibility for workforce efficiency, and more. 

5. Who are the partners you are working with on this project, and what do you like most about working with them?

This project brings together an incredible mix of partners across industry, higher education, workforce development, nonprofits, and government. Nearly our full partner base will be engaged in the project. While many are across the nation, this brings the opportunity to implement national learnings and successes in our own backyard. These partners are hungry for advancing the workforce of the future and their dedication to this coalition allows for candid discussions with industry around skill needs, participation from educators eager to innovate their existing programs, and frontline insights from workforce organizations about what’s working and what’s not. This is the level of collaboration that I believe creates the most momentum.

Key collaborators to the project are regional educators such as Virginia Western Community College, Virginia Tech, Radford University, and New River Community College; regional employers such as TORC and Volvo; and localities and economic developers such as New River Mount Rogers Workforce Development Board, Virginia’s AM2 Hub, Roanoke Blacksburg Innovation Alliance, Pulaski County, Montgomery County, and Roanoke County. 

6. What hobbies and activities do you like to do in your spare time?

Outside of work, I love kayak fishing on the New River with my husband, experimenting with sourdough starter recipes, and keeping up with our energetic one-and-a-half-year-old, miss Gracie Quinn. I love the mountains of the New River Valley, but I’m a Virginia Beach area native and oceanside often calls me back. We’re big fans of RV adventures with our border collie and calico cat and chasing live music events around the state with friends whenever we can.