Douglas, Shirley L.

Shirley Laverne Douglas passed away on Monday, June 27, 2022, at her home in Gary, Indiana. Shirley was born December 6, 1948, the second of 4 children to the late Earnest Forest Douglas and Waltee Douglas. Her great grandmother, the late Alma Keys, took care of her, her brother, and her sister

and 18 years later her youngest brother while her mother and father were at work.

She accepted Christ at an early age at St. John Baptist Church. She graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1966. As a senior at Roosevelt, she spent a summer in San Luis Potosí, Mexico through a dual program sponsored by Indiana University for high school students. The trip involved exploring nearby cities and towns all summer, while staying with a local family. She had a similar experience while an undergraduate at Oberlin College in Ohio, when she was able to spend the summer in France. These experiences sparked her lifelong interest in travel and finding ways to be immersed in the culture and language of different countries. She graduated from

Oberlin with a degree in Government. Afterwards, since she always wanted to go to California, she moved there to attend UC Berkeley and earned a master’s degree in city and regional planning.

As she continued working on her career, she started specializing more specifically in transportation and more broadly in city planning. She started working for the City of Oakland, California’s Housing and Community Development Program. She later became a project manager working at Bechtel Corporation on a transportation project on the West Coast.

Working on new projects got her interested in marketing and business development, which took her to New York for additional specialized opportunities. There were lots of transportation projects in her career. Over the years she spent time on projects in Atlanta and then Los Angeles. She retired from Bechtel about twenty-five years ago.

After retiring from Bechtel, Shirley worked as Manager, Community Relations, at San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA). After retiring from WETA, she started her own consulting firm, Douglas Consulting, before finally “retiring”-retiring. She remained active in The Conference of Minority Transportation Officials, (COMTO) and volunteered with the Oakland Museum of California. In March of 2021, she moved back home to Gary, Indiana due to her illness.

With her love of travel, Shirley traveled throughout her career. She kept studying languages so she could travel and use her skills in the countries she visited. She visited numerous countries and collected artwork from many of them. Her home in Gary was not large enough to display it all. She also did a lot of activities outside of traveling like taking classes that allowed her to immerse herself in new cultures while meeting new people. She went to art appreciation classes, whether she was able to travel or not. Her goal was to never put things off, so she made many trips whether she had someone to travel with or not.

Shirley also had a goal of doing daily exercises including running and doing different races like half-marathons and marathons. She was always involved in maintaining her health.

Shirley believed in setting goals and serving as a role model. Once she reached a certain place in her career she tried to give back and help other people who had similar goals. She was involved in several

organizations that tried to help people. One of these organization, COMTO, recently came back to her to voice their appreciation for her involvement in mentoring young people interested in transportation. They presented her with a lifetime achievement award in November last year.

Shirley leaves to cherish her memory, her mother Waltee Douglas, her sister Gwenetta Douglas, her brothers Lawrence and Ernest Douglas, and many friends and relatives. Public visitation will be held Saturday, July 16th at 2:00 p.m., with a memorial service following at 2:30 p.m. at Smith, Bizzell and Warner Funeral Home, 4209 Grant St., Gary, IN 46408.

Services will be livestreamed under her obituary at www.smithbizzellwarnerfuneralhome.com,