MTI Trustee and Executive Director to be Honored at COMTO Awards

Both U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx and Retired Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta will attend the COMTO awards breakfast this coming Wednesday along with nearly 500 others to celebrate “Women Who Move the Nation” as part of Women’s History Month.

Secretary Mineta is also the founder of the Mineta Transportation Institute; two of its key team members will be presented the annual award, COMTO’s highest – along with 12 other women who represent excellence in addressing transportation issues across a number of modes. This year’s honorees will include the General Manager of San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), Grace Crunican, who serves as Vice Chair of the Mineta Transportation Institute Board of Trustees. Also singled out this year will be Dr. Karen E. Philbrick, the Executive Director of the Mineta Transportation Institute.

Secretary (ret) Mineta remarked, “These two profoundly capable women are quintessential role models for the next generation of transportation leaders upon whom the burden of designing, building, and managing our transportation system will soon rest.”

Secretary Foxx will speak at the event, to be held on Wednesday, March 16, 2016 between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. at the J.W. Marriott Hotel at 1331 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, in Washington, D.C. There will be a fireside chat among the honorees, moderated by Angela Rye, who is Principal and CEO of IMPACT Strategies and a regular commentator on CNN, MSNBC, and BET.

Mioshi Moses, COMTO’s president, explains that, “COMTO is delighted to recognize 14 exceptional women who lead in the transportation industry and move the nation. Each of these women represent not only a variety of modes in transportation, they also reflect America’s great diversity.”

The Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO) is a multi-modal advocacy organization for minority professionals and businesses in the transportation industry, and has been presenting outstanding women in the field the “Women Who Move the Nation” award for the past five years. In all, 62 extraordinary women have had their work recognized by COMTO in this way.

The nearly 500 attendees who are expected at the celebratory breakfast represent all sectors of the transportation industry, including government and private firms.

Says MTI Emeritus executive director Rod Diridon, “COMTO must be complemented on selecting a top operating system general manager and a top transportation research institute general manager as ‘women who move the nation’; thereby recognizing the importance of both operational excellence and academic research in creating the national transportation systems of the future”.