Secretary Anthony R. Foxx
Remarks at COMTO’s Celebrating Women Who Move the Nation Awards
Washington, DC • March 16, 2016
Remarks as prepared for delivery
Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Mioshi, for that introduction.
And thank you for the important work that you and all the folks at COMTO do each and every day to level the playing field by building new opportunities for minority individuals, businesses, and communities to enter and engage our nation’s transportation sector.
It’s great to be with you all as we celebrate National Women’s History month.
Now, as Secretary of Transportation, I’m lucky to have the opportunity to work alongside some of the brightest minds in transportation on a daily basis.
But I also have a couple of additional informal advisors at home: my two children. And let me tell you, my eleven-year old daughter especially isn’t shy about sharing her list of priorities with me – things she would do if she had my job.
But hearing her thoughts, or deep concerns as it sometimes is, is also a small reminder of what we know at the U.S. Department of Transportation: that there are many young girls who dream of a job in transportation.
They dream of learning to fly, building the next great American bridge, or producing some of the emerging technologies that are allowing us to further develop driverless vehicles or vehicle-to-vehicle capabilities.
So, as the father of a young daughter with big dreams, I’m especially proud to be joining you here today as we honor 14 of the most outstanding leaders in our nation’s transportation sector.
These women serve as an inspiration to a generation of young women who want to be engaged and involved in our nation’s transportation sector. And they are doing some truly transformative work – leading the charge to innovate and improve our transportation system across the board.
They are running citywide and regional transportation organizations, working to ensure that our nation’s communities are prepared to face the transportation challenges of the near future.
They are motivating positive change at the statewide level, overseeing complex systems that get millions of Americans from place to place on a daily basis.
They are coordinating private sector efforts to improve our transportation system across the country.
And they are leading national organizations that are working vigorously to advance our top priority of keeping all American travelers safe.
And allow me to give a special shout out in particular to our Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Engagement, Bryna Helfer.
For five and a half years now, Bryna has been energetically advancing the top priorities of the Department by coordinating with our thousands and thousands of stakeholders across the country.
Bryna remains a tireless advocate for making our transportation safer, resilient, and more inclusive – we are incredibly lucky to have her on our team.
So, I am proud of all of the talented leaders that we are honoring today. And at the U.S. DOT, we remain proud of all of the significant accomplishments that women continue to make each and every day when it comes to maintain and improving American’s transportation sector.
But, the reality is we still have a lot of work to do. The Department of Labor reported last month that women make up just over 20 percent of the transportation workforce. That’s right: women hold less than a quarter of the positions in our transportation sector.
The number is even smaller when we consider specific portions of the industry, like railroad and highway construction, where only 10 percent and 11 percent of the workers are women respectively. So, we need to continue working to get more women involved in our nation’s transportation workforce.
Having all people represented is especially important in the context of creating a national transportation system that best represents the needs of all Americans. The fact of the matter is that our transportation system is only living up to its full potential when it is built of, by, and for the people that it serves.
And when certain voices are left out of the conversation, we are left with a system that does not reflect the needs or best interests of all those that it is supposed to serve.
I’ll be expanding on this notion and talking about the intersection of transportation and opportunity more in the coming weeks.
But suffice it to say that we need to be asking all of our leaders – Federal, State, and local – to continue working to include a diverse group of folks in order to plan systems that best represent the needs of all people living in a particular community.
We at the Department of Transportation are already working to do that, especially when it comes to extending further opportunities for women.
Our Department’s Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, or OSDBU as we call it, runs a Women and Girls in Transportation Initiative that is giving young women a chance to explore their passion for transportation.
This internship program enables female students from colleges and universities across the country to learn more about the exciting careers that the transportation sector has to offer, while also preparing them to become the leaders of tomorrow.
I’m proud to say that this program has supported over 300 internships nationwide since it was launched in 2009.
U.S. DOT’s OSDBU also continues to make it easier for women to access transportation jobs by giving women-owned firms a shot at building this country’s infrastructure. In 2014, we awarded more than $218 million to women-owned businesses.
We continue to partner with WTS International to offer Transportation YOU, a program that gives young women ages of 13 and 18 the opportunity to explore careers from air traffic controlling to running DOT’s Crisis Management Center.
Hundreds of young women have taken part in the program since its inception in 2010.
And our Department remains committed to building Ladders of Opportunity, supporting transportation projects and programs that expand access to opportunity for individuals and communities alike.
A critical element of Ladders is increasing access to opportunity for women- and minority-owned businesses in highway, transit and airport contracting through our Disadvantaged Business Enterprise, or DBE, program.
As Secretary, the DBE program is one of my top priorities. And I’ve instructed my team to enforce this program to the maximum degree.
So, DOT’s Office of Civil Rights and our modes have stepped up enforcement, outreach and technical assistance.
And I’m proud to say that we eliminated a backlog in certification appeals and are making great progress in expanding opportunities for women-owned businesses competing for transportation projects across the country.
So, our Department is working hard to level the playing field so that we have more female leaders in transportation.
But, like COMTO, we know it’s important to take some time to celebrate the brilliant contributions that women are making each and every day.
So yesterday, as part of our year-long celebration of U.S. DOT’s 50th birthday, we invited women across the Department to participate in an event at the White House hosted in conjunction with the White House Council on Women and Girls.
The forum provided an opportunity for DOT employees to hear directly from senior women at the Department and other transportation leaders, including some of today’s awardees, about career challenges and opportunities in the transportation industry.
But we also had the chance to celebrate the incredible accomplishments that the women of our Department have made over the last half century.
As I said earlier, we still have a long way to go before every young girl dreaming of a career in transportation can easily access that opportunity.
But organizations like COMTO are showing us the way to make things right. And I urge all of you in this room to continue supporting them in their noble mission, so that going forward women have a fair shot when it comes to pursuing a career in transportation.
Thank you all. Keep up the great work. And congratulations once again to the 14 awardees.
###