On September 23, 2026, the Board of Directors of the Eno Center for Transportation announced that John Drake has been appointed as President and Chief Executive Officer of Eno. Here is a brief on-boarding interview with Drake, conducted by ETW on September 24.

ETW: In terms of a quick background – how did you get into transportation, and what has your work on Capitol Hill, the Administration, and the private sector taught you about how to get things done?

Drake: I came to transportation by childhood – I remember my grandfather showing me that the crops he grew on his farm in Kansas had to be loaded on a railroad there and taken to market in order for him to make money – it gave me a direct understanding that transportation really mattered and played a role in the lives of everyday Americans. I eventually came to DC and got a more sophisticated understanding – working for Jim Costa (D-CA) on railroad issues led me to the staff of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee under chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN), working under Jennifer Esposito (now Jennifer Homendy) on the big railroad safety bill.

I later moved to the Senate Commerce Committee under chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and focused more on freight policy – but also I learned a lot about how the Senate point of view (on policy and on how coalitions and interests are structured) differed from the House, and about explaining why policy worked. I later went to the U.S. Department of Transportation where my love of policy really exploded because there was so much more going on. What had been discussed on the Hill in broad strokes had to be implemented a micro level, and I had access to all the policy experts and felt like a kid in a candy store. I was fortunate to have mentors there like Anne Ferro at FMCSA and John Porcari in the Office of the Secretary to show me how big organizations work and how policy is hashed out within them.

And then at Amazon and most recently the Chamber, seeing how government policies impact private sector and their concerns, and how they can express those concerns back to government, has been fulfilling.

ETW: What attracted you to Eno?

Drake: My first experience started when you were writing Transportation Weekly on your own and I was on the staff of the House Railroad Subcommittee and [my immediate boss] Jen was on maternity leave and I was preparing to introduce the big passenger rail bill [PRIIA] in May 2008 and everyone in my circle read TW, and before the bill was introduced you scooped me. Later on you went to Eno and I started to see all the thoughtful policy analysis that Eno produced, and that was a constant through my Congressional career and then at DOT, but it was when I got to the Chamber and we were supporting Eno work on a more fundamental level that I really started to appreciate Eno as an institution, particularly the professional development programs.

ETW: What do you hope to accomplish at Eno?

Drake: I am excited to help leverage the community of expertise and knowhow within Eno’s staff and boards and the entirety of Eno community to help policy makers be asking the right questions for most pressing challenges before us. It’s an exciting time to be in transportation – there is a real opportunity to address Highway Trust Fund solvency, and while there is a lot of new technology that has moved from science fiction to reality (AVs, drones), we also have 19^th century technology like shipbuilding at the forefront of policy debates.

Eno plays a role that not a lot of other organizations in this town can play. We want to help policymakers reestablish the connection between roles and needs. There are overarching themes like national security (not just shipbuilding, but competition with China in general), and fiscal responsibility (which starts with the Highway Trust Fund because that feeds directly into the coming Social Security Trust Fund solvency debate). And I cannot overemphasize the need to invest in future leaders, not just in transportation policy but in the workforce as a whole.