The COVID-19 pandemic hammered state and municipal budgets across the United States. A recent analysis by the National League of Cities found that nearly two-thirds of localities ether paused or halted some capital expenditures and infrastructure projects like roads, bridges, and public transit. Some public transit agencies are beginning to plan for service reductions. At the same time, infrastructure spending is also considered a key stimulus tool to right the struggling economy, through needed investments and jobs.
Co-hosted with the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, this webinar will discuss new approaches to understanding and addressing the challenges the public health crisis and economic recession bring to transportation funding and planning.
Speakers:
Rodney Slater, Partner, Squire Patton Boggs; Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation
Joshua Schank, Chief Innovation Officer, Los Angeles County Metro
Alan Pisarski, Independent Consultant
Jeffrey Reed, President and CEO, Basic Resources, Inc. and VSS International; Board of Directors Chair, Association of Equipment Manufacturers
Robert Puentes, President and CEO, Eno Center for Transportation
Download the Slides
Watch the Recording:
Rodney Slater is a Partner in the Washington, DC law firm of Squire Patton Boggs, and former Secretary of Transportation in the Clinton Administration. Prior to becoming Secretary, Mr. Slater was head of the Federal Highway Administration, and was the first African-American Administrator in the agency’s century-long history. He held several positions in Arkansas, including Director of Government Relations at Arkansas State University; Executive Assistant for Economic and Community Programs for then-Governor Bill Clinton; the Governor’s Special Assistant for Community and Minority Affairs; Assistant Attorney General-Litigation Division of the Arkansas State Attorney General’s Office; and Secretary-Treasurer of the Arkansas Bar Association. He was also liaison for the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday Commission. From 1987 to 1992, Mr. Slater was a member of the Arkansas State Highway Commission, serving as its chairman, before joining the Clinton-Gore Administration. Mr. Slater is from Arkansas and currently resides in Washington, DC.
Joshua Schank is the first-ever Chief Innovation Officer for the Los Angeles County Metro and former President and CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation. Dr. Schank, who is an urban planner, has worked on federal and state transportation policy over a decade. Dr. Schank was Transportation Policy Advisor to Senator Hillary Clinton during the development of the last six year transportation authorization bill (SAFETEA-LU). He has also worked as a Consultant with PB Consult and Senior Associate at ICF International in Washington, D.C., as well as the Office of the Inspector General’s in the U.S. Department of Transportation, and with the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City.
Alan Pisarski, an expert on U.S. commuting patterns, is a consultant on travel behavior, transport policy, and data development and analysis. Best known for his Commuting in America series, which began in 1985, Mr. Pisarski has worked for 35 years as an independent analyst and consultant, advising the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), the U.S. Census Bureau, federal agencies and commissions, and private associations. A former senior staff member at USDOT, he has been involved as a lead author or advisor on the national transportation studies conducted periodically by USDOT, and he has assisted the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in preparing investment recommendations in a series of “bottom-line” reports to Congress. He has testified before both houses of Congress on many occasions, represented the United States on international agency groups, and served as a consultant to a number of international organizations.
Jeffrey Reed is President/CEO of Basic Resources, Inc. and VSS International based in West Sacramento, California. He has been involved in the asphalt pavement and maintenance industry for three decades, delivering over 40 presentations and papers and also holds three patents in this field.
Jeff is a graduate of Gonzaga University in Washington, with both a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration.
He is currently a member of Gonzaga’s Engineering Advisory Board and their Board of Regents.
He joined Valley Slurry Seal Company shortly after its purchase and has been president since 1978. At that time VSS was strictly a Northern California slurry seal contracting company. Since then the company has added four commercial emulsion plants in California and Oregon and is a major slurry microsurfacing machine and emulsion plant manufacturer, doing contracting and technology transfer in the 11 western states and 30 countries around the world. Valley’s Macropaver and Minimac slurry machines, asphalt rubber equipment and Emultech emulsion plants are in use throughout the world.
Basic Resources, based in Modesto, CA, is the holding company owner of VSS International, George Reed, Inc. and seven other contracting and manufacturing firms based in the western U.S., with 750 employees doing $250 million a year.
Jeff is a past president of the International Slurry Surfacing Association, Asphalt Emulsion Manufacturers Association and the Rubber Pavements Association. He is currently Vice Chairman of the International Road Federation and past Chairman of California Asphalt Pavement Association and sits on the Board of Directors of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers.
In his personal time he is active in Boy Scouts serving as a Vice President of Area 3 Western Region of the Boy Scouts of America.
