Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood To Headline Transportation Awards Banquet

OAKLAND, Calif., May 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood will formally launch a joint Department of Transportation (USDOT)/Women's Transportation Seminar (WTS) initiative known as Transportation YOU during his headline appearance at WTS's Annual Conference Awards Banquet on Thursday, May 19, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel at 5 Embarcadero Center in San Francisco. Transportation YOU — a science, technology, engineering and mathematics program designed to encourage young women to enter transportation-related fields — will provide girls ages 13 to 18 an introduction to a wide variety of transportation careers.

The awards banquet is being held in conjunction with WTS's Annual Conference, which begins today and continues through Friday, May 20. The conference is a forum for the exploration of technical, policy, financial and political aspects of emerging transportation issues. Guest speakers include former Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) Deputy Executive Director Therese W. McMillan, who now serves as Deputy Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration; journalist Laura Ling; and Radhika Fox, federal policy director for PolicyLink.

WTS each year recognizes members, women, and employers who embody the organization's pursuit of transportation excellence. Karen Rae, Deputy Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, will be honored as this year's WTS Woman of the Year. The Member of the Year award will be presented to Jessica L. Slaton of the Pasadena, Calif.-based Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc. The USDOT's John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, Mass., will be recognized as the WTS' Employer of the Year, and the organization's Rosa Parks Diversity Leadership Award will be presented to SoundTransit of Washington state.

WTS is an international organization with over 4,100 members dedicated to the professional advancement of women in transportation.  WTS has monthly programs on a variety of transportation issues, as well as a career center and leadership training program. It also provides scholarships to assist young women who aspire to professional careers in transportation. This year's WTS scholarship recipients include Mahdieh Allahviranloo, who is pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of California, Irvine; Esther Kagure Wamunyu, who is enrolled in a dual-degree undergraduate program at Morris College and North Carolina State University; Sarah Morris, a senior at Jacksonville University in Florida; and Josephine D. Kressner, who is pursuing a Ph.D. at the Georgia Institute of Technology. More information about WTS is available at www.wtsinternational.org.

MTC is the transportation planning and financing agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.

SOURCE Metropolitan Transportation Commission