Two names added to list of possible DOT secretary candidates

GOV. Kathleen Sebelius

The Trucker Staff

11/21/2008

WASHINGTON — Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt have been added to the list of whom might become the Secretary of Transportation in the Obama Administration, according to the Associated Press.

Two others on the list published Friday have been previously reported as possible candidates — former Deputy Transportation Secretary Mortimer Downey and Jane Garvey, the former head of the Federal Aviation Administration and currently a member of the Obama transition team.

Gephardt served as a congressman from Missouri from 1977-2005.

Since his retirement from politics, he has been working as a senior counsel at the global law firm DLA Piper and is a consultant for Goldman Sachs.

Sebelius was first elected governor in November 2002 and re-elected in 2006.

She was preceded by former Gov. Bill Graves, who is now president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations.

Downey, a DOT deputy secretary in the Clinton administration. Downey’s duties included pushing a Clinton initiative to permit states to toll interstate highways.

Downey currently is chairman of PB Consult Inc., a firm which specializes in putting together public-private partnerships for transportation projects. He also has served as chairman of the Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors, and is part of a three-man independent review panel charged with evaluating the DOT’s ongoing NAFTA trucking demonstration program with Mexico.

Garvey currently is on the board at The MITRE Corp., a not-for-profit organization chartered to work in the public interest, where she is an executive vice president and chairman of APCO's transportation practice, working with clients on issues and opportunities affecting the changing transportation industry.

The Trucker staff can be reached to comment on this article at editor@thetrucker.com