The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials recently renewed a memorandum of understanding or MOU for two years with the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials; building off an MOU originally established between the two organizations in May 2021.
[Above photo by AASHTO]
The MOU stresses that AASHTO and COMTO share “the common objective” of ensuring transportation is safe, accessible, and resilient in service to communities across the United States.
Through this MOU, AASHTO and COMTO agreed to continue strengthening their collaboration and sharing best practices in effective transportation decision-making, building stakeholder engagement, improving workforce resilience, and fostering a culture of safety.
COMTO is a multimodal association advancing leadership, access, and mobility solutions for transportation agencies, practitioners, and small businesses across North America; connecting stakeholders and championing best practices that bridge the gap between transportation systems and the communities they serve.
AASHTO and COMTO developed this MOU together to build upon their shared commitment to advancing innovation, collaboration, and leadership development across the transportation sector – ensuring that the nation’s transportation systems continue to serve its people effectively, noted Jim Tymon, AASHTO’s executive director.
“We want this MOU to be more than just words on a piece of paper,” he said during the signing event. “We want to identify opportunities for collaboration and we want to work to increase the number of states and the number of state department of transportation staff that participate in COMTO.”
Tymon also participated in a panel discussion at the signing event that explored avenues for strengthening the relationship between AASHTO, states, and COMTO, as well as ways to attract more minorities into the transportation sector.
That panel included Garrett Eucalitto, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Transportation, who is the immediate past president of AASHTO and currently serves as chair of the AASHTO Council on Public Transportation; Sharon Kershbaum, director of the District of Columbia’s Department of Transportation; and Veronica Perry McBeth, director of the Baltimore City Department of Transportation.
Through the MOU, AASHTO and COMTO agree to:
- Promote and facilitate a peer exchange of information through conferences, meetings, webinars or other events;
- Encourage participation of their respective members in each other’s activities at a national and local level;
- Maintain regular consultation between the leadership of the two associations;
- With leadership approvals, serve as a friend to each other’s appropriate committees; and
- Explore additional collaborative initiatives as agreed upon periodically.
Each organization will be solely responsible for the administration and expenditure of its own resources associated with activities conducted under this MOU, AASHTO and COMTO stressed.
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