| U. S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx is slated to deliver the spring 2016 commencement address for North Carolina A&T State University on Saturday, May 14. The ceremony will begin with the processional at 8:30 a.m. in the Greensboro Coliseum.
The Charlotte, North Carolina native was sworn in as the 17th U.S. Secretary of Transportation on July 2, 2013. Foxx leads more than 55,000 employees in air, maritime and surface transportation with a budget exceeding $70 billion.
Since Foxx’s appointment he has systematically shifted the focus of the department toward the future needs of the country’s overall transportation efforts and infrastructure. By releasing “Beyond Traffic,” an in-depth report examining the challenges facing the state of America’s transportation efforts through the next three decades, he was able to secure a 5-year, bipartisan surface reauthorization bill from Congress. The bill provides local governments the necessary funding to plan critical investments in transportation.
In addition, he has been a champion of developing and implementing innovative processes to help solve some of the nation’s complex issues and forecasted transportation challenges. Foxx maintains the new measures and technological concepts will further ensure safer transportation across every mode and medium, which remains the department’s top priority.
A great deal of Foxx’s work as a public servant has included him rallying behind the importance and economic boosting power of strategic transportation investments. As mayor of Charlotte, he initiated major transportation processes and upgrades that significantly benefitted Charlotte’s job creation and economy including extending the LYNX light rail system, the largest capital project ever undertaken by the city; expanding Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, the sixth busiest airport in the world; working with then- Governor Beverly Perdue to accelerate the I-485 outer belt loop; and starting the Charlotte Streetcar project.
A graduate of New York University’s School of Law as a Root-Tilden Scholar, Foxx spent many years of his career as a private practice attorney as well as a trial attorney for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and staff counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary. |
