Two former secretaries of transportation speak at ITS America San Jose

Not one, but two former US Secretaries of Transportation will be on stage during keynote addresses tomorrow and Wednesday to talk about their leadership during critical times in recent history.

Norman Y. Mineta gave the unprecedented order to ground all civilian air traffic- -more than 4,500 planes- -on September 11, 2001 following the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania. Four years later, he managed transportation for the civil response following Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in US history.

As secretary from 1997 to 2001 Rodney E. Slater helped usher the Department of Transportation into the digital age and was instrumental in securing record federal investment in transportation. He was responsible for getting the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century passed.

A former mayor of host city San Jose, Mineta will be on stage for the Tuesday keynote featuring Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. Slater will speak at the Wednesday keynote with Frank P. DiGiammarino II, a member of the leadership team of the worldwide public sector at Amazon Web Services in US state and local government.