In December of 2004 Kevin S. Corbett accepted the position of Vice president, Corporate Development at DMJM+HARRIS, a subsidiary of AECOM, one of the world’s premier transportation and infrastructure company. Mr. Corbett is responsible for the strategic planning and redevelopment of the global marine and freight business for DMJM+HARRIS and the other AECOM subsidiaries.
Mr. Corbett also serves on a number of boards, including Empire State Development Corporation, the Convention Center Development Corporation, New York Power Authority Power Allocation Board, Regional Plan Association, and the Maritime Association of the Port of New York & New Jersey.
Before joining AECOM, Mr. Corbett had been the Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), having been appointed to this position in September of 1999. He was also appointed Executive Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Economic Development, the state agency responsible for economic development throughout the State of New York. As Chief Operating Officer and Executive Deputy Commissioner, Mr. Corbett was responsible for the day to day operations of the entire spectrum of New York State’s economic development programs and projects.
Previously, Mr. Corbett served as the Senior Vice President for Transportation and Infrastructure for ESDC where he was responsible for transportation policy and key infrastructure projects statewide. Formerly, he was the Executive Director for Port Authority Affairs at ESDC. In this position, Mr. Corbett oversaw the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on behalf of ESDC on all matters confronting the bi-state agency including port preservation, development and competitiveness.
Prior to ESDC, Mr. Corbett was a fellow at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Before his fellowship, Mr. Corbett spent 17 years in the maritime industry at Wilhelmsen Lines, Norway’s largest shipping line. During this period, Mr. Corbett spent six years in Asia, oversaw operations in Sub-Sahara Africa, and served as Chairman of the American-West Africa Freight Conference and Secretary of the Maritime Association of the Port of New York and New Jersey.
Mr Corbett earned his undergraduate of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and has a farm in Mendham, NJ.
John C. Falcocchio is co-founder of Urbitran Associates, Inc., a leading national consulting engineering firm, and currently serves as Chairman of the Board. His expertise in transportation results from his many years as a professor and researcher, and as a planning and transportation engineering consultant. His focus has been on the development, performance evaluation and practice-driven implementation strategies of innovative solutions to challenging urban transportation problems.
Dr. Falcocchio has participated and assumed leadership roles in a number of citywide committees and task forces, including NYC Community Planning Board 6 in Queens, a Midtown Task Force on Transportation, and various “kitchen cabinets” for the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council and the New York City Department of Transportation. He has facilitated and catalyzed the dialogue between the academic community and the federal, state, and city agencies by providing leadership and support to major inter-institutional consortia of universities and research institutions. Past positions include Chairman of the Board of the Federal Region 2 Urban Transportation Research Consortium (UTRC), Principal Investigator for the Polytechnic subcontract of the National Science Foundation sponsored Institute of Civil Infrastructure Systems (ICIS), and Board Member of the New York State DOT Transportation Infrastructure Research Consortium (TIRC).
Ronald Hartman is Executive Vice President of Yellow Transportation, the largest private passenger ground transportation company in the Baltimore-Washington area. As Vice President his responsibilities range from the overseeing of daily operations, to business development and marketing.
Before his work at Yellow Transportation, Mr. Hartman had over 20 years of management experience at the highest level of public and private transportation organizations. His past positions include Amtrak Vice President for Planning and Development, first Deputy Administrator and then General Manager for Baltimore’s Mass Transit Administration. He also has the distinction of having served an unusually long tenure at Maryland MTA (12 years). Under his guidance, MTA was awarded the Most Outstanding Public Agency of 1992 by an industry association and given the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Outstanding Service Award.
Mr. Hartman received his undergraduate degree from State University of New York at Stony Brook and his Master’s degree from George Washington University.
José Holguín-Veras, Ph.D. joined Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI ) as Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in July 2002. His research focuses on freight transportation modeling, transportation economics, intermodal transportation, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), transportation planning, and information technology.
Dr. Holguín-Veras’ past academic positions include Adjunct Professor of the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, Invited Lecturer of a number of Latin-American universities, Invited Professor at The California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and a faculty member at the City College of New York (1997-2002) where he was an Assistant Professor (1997-2001) and Associate Professor (2002). He has also been an invited panelist and guest speaker for several national and international transportation related forums.
His professional experience includes demand modeling and economic analyses of land use-transportation projects, economic analyses of more than three hundred transportation projects, ranging from rural roads to intermodal transportation projects, in a number of different countries, in more than 25 major transportation projects. He has served as a consultant for several international companies and financial institutions, including: The World Bank, The United Nations, The Inter-American Development Bank, Frederick Harris Inc., and Louis Berger.
Dr. Holguín-Veras received his B.S. in Civil Engineering, Magna Cum Laude, from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in 1981. He received his M.Sc. from the Universidad Central de Venezuela in 1984; and his Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin in 1996.
Christian Iaione is a Research Associate and Lecturer in Public and Administrative Law at the Dept. of Law and Economics at "La Sapienza" University of Rome (Italy), Business School; and Assistant Professor of administrative Law at "LUISS" University of Rome, School of Law. Christian Iaione holds a doctoral degree (2006) from "La Sapienza" University of Rome and a law degree (1999) from LUISS University of Rome. In 2000 he interned at the International Law Institute of Washington D.C. as a research associate and in 2001 he interned for the EU Commission in Brussels. In 2002 he joined "La Sapienza" University of Rome (Business School) and LUISS University of Rome (School of law) as a research fellow and lecturer of constitutional and administrative law. He was also in private practice in Rome and Milan from 2002-2005. For the academic year 2005-2006 he has been adjunct professor of land use law at the LUMSA University of Rome. In the academic year 2006-2007 he has been Emile Noël Fellow at NYU School of Law. He has published articles in the field of public and administrative law, urban planning and land use law, government contracts, public utilities and judicial review. He has taught administrative law and given seminars on urban planning and land use law.
Although he considers himself an administrative law scholar by training, his research bears a strong multi-disciplinarian influence, law and economics studies and democratic theory being his other main areas of expertise. His work also takes on a comparative perspective between the legal systems of the U.S. and the European legal systems. His "La Sapienza" Law School doctoral dissertation, titled "Autonomy and competition in local government" is an exercise in the convergence of the aforementioned areas, with an overall aim of formulating a critical analysis of mechanisms which foster competition among local governments in the context of highly decentralized countries. He plans to spend his time as visiting scholar at Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management working on a research project concerning innovative urban transportation regulations and policies.
Susan Kupferman is President of MTA Bridges and Tunnels, the world's largest toll organization in terms of its revenue and vehicle usage. As President, Ms. Kupferman oversees a workforce of nearly 2,000 employees engaged in the operation and maintenance of seven toll bridges and two tunnels in the City of New York. In this capacity she is responsible for managing a $400 million annual operating budget and a capital program that exceeds $1 billion.
Prior to her appointment as President, Ms. Kupferman served as Director of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Operations for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg where she was responsible for promoting the efficient and effective delivery of public services. Prior to her appointment by City government, she was the first full-time Co-Director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management. Before her Rudin Center position, Ms. Kupferman had a 20-year career in New York State government, serving in senior positions in a variety of transportation and infrastructure organizations. She holds a Master of Arts, with a concentration in transportation planning, as well as a Bachelor of Arts from the State University of New York at Albany.
Robert Paaswell, Ph.D. currently serves as Director of the federally supported University Transportation Research Center at the City College of New York. A consortium of 12 major U.S. academic institutions, the Center plays a significant role in the region and nationally, conducting research and projects on surface transportation, carrying out training and educational programs and actively disseminating the results of its work. Dr. Paaswell has been named Director of the City University Institute for Urban Systems, a major University-wide initiative to examine the intersection of new technology, changing institutional structure and innovative finance on the provision of infrastructure in the 21st century. He also serves as a Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering at CCNY.
Dr. Paaswell is extremely active in public transportation issues and consulting. He has reported on governance structures for U.S. transit organizations, public/private issues in New York and Chicago, and on labor union/management issues. Most recently he served as an advisor to the Israeli government concerning restructuring of their bus companies, and issues of competition. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of the Transit Standards Consortium - a new professional group addressing the problems of integration of high technology into public transit systems. Previously he served as Executive Director (CEO) of the Chicago Transit Authority, the nation's second largest transit company.
Anthony Perl, Ph.D. is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary where he teaches public policy and Canadian government. He received an undergraduate honours degree in Government from Harvard University, and MA and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Toronto.
Perl's research has crossed disciplinary and national boundaries to explore the organizational and political dynamics that influence transportation system performance and its implications for sustainable development. His research has been widely published in scholarly journals such as Transportation Research, Transportation Quarterly, World Transport Policy and Practice, Journal of Air Transport Management, Journal of Public Policy, Canadian Public Policy, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Canadian Journal of Political Science and Scientific American. He has received awards for outstanding papers presented at the World Conference on Transport Research in 1992 and the Canadian Transportation Research Forum in 2001.
He has also produced three books. The Politics of Improving Urban Air Quality, which he co-edited and co-authored was published in 1999 by Edward Elgar, U.K New Departures: Rethinking Rail Passenger Policy in the Twenty-First Century was published by the University Press of Kentucky in 2001. In 2003, the University of British Columbia Press released The Integrity Gap: Canada's Environmental Policy and Institutions, co-authored and co-edited by Perl.
Perl has advised governments in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, and the United States on transportation and environmental research and policy development. He serves on two committees of the U.S. Transportation Research Board, a division of the National Research Council. He also served on the Selection Committee of Transport Canada's Urban Transportation Showcase Program. Perl is currently Vice-Chair of Canada's Centre for Sustainable Transportation.
Anthony Perl is married and lives in a traffic-calmed neighbourhood of Calgary.
Howard Permut is Vice President of Planning and Development at MTA Metro North. His areas of expertise include strategic planning, operations and service planning, capital planning and programming, marketing, long-range planning studies (MIS, DEIS), organizational development, project management and inter-agency negotiations. Prior to the MTA, Mr. Permut served as Manager of the Capital Programs Division of the Northeastern Illinois Regional Transportation Authority (RTA). In addition, he has performed consulting services for a number of major transit agencies in London, Santo Domingo, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles and served on various TCRP Research and APTA panels. Mr. Permut received his Masters of Transportation from Northwestern University.
Henry L. Peyrebrune, P.E. is working on a project for the New York State Assembly, Committee of Science and Technology on the current practice of implementing Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in New York and opportunities and barriers for widespread implementation. Dr. Peyrebrune was the First Deputy Commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation. Since his retirement after a thirty-three year career with the Department, Dr. Peyrebrune has completed projects for the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), Inc. to document the best practices regarding participation in Transportation Management Centers, sharing arrangements for Fiber Optics Systems and Pedestrian and Bicycle accommodation in heavily congested areas. His international consulting experience includes acting as a Special Advisor to the Minister of Communications of Saudi Arabia.
Dr. Peyrebrune served as Chairman of the Transportation Research Board Committee on Transportation Planning, Programming and Evaluation for six years, and also served as Policy Coordinator for the New York State Department of Transportation's (NYSDOT) Intelligent Vehicle Highway System (renamed the Intelligent Transportation Systems) Program. Dr. Peyrebrune received the Renaissance Man of the Year Award from the Advisory Program for Women and the John K. Mladinov Award from NYSDOT. He is currently providing staff assistance to the National Association of City Transportation Officials, Inc. and the Center for Transportation Policy and Management.
Janette Sadik-Khan is Senior Vice President of Parsons Brinckerhoff, a leading international engineering firm in the world with more than 250 offices on six continents. Her portfolio includes transit and land use development projects and she serves on the U.S. Management Committee of the firm.
At PB she was the founding president of Company 39, a communications consulting company she created in 2000 that provides advanced computer graphics and communications tools for over 500 projects worldwide. Under her leadership the company's annual sales grew to $8.2 million.
Janette is nationally recognized for her expertise in innovative finance, public policy development and transportation issues - knowledge gained in over 15 years of experience at the federal, state and local level.
Prior to joining PB, she was Deputy Administrator at the U.S. Department of Transportation, where she was responsible for providing financial support and capital program oversight to over 400 state and local transit agencies. As Chief Financial Officer, she managed the agency's $4 billion annual capital construction budget and responsible for developing an innovative finance program which provided localities with increased funding and regulatory flexibility. She also served as Director of the Office of Policy where she initiated the FTA's Art in Transit program to expand federal funding for art and design in transit facilities, and implemented new criteria to improve the ways in which the benefits of transit capital projects are quantified.
Before her tenure in Washington, DC, she was Director of the Mayor's Office of Transportation for New York City, the Mayor's principal advisor on mass transit and the City's liaison to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, with project oversight responsibilities for the Port Authority's Airport Access Plan, the 42nd Street Light Rail and the development of the Farley Post Office Rail Station project. She was also the Mayor's designee to the Capital Program Review Board with responsibility for oversight and funding of the MTA's $9.6 billion capital program . She has held key positions at the New York City Department of Transportation both as Special Counsel to the Commissioner and Legislative Director of the agency.
Janette writes extensively on transportation, finance and project management issues. She serves on several panels of the Transportation Research Board, an arm of the National Academy of Science, and is on the board of the Regional Plan Association, Women in Transportation Seminar, Reconnecting America, the Center for Transportation Excellence and on several committees of the American Public Transit Association. She was a Rockefeller Fellow and is a visiting scholar at New York University.
Ms. Sadik-Khan holds a B.A. in Political Science from Occidental College and a Juris Doctor from Columbia University School of Law and is a member of the NY Bar.
Bruce Schaller is Principal of Schaller Consulting, which serves the needs of transportation providers seeking to satisfy customer needs in all forms of urban transportation. His clients include local governments, transit agencies, non-profit groups, for-profit companies and the federal government.
Recent projects have concerned bus rapid transit applications for New York City; travel behavior, commuting and public transportation ridership in New York City; transportation operations for special events; effective use of transit websites; transportation needs of Chicago’s Central Area; transit fare policy in Rochester, New York; inter-jurisdictional cooperation in traffic management; transportation and facilities improvements to Jacob Riis Park in Queens, New York; and taxicab regulation and operations in New York, Los Angeles, Moscow, San Diego, Anaheim (California) and Montgomery County (Maryland).
Before establishing his consulting practice in 1998, Mr. Schaller was Deputy Director of Marketing Research and Analysis at New York City Transit and Director of Policy Development and Evaluation at the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission. He has also worked in the areas of economic development, environmental policy and parks management.
Mr. Schaller has published and presented his work widely, including multiple presentations at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and International Association of Transportation Regulators. He also has the distinction of being quoted in publications throughout the country, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, New Yorker, New York Daily News, USA Today and City Journal.
Mr. Schaller holds a BA from Oberlin College and Master's of Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley.
Samuel I. Schwartz, P.E. is President & CEO of Sam Schwartz LLC, a multi-disciplinary consulting firm whose services include civil and transportation engineering, urban and architectural design, and infrastructure and regional planning. Credited with coining the term “gridlock”, Mr. Schwartz is considered one of the leading transportation engineers in the country.
Mr. Schwartz got his start in transportation by driving a taxicab in the late 1960s. He served as Chief Engineer/ First Deputy Commissioner for the New York City Department of Transportation from 1986 to 1990, where he was responsible for an 8,000 person agency, a $350 million expense budget, and a $700 million capital budget. Mr. Schwartz also served an extremely successful term as New York City’s Traffic Commissioner from 1982 to 1986. From 1990 to 1995, he was Senior Vice President responsible for transportation engineering, infrastructure, quality control and planning at HaydenWegman Consulting Engineers, Inc.
Mr. Schwartz received an M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Physics from Brooklyn College. A licensed professional engineer in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, he is also an adjunct professor of engineering at Cooper Union and the founder of the School for the Physical City; a NYC public school that uses the city as its laboratory. Mr. Schwartz is also the author of the well-known daily column, “Gridlock Sam” that addresses traffic matters in the New York metro area, published by The Daily News.
Linda M. Spock is a nationally recognized expert on the toll industry and transportation policy issues. Her experience is broad-based, including the technical, policy, procurement, operational, financial, institutional, and marketing issues faced by transportation agencies. She worked for 11 years at the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, ending her career there after serving as Chair of the Policy Committee of the E-ZPass Interagency Group of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. As a consultant, she has done research, analysis, and writing on a wide range of topics for individual authorities, multi–agency groups, and national/international organizations.
Ms. Spock culminated her career at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey by serving as the agency's Program Director, Electronic Toll Collection and in parallel as Chair, Interagency Policy Committee of the E-ZPass Interagency Group (IAG), which was charged with advancing a common electronic toll collection system in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. As IAG Chair, she managed all aspects of multi-year joint Request for Proposal, testing, and the negotiation process which resulted in interagency selection of Mark IV technology in March, 1994. Ms. Spock also represented the Group on various legislative, regulatory, and policy issues with external parties, and has also consulted in Washington, DC on the economic impact of environmental regulations and the financial feasibility of synthetic fuel projects.
Brian Sterman is Director of Systems Management for the Federal Transit Administration’s Regional Office in New York City. He has been in the transit industry for more than 25 years in various senior planning, programming, and marketing positions at FTA, MTA New York City Transit, and the Federal Railroad Administration. He has considerable expertise in FTA’s Alternatives Analysis process being involved with it since its inception and has worked with transit properties in developing and managing their rehabilitation programs. Among his accomplishments was the development of the plan presented to the United States Congress for high speed rail service between New York and Boston.
Mr. Sterman received a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Northeastern University, an M.S. in Transportation Planning from Northwestern University, and an M.B.A. from New York University.
Thomas Wakeman is Program Manager for the Regional Ports Programs at the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey where he is responsible for planning and development of a regional freight program. Prior to this, Dr. Wakeman served in a variety of roles for the management and technical operations of commercial waterways, including Principal Maritime Advisor in the Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority and Model Director for the US Army Corps of Engineers project in the San Francisco Bay area.
Dr. Wakeman is also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University. He has published numerous technical papers and co-edited two books, California Coastal Zone Experience and Dredging and Management of Dredged Materials. Dr. Wakeman received his Doctorate of Engineering Science in Earth and Environmental Engineering from Columbia University, Masters of Science in Civil Engineering from University of California Berkeley/Davis, and Masters in Marine Biology from San Francisco State University.
Allen J. Zerkin is an Adjunct Professor of Public Administration at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service, teaching courses on negotiation and conflict management. Since 1999, he has been conducting a popular one-day workshop on negotiation at the American Planning Association’s annual National Planning Conference, and he serves as a member of the faculty of Het Amsterdams ADR Instituut in the Netherlands, teaching multi-party mediation and advanced negotiation workshops. He is member of the New York Bar and earned his J.D. at Yale Law School.
Professor Zerkin specializes in the design and facilitation of processes, such as stakeholder consensus building processes and roundtable dialogues, that are intended to resolve or to advance stakeholders’ understanding of state and local disputes and controversies.
