Champions of Change Blog

  • The Nation's First High Speed Rail

    Posted by Dan Richard on July 30, 2012 at 6:08 PM EDT

    Dan Richard is being honored as a Champion of Change for his time and effort developing innovative ways to help grow and expand the transportation industry.  

    America’s economy cannot outgrow its transportation system. It is well known that roads, bridges, ports, airports and transit systems must be kept in good repair and upgraded. But more than that, America will continue to grow and must find new ways to provide for the movement of people and goods.

    California embraced the notion of a passenger high speed rail system more than 30 years ago. During the ensuing years, the state took small steps to establish an organization to design and construct such a system – common in other parts of the world, but still elusive as a transportation mode in the U.S.

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  • Committed to American Innovation, American Jobs, and Environmentally-Friendly Mass Transportation

    Posted by David Bennett on July 30, 2012 at 5:58 PM EDT

    David Bennett is being honored as a Champion of Change for his time and effort developing innovative ways to help grow and expand the transportation industry.  

    Proterra is a quintessential American story. Our world-leading EcoRide™ 35 foot battery-electric fast-charge transit bus was designed and developed in the United States by Dale Hill, a bus industry veteran with an entrepreneur’s sensibility. Since its inception, Proterra has made strides that have taken transit bus technology from a platform mostly built in the 1950’s to a platform that today satisfies the environmental and efficiency goals that the U.S. Federal Transit Administration hoped to achieve in the year 2030. Think of it: the EcoRide achieves 23 miles per gallon diesel equivalent efficiency, carrying 68 passengers – five to six times greater than a diesel hybrid or CNG bus and potentially more efficient than the passenger car you drive today.

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  • Improving Efficiency through Simple Technology

    Posted by David Barger on July 30, 2012 at 5:53 PM EDT

    David Barger is being honored as a Champion of Change for his time and effort developing innovative ways to help grow and expand the transportation industry.  

    I am humbled and honored to be a White House Champion of Change. When I think about change, especially through the lens of transportation, I can’t help but think how much aviation and the airline industry has changed and modernized over the past 100 years. We’ve morphed and evolved – through innovations in materials, technologies, aircraft look and feel, fuel efficiency… you name it. In this industry, you never know what’s next on the horizon. Constant change is a given, and it’s one of the things that I love about being in aviation.

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  • Telling the Big Story of America’s Rivers

    Posted by Jerry Enzler on July 30, 2012 at 5:43 PM EDT

    Jerry Enzler is being honored as a Champion of Change for his time and effort developing innovative ways to help grow and expand the transportation industry.  

    Our country was founded by river people, and still today hundreds of thousands of people owe their jobs to river borne commerce. The people who move the nation’s goods on our rivers today are the descendants of the early flat boat shippers, steamboat pilots, engineers, and towboat deckhands. RiverWorks Discovery (RWD), a nationally recognized education outreach program, tells this story to children and their families and shows how those who work the river are also concerned about river culture and conservation.

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  • Building Pedestrian Friendly Environments

    Posted by Bob Sloane on July 30, 2012 at 5:35 PM EDT

    Bob Sloane is being honored as a Champion of Change for his time and effort developing innovative ways to help grow and expand the transportation industry.  

    In the last few years, walking has come to be recognized as one of the best - and certainly the cheapest - methods of maintaining personal health. Both older and younger generations are moving into places where they can walk during their regular daily activities. People are being reminded that a benefit of walking is that you see and experience things you’d miss using other modes of travel. Walkability has even become a way to market real estate.

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  • Funding Transit Projects Responsibly

    Posted by Phillip A. Washington on July 30, 2012 at 4:50 PM EDT

    Phillip A. Washington is being honored as a Champion of Change for his time and effort developing innovative ways to help grow and expand the transportation industry.  

    Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD) is known for taking innovative approaches toward completing transit projects. Our Eagle P3 project and Workforce Initiative Now (WIN) program have resulted in the largest transit public-private partnership in the country that includes a unique workforce development program embedded in the project. RTD utilized the expertise of financial and legal advisors to prepare and distribute a Request for Proposals to design, build, finance, operate and maintain two complete commuter rail lines, a segment of another rail line, and a commuter rail maintenance facility, and to supply the commuter rail vehicles needed for the Eagle P3 (Public Private Partnership) project. In just three years, RTD was able to bring this innovative project from concept to contract, last year executing a 34-year agreement with a comprehensive team of private partners.

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