The Role of Transit in Emergency Evacuation: Special Report 294 (2008)

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Study Committee Biographical Information Richard A. White, Chair, is Executive Vice President and Director of Proj- ect Development at DMJM Harris, which he joined in 2006. Before that, his 30-year career was spent primarily in managing large transit prop- erties. Most recently, he served as General Manager and Chief Execu- tive Officer of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, the fourth-largest operator of public mass transit services in the United States as measured by ridership, and was at the helm during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Before that, he served as General Manager and Chief Executive Officer of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he managed a major rehabilitation and expansion program. Prior to coming to BART as Deputy General Manager, he served as Director and Manager of the New Jersey Transit Corporation, managing a wide range of activities for the statewide public transit agency, which provides commuter rail, light rail, bus, and paratransit services. Early in his career, Mr. White worked as a Program Analyst and Transportation Representative for the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, now known as the Federal Transit Administration. He has served on the Executive Committee of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) for 9 consecutive years, served as the APTA Chair in 2004–2005, and was the first head of APTA’s Security Task Force. Mr. White served on the Trans- portation Panel of the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Committee on Science and Technology for Countering Terrorism. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts and a master’s degree in public administration and metropolitan studies from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Evelyn Blumenberg is Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Vice Chair of the Department of Urban Planning at the School of Public Affairs of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). After completing her 277 37274mvp289_296 277 11/24/08 12:43:26 PM 

278 The Role of Transit in Emergency Evacuation dissertation, she became a University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in 1995, and then assumed various academic positions at UCLA. Her research has focused on travel demographics, particularly the role of transportation in meeting the mobility needs of welfare recipients, the urban poor, and low-income women. Dr. Blumenberg is a research associ- ate at the Mineta Transportation Institute and a member of the Southern California Inter-University Consortium on Homelessness and Poverty (the Weingart Center Association), the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, and the Association of Academic Women. She serves on the editorial board of Economic Development Quarterly and is a member of the Transportation Research Board’s Committee on Women’s Issues in Trans- portation. Dr. Blumenberg received a bachelor of arts degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree and doctorate in urban planning from UCLA. Kenneth A. Brown is Director of Risk Assessment and Fire Safety in the Office of System Safety at New York City Transit (NYCT), where he is responsible for overseeing engineering and fire and life safety issues affecting NYCT employees and customers in the subway and surface tran- sit systems. Mr. Brown joined NYCT in 1992, where he has held positions of increasing responsibility, from System Safety Specialist, to Manager of Fire Safety, to his current position. Before coming to NYCT, he worked as a Senior Hardware Engineer for Applied Digital Data Systems, Inc. Mr. Brown is a member of the Baldwin, New York, Fire Department and a member of the Rail Committee of the National Fire Protection Associa- tion. He holds a bachelor of business administration degree in account- ing from Hofstra University and a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the New York Institute of Technology. John M. Contestabile is Director of the Office of Engineering Emer- gency Services and former Acting Assistant Secretary for the Maryland Department of Transportation. In his 29-year career with the depart- ment, he has held a variety of positions, including Division Chief, Project Manager, and Staff Engineer at the Maryland State Highway Administra- tion, and an 8-month assignment with the Governor’s Office as Acting Deputy Director of the Office of Homeland Security. Mr. Contestabile 37274mvp289_296 278 11/24/08 12:43:26 PM 

Study Committee Biographical Information 279 is a former 11-year member of the Governor’s Emergency Management Advisory Committee and a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s “Safecom” Interoperable Communications Advisory Commit- tee. He is Vice Chair of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ Special Committee on Transportation Security; Chair of the Statewide Public Safety Communications Interoperability Executive Committee; and Program Chair of the All Hazards Consor- tium, a nonprofit organization of state governments, universities, and industry that supports homeland security and emergency management efforts in the mid-Atlantic region. He is also a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Maryland Emergency Man- agement Association and is a board member of the Baltimore Chapter of the Women’s Transportation Seminar. Mr. Contestabile served on an NRC committee that studied the use of geospatial information for disas- ter management and is a member of two security-related project panels for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP). He received a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from Worces- ter Polytechnic Institute and a master of business administration degree from the University of Baltimore. Ali Haghani is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maryland at College Park. Prior to coming to the University of Maryland, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Scientist at Northwestern University, where he received his higher education degrees. Before that, he worked in consulting and con- struction firms for the Ministry of Highways and Transportation in Iran. Dr. Haghani is an expert in large-scale transportation network modeling, logistics, and transit operations and chairs the Transportation Research Board’s Committee on Transportation Network Modeling. He is a mem- ber of ASCE, the Institute of Transportation Engineers, ITS America, and the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. Dr. Haghani is also Associate Editor of the Journal of Intelligent Transporta- tion Systems. He holds a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from Shiraz University in Iran and a master’s degree and doctorate in civil engineering from Northwestern University. 37274mvp289_296 279 11/24/08 12:43:26 PM 

280 The Role of Transit in Emergency Evacuation Arnold M. Howitt is Executive Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and a faculty member at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. A specialist in state and local public management and intergovernmental relations, he has worked at Harvard since 1976. From 1998 to 2001, Dr. Howitt also served part-time as Execu- tive Director of the Cooperative Mobility Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an international transportation research program based at MIT. In the field of emergency management, he is faculty cochair of a Kennedy School executive training program in crisis manage- ment; teaches in the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative, which he cofounded; and directed the U.S. Department of Justice program on terrorism—the Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness—from 1999 to 2003. Dr. Howitt also served on the Governor’s Bioterrorism Coordi- nating Council in Massachusetts (2002). He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Council on Bioterrorism at the Harvard School of Public Health and a member of the Policy Committee of the New England University Transportation Center. Dr. Howitt served on the NRC Committee for the Evaluation of the Metropolitan Medical Response Systems Program. He holds a bachelor of arts degree from Columbia University and a master’s degree and doctorate in political science from Harvard University. Thomas C. Lambert is Senior Vice President and Chief of Police of the Department of Public Safety for the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO), serving Houston and much of Harris County, Texas. He is responsible for directing and managing police operations, traffic management activities, high-occupancy vehicle lane operations and man- agement, emergency preparedness and operations, intelligent transporta- tion systems projects, and system safety. Before joining METRO in 1979, Mr. Lambert served as Senior Police Officer with the Austin, Texas, Police Department. He is immediate past Chairman of ITS America’s Board of Directors and is a member of its Executive Committee, Chairman of the Leadership Team at Houston TranStar (the region’s transportation and emergency management center), member of the Advisory Board of the Uni- versity of Houston–Downtown Criminal Justice Training Center Law Enforce- ment Academy, member of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force Executive Board, and life member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. 37274mvp289_296 280 11/24/08 12:43:26 PM 

Study Committee Biographical Information 281 Mr. Lambert is currently a member of two NCHRP project panels and one Transit Cooperative Research Program panel, all dealing with emergency management and public transportation security issues. He holds a bachelor of arts degree in political science from Southwest Texas State University and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Houston. Betty Hearn Morrow is a consulting sociologist and Professor Emeri- tus at Florida International University, where she directed the Interna- tional Hurricane Research Center’s Laboratory for Social and Behavioral Research. Her work focuses on the sociology of disasters, with emphasis on how social and economic factors affect the ability of many households to prepare for and respond to hurricanes. Dr. Morrow is a member of the Hurricane Forecast Social and Economic Working Group, Associate Editor of Natural Hazards Review, and member of the Editorial Board of Environ- mental Hazards. She received a bachelor of science degree from Ohio State University, a master’s degree in sociology from Florida State University, and a master of education degree in guidance and counseling and a doctor- ate from the University of Miami. Michael H. Setzer is a Vice President of Veolia Transportation, a global provider of public transportation operations and maintenance. Previously he served as Chief Executive Officer and General Manager for the South- west Ohio Regional Transit Authority in Cincinnati. He has also served as General Manager of Metro Transit of Minneapolis and of Bi-State Transit (now Metro) in St. Louis, and he has held staff positions in several other U.S. transit systems. Mr. Setzer is Chair of APTA’s Emergency Preparedness Task Force and Chair Emeritus of the Bus and Paratransit CEOs Commit- tee. He recently concluded a term as Vice Chairman of the Advisory Board of the National Transit Institute and is cofounder of Professional Transit Management, Ltd., now a division of Veolia. He holds a bachelor of science degree in economics from the University of Minnesota and a master of busi- ness administration degree in management from Xavier University. Ellis M. Stanley, Sr., is Director of Western Emergency Management Services at Dewberry, LLC, where he is responsible for overseeing and growing the company’s emergency management practice in the western 37274mvp289_296 281 11/24/08 12:43:26 PM 

282 The Role of Transit in Emergency Evacuation United States. Before coming to Dewberry in 2007, he served for 10 years as Assistant City Administrative Officer and then as General Manager of the Emergency Preparedness Department for the City of Los Angeles. Previously, he was Director of the Atlanta–Fulton County Emergency Management Agency, where, among other responsibilities, he managed the Emergency Operations Center and developed the first Metropolitan Medical Strike Team for the 1996 Centennial Games. He has also directed other emergency management programs in Durham–Durham County, North Carolina, and before that, in Brunswick County, North Carolina, where he began his more than 32-year career in emergency management. Mr. Stanley is active in the emergency management profession, having served as President of the International Association of Emergency Man- agers, the American Society of Professional Emergency Planners, and the Atlanta Chapter of the National Defense Transportation Association. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Institute of Urban Search and Rescue, the Disaster Recovery Institute International, and Operation Hope, Inc. He is also a member of the NRC Board on Natural Disasters and served on the NRC Committee on Planning for Catastrophe: A Blueprint for Improving Geospatial Data, Tools, and Infrastructure for the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources. Mr. Stanley holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Andrew Velásquez III was appointed Director of the Illinois Emer- gency Management Agency (IEMA) by Governor Rod R. Blagojevich on March 16, 2007. As director, Mr. Velásquez oversees the Illinois disaster preparedness and response, nuclear safety, and homeland security pro- grams, as well as the agency’s approximately 250 employees and a bud- get of more than $470 million. Since November 2007, he also has served as Homeland Security Advisor to the governor. Prior to becoming IEMA director, Mr. Velásquez was Executive Director of Chicago’s Office of Emer- gency Management and Communications (OEMC). Appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley, he was responsible for planning and executing public safety initiatives to serve the city’s 2.9 million residents. While at OEMC, Mr. Velásquez implemented innovative technology solutions, such as wireless and satellite communications, to enhance the city’s delivery of emergency services. Before coming to OEMC, he served for 10 years with 37274mvp289_296 282 11/24/08 12:43:27 PM 

Study Committee Biographical Information 283 the Chicago Police Department in various capacities, most recently as Director of the Criminal Identification and Records Services Division. Mr. Velásquez is on the Board of Directors for the Central United States Earthquake Consortium, a partnership of the federal government and the eight states most affected by earthquakes in the central United States. He also is a member of the Regional Advisory Council for the Federal Emer- gency Management Agency’s Region V and the Homeland Security Com- mittee for the National Emergency Management Association. He holds a master of business administration degree in management from St. Xavier University and bachelor’s and master of science degrees in criminal jus- tice from Illinois State University. Mr. Velásquez served for 6 years in the U.S. Army. 37274mvp289_296 283 11/24/08 12:43:27 PM 

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