APTA President & CEO Michael Melaniphy, ninth from left, and several APTA staff recently joined 500 attendees at the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials’ (COMTO) annual National Meeting & Training Conference in Jacksonville, FL, “Expanding the Routes of Transportation: Infrastructure Investment and Job Creation.” Among the meeting sessions was the second COMTO-APTA Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Assembly, a series of three sessions scheduled for 2013. The COMTO assembly focused on mentor-protégé programs. The third session, set for the APTA Annual Meeting in Chicago, Sept. 29-Oct. 2, will address the role of public transit agencies in successful DBE programs. Speakers and special guests at the meeting included Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL), sixth from left; COMTO President and Chief Executive Officer Julie Cunningham, tenth from left; Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, ninth from right; Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown, seventh from right; and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, second from right. Others pictured include members of the COMTO Board of Directors. The conference also included a session with public transit CEOs, moderated by Roland Martin of TV One, and Michael Blake, former director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, who delivered the Scholarship Luncheon keynote.

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