DOT Ready to Celebrate 50th Birthday
Six of his predecessors joined U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx on Feb. 3 at a ceremony kicking off celebrations of DOT's 50th year. He explained that DOT soon will have a video of the ceremony online and asked readers to visit DOT's 50th Anniversary website, which includes documents about the department's creation.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx was joined on stage Feb. 3 by six prior secretaries during a celebration of DOT's 50th anniversary. One of them was the first person to occupy the position -- Alan Boyd.
Foxx took note of the occasion's importance in a post on the agency's blog:
"When President Lyndon Baines Johnson prepared to name his first U.S. Secretary of Transportation, he knew it would take a creative and intelligent leader to stand up the new Department of Transportation. And he knew that then-Under Secretary of Commerce Alan Boyd was the right man for the job," he wrote. "Since then, 16 other men and women have taken the Oath of Office for that position, and they have continued down the path that Secretary Boyd blazed. It's a path toward greater safety and mobility, paved by listening to a diverse array of stakeholders from the public, private, and non-profit sectors -- and made a lot easier by the professionals at DOT who serve the American people faithfully day in and day out. Today, we were fortunate to have seven of them -- including me -- on the stage for the kickoff ceremony of our year-long 50th Anniversary celebration, and I can't thank them enough for joining us. We also were joined by Lynda Johnson Robb -- daughter of President Johnson -- and Deputy Postmaster Ronald Stroman, and I thank them, too!"
Foxx explained that DOT soon will have a video of the ceremony online. He also asked readers to visit DOT's 50th Anniversary website, which includes documents about the department's creation.