Volpe Journal Spring 98
Volpe Volunteers Structure a TEAM Effort
to Help Cambridge Residents
Sidebar:
The TEAM Effort Becomes Part of a "National League"
Volunteerism has become a national priority, and enthusiasm for it extends from the individual worker to the President of the United States. This past April, both President Bill Clinton and retired General Colin Powell were prominent speakers at the "Summit for the Future," which focused on volunteerism. The Volpe Center is proud that its workers started their TEAM Effort five years before national attention was focused on extending a helping hand to others.
Today, the TEAM Effort is a leading component of a comprehensive service program that is being developed as a major initiative of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Known as the Garrett A. Morgan Technology and Transportation Futures Program, the effort, still in its infancy, was initiated by Secretary of Transportation Rodney E. Slater while he was head of the Federal Highway Administration. Like the Center's TEAM Effort, the Garrett Morgan Program focuses on education as the most important tool for achieving progress for both individuals and the larger community.
Garrett Morgan deserves to have his name on a major Department of Transportation program. In 1921, after witnessing a terrible accident, Morgan invented the traffic light, a device that after 75 years remains the primary tool for managing automobile traffic. But Morgan is more than a major contributor to the transportation community; he is a personal inspiration to many disadvantaged Americans. A black American, Morgan was born in 1877 of parents who had been slaves. He grew up in a time when blacks could neither vote nor attend schools with white Americans. Despite his poor education, he started a business that eventually employed 30 people. Morgan's contributions are clear evidence that everyone benefits when the doors of opportunity are open to all.
The objective of the Garrett Morgan Program is to build a bridge between this country's transportation community and its individuals who are seeking educational and learning opportunities, for the benefit of both. It coordinates public and private transportation, technology, and educational resources to enable Americans to make a greater contribution toward meeting the country's transportation needs. The program dovetails neatly with the President's commitment to improving math, science, and technology education.
Although it is obvious that educated civil engineers are needed to design structures such as highway and airport pavements and railroad trestles, the transportation infrastructure also relies on a very diverse workforce that ranges from truck and taxicab drivers, baggage handlers, and bus-line ticket agents, to ships' engineers, traffic analysts, and a host of other technical specialties. And even the jobs that involve manual labor now require a degree of education that was beyond the aspirations of most Americans a few generations ago.
Education is the key to making the country's transportation system work, just as it is the key to individual achievement. The Garrett Morgan Program focuses on helping Americans get the education that will do both. The Volpe Center is proud that its TEAM Effort was recognized as a community service meeting the objectives of the Garrett Morgan Program even before that program was initiated.