SPOTLIGHT ON COMTO MOU PARTNERS
MTI Garrett Morgan Sustainable Transportation Competition Sparking interest in transportation today is critical in shaping the equity and success of our nation’s infrastructure tomorrow. The Garrett Morgan Sustainable Transportation Competition— named after the trailblazing inventor—was created by former Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater to inspire young people to consider careers in transportation. The Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI), a USDOT university transportation center at San José State University (SJSU), has hosted a competition every year since 2001, with approximately 1000 individual students participating to date. The competition was named after Garrett Augustus Morgan, an African-American inventor born in Kentucky in 1877 to Sydney Morgan, a formerly enslaved person, and Elizabeth Reed Morgan, whose parents were of Native American and African descent. The seventh of ten children, Morgan worked on his family’s farm and attended school until he moved to Ohio as a teen and worked at sewing machine factories. This innovation led to a series of other successes, including Morgan’s invention of an early version of the three-way traffic signal. After witnessing an accident at a busy intersection, he invented a T-shaped traffic signal with “stop,” go,” and “caution” signals. Morgan later sold the patent to General Electric, and this design inspired the traffic lights used today. The MTI Garrett Morgan Sustainable Transportation Competition, which has been sponsored by the US Department of Transportation, Caltrans, and other industry partners—engages middle-school children in a STEM-based competition to win up to $1000 for their classroom, plus an all-expenses-paid trip to San
36
José, California, to be honored at the MTI Awards Banquet. MTI facilitates a partnership between the middle school participants and a transportation industry professional, provides a teacher guide, and $100 for project expenses; then, student teams create a sustainable transportation project to present to the USDOT and other transportation leaders. In a 2021 survey from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Identifying Current and Future Training Needs of the Public Transportation Industry, more than three-quarters of transit professional respondents reported challenges to recruitment; these include 58% who agreed there is a lack of awareness for transit careers and 40% who agreed there are insufficient educational programs preparing persons to work in the industry. Programs like the Garrett Morgan Sustainable Transportation Competition are an important tool in closing the skill gap and ensuring a diverse and well-prepared transportation workforce while inspiring America’s youth, in the path of Garrett Morgan, to pursue innovation and their dreams. (Above) Student participants with Secretary Norman Y. Mineta and Deputy Secretary Jeffrey Rosen, Garrett Morgan Sustainable Transportation Competition 2018