Dr. Mary R. Brooks is the William A. Black Chair of Commerce at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. Her research interests focus on transportation and global supply chain management, and she is particularly interested in the relationships between the buyers and sellers of transportation services. She was a Canada–US Fulbright scholar at George Mason University in 2005; during this time she investigated the impact of security regulations on the US’ maritime container trade. Her latest book is North American Freight Transportation: The Road to Security and Prosperity, published by Edward Elgar. In the first five months of 2010, Dr. Brooks was a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, University of Sydney where she undertook research on Australian coastal shipping and maritime reform.

From February 2002 to April 2008, she chaired the Committee on International Trade and Transportation, until recently served on the Committee for Funding Options for Freight Transportation Projects of National Significance, and currently serves on the Publication Board of the Transportation Research Record, of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C. She has been appointed to the Marine Board of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences for three years beginning November 2008. Dr. Brooks was Membership Secretary and Treasurer of the International Association of Maritime Economists from 1994 to 1998 and a Director of the Halifax International Airport Authority from its inception in 1995 to 2004. She chairs the Port Performance Research Network, a network of scholars interested in port governance and port performance issues.

Dr. Brooks is no stranger to public policy research, having led the research team for the publication, Short Sea Shipping on the East Coast of North America, completed in March 2006; this project provided guidance to potential short sea operators and to governments on the public policy changes required to promote Canada-US short sea activity. In April 2008, she was the invited chair for the International Transport Forum of the OECD’s Roundtable on Port Competition and Hinterland Connections in Paris. Her work in public policy development began in the early 1980s providing advice to the Government of Canada in the area of liner shipping, and was honed during her two years as Vice-President Policy for the Halifax Chamber of Commerce (1996-1998). She has provided advice to the governments of Canada, the United States, and Australia as well as the European Council of Ministers of Transport. Dr. Brooks received her undergraduate degree from McGill University, her MBA from Dalhousie University and her Ph.D. in Maritime Studies from the University of Wales in 1983, and is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport.

Paul Bingham

Paul Bingham is the Economics Service Line Leader for transportation consulting firm Wilbur Smith Associates. He manages the firm's economics team analyzing the economic impacts, financial feasibility, and the costs and benefits of transportation policy and infrastructure developments. He has 27 years of experience with consulting firms analyzing international trade and freight transportation for public and private sector clients. He has responsibility for management of consulting in the areas of the economics of freight transportation and international commodity flows for the Aviation, Economics and Freight business unit of Wilbur Smith.

Previously Mr. Bingham was Managing Director for the Global Commerce and Transportation practice of IHS Global Insight, where he was a key part of transportation and trade project consulting teams for both public and private sector clients. In over a decade with IHS Global Insight, much of his research was for government agencies in the U.S., including studies of government transportation policy planning, maritime port market developments, transportation system investment decisions, the evolution of freight markets, patterns of international freight flows, vessel deployment and operations, and the economics of transportation infrastructure projects. He has worked in Panama and Egypt on Canal planning projects for the Panama and Suez Canal Authorities, respectively. He has worked with ocean carriers, port authorities and federal, state and metropolitan area agencies on freight market and trade assessments, especially those tied to international trade.

Before joining Global Insight in 1999, he managed consulting projects for the Transportation and Infrastructure Planning Group at The Columbus Group. Earlier Mr. Bingham managed consulting projects for the Commercial Freight Transportation Practice of Booz Allen & Hamilton and the Trade and Transportation Group of ICF Kaiser International. He started his career managing commercial trade and transportation data base products for the International Trade and Transportation Group of DRI.

Mr. Bingham is immediate past Chair of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Freight Systems Group of committees. He was an original member of and is past Chair of TRB’s Freight Transportation Data Committee. He is a member of the TRB Committee on Trucking Industry Research. He previously has served as a member of the TRB Committees on National Data Programs and Requirements and the TRB Freight Modeling Task Force. He is past Secretary and a former member of the TRB committee on International Trade and Transportation. He was a member of the National Research Council Committee for the TRB study of Freight Capacity for the Next Century. He is International Vice President and a national council member of the Transportation Research Forum and a past member of the editorial review board of the Journal of the Transportation Research Forum. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the International Trade Data Users Group.

Todd Thomas

Todd Thomas is the Branch Manager for the Los Angeles office of Expeditors International. He is responsible the Los Angeles operations related to transportation with direct responsibility for air and ocean export departments as well as domestic ground air and sea transportation departments. Expeditors specializes in providing flexible logistics capabilities that start from the planning stage and go all the way to the delivery of goods, including customs brokerage, air cargo, ocean cargo, domestic services, risk management, distribution, security, import and export compliance.

Todd joined Expeditors in January 1997 in the Ocean Import Department handling inbound customer service. Over his 13 years with Expeditors, he has assumed a variety of roles, including Ocean Product Manager, District Sales Manager, and Import Manager. Todd is also a licensed customs broker and is IATA/FIATA certified.

Todd graduated from California State University, Long Beach in 1993 with a BA in Political Science. Upon graduation, he spent three years teaching English in Hiroshima, Japan before returning to Long Beach and entering the logistics industry. He is a long time resident of Long Beach.

PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS

Genevieve Giuliano - Closing Remarks

Dr. Genevieve Giuliano is the Ferraro Chair in Effective Local Government and Professor and Senior Associate Dean of Research and Technology in the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at University of Southern California, and the Director of the METRANS joint USC and California State University Long Beach Transportation Center. She also holds courtesy appointments in Civil Engineering and Geography.

Professor Giuliano's research focus areas include relationships between land use and transportation, transportation policy analysis, and information technology applications in transportation. Her current research includes analysis of growth and development of employment centers, examination of how ports and supply chains respond to environmental regulation, and a study of national transit policy. She has published over 140 papers, and has presented her research at numerous conferences both within the US and abroad.

Professor Giuliano is a past Chair of the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board, and has been named a National Associate of the National Academy of Sciences. She is the recipient of the TRB Distinguished Service Award (2006) and the 2007 Thomas B. Deen Distinguished Lectureship Award. She has participated in several National Research Council policy studies; currently she is a member of the Panel on Mitigation of the National Academies of Sciences’ America’s Climate Challenge study.

Thomas O'Brien - Moderator

Dr. Thomas O'Brien is the Director of Research for the Center for International Trade and Transportation (CITT) at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) and the Associate Director of Long Beach Programs for the METRANS Transportation Center, a partnership between CSULB and the University of Southern California. His research focuses on goods movement, international trade and seaport operations as well the effectiveness of goods movement policy. Dr. O’Brien has also developed training programs on goods movement for the public sector. Dr. O’Brien has a Ph.D. in Policy, Planning and Development from the University of Southern California. He is both an Eno and Eisenhower Transportation Fellow.

Donald Para - Welcome Remarks

Dr. Donald Para is provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at CSULB. He had previously served as Interim Provost and before that as Dean of the College of the Arts at CSULB since July 2001. Para received a B.M. in Music Education and a M.M. in Music Composition from Western Michigan University.

Marianne Venieris - Call to Order and Adjourn

Marianne Venieris is the executive director for the Center for International Trade and Transportation at CSULB and the deputy director for the METRANS Transportation Center. She is on the Executive Committee of the California Marine and Intermodal Transportation Advisory Council (CALMITSAC) and Vice President-Programs for the International Business Association of Southern California. Venieris serves on the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Education & Training Committee, and is a Board member of International Trade Education Program (ITEP). She is the recipient of the prestigious Stanley T. Olafson Bronze Plaque 2005, was awarded the Diversity Leadership Award by WTS-LA in 2008, received the Soroptimist’s Woman of Distinction Award in International Goodwill and Understanding in 2002, and is a graduate of Leadership Long Beach Class of 1997.