News | Reeb Co-Chairs National TRB Future of the Transportation Workforce Summit

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Reeb Co-Chairs National TRB Future of the Transportation Workforce Summit

Friday, July 11, 2025

by METRANS Staff

National leaders in transportation gathered for the Transportation Research Board (TRB) National Summit on the Future of the Transportation Workforce, held June 2-4, 2025 in Westminster, Colorado. CITT Executive Director Tyler Reeb and Glenn McRae of the National Network for the Transportation Workforce served together as co-chairs of the Summit.

The Summit’s program centered around three key questions:

How do we attract and engage a diverse workforce?
What kind of workforce do we need for the 21st century?
What business models and tools sustainably support the workforce?

Each of those questions are pivotal to the future of the transportation workforce and the professionals who will face the challenges posed by climate change, aging infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and a rapidly evolving economy. Briefings on each presentation and session at the Summit can be found on the National Network for the Transportation Workforce (NNTW) website (https://www.nntw.org/2025-trb-summit/workforcesummit/summit-briefings/).

“How we attract, retain, and energize the future workforce for our transport and mobility systems is the most compelling issue for leaders in both the public and private sectors,” said McRae. “We need to create energized learning environments with clear career paths that support economic and social structures for vital communities,” he added.

From the outset, Reeb and McRae endeavored to make the 2025 National Summit on the Future of the Transportation Workforce a teambuilding event. Reeb and McRae felt that a typical, static presentation-and-discussion model would not meet the moment, and carefully organized the Summit to be interactive and lively. A series of workshops and breakout rooms enabled attendees to participate as active researchers themselves, rather than passive observers. This approach empowered attendees to catalyze new networks, scale innovative practices, and invigorate workforce development in the field.

“This summit marked the first national conversation about transportation workforce development since 2012,” Reeb said. “It was an honor for me to serve as co-chair of the Summit. A lot has changed since the previous Summit in 2012. Things like artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, drone deliveries and much else are now transportation workforce realities. At the same time, old-school competencies like critical thinking and teamwork are more in demand than ever.”

To keep the momentum going, Reeb and McRae have launched a new LinkedIn page for the National Network for the Transportation Workforce, a collaborative of organizations and individuals that seek to connect, empower, and advance the 21st century transportation workforce through targeted research, education, and industry engagement. You can follow the page at the following link (https://www.linkedin.com/company/national-network-for-the-transportation-workforce).

“In a time when it seems nobody can agree on anything, there is still consensus that organizations are only as good as the team that drive them,” concludes Reeb. “This is especially true of our nation's transportation workforce – the people who design, develop, operate, and maintain the mobility systems that get us where we need to go and bring us the essential goods we need for our communities and families.”

For a full program visit:

https://trb.secure-platform.com/a/page/transportation_workforce. The presentations from each session and the final report will be posted in July.