Empowering the 21st Century Workforce
The National Network for the Transportation Workforce (NNTW) is a collaborative of university-based research centers that seek to connect, empower, and advance the 21st century transportation workforce through targeted research, education, and industry engagement. Originally launched through funding by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), each NNTW Regional Center team is dedicated to providing a more strategic and efficient approach to transportation workforce development.
NNTW Regional Centers are strategically located around the nation to provide localized workforce development research and support. A brief introduction to each center—including their respective missions and objectives—is provided below.
Center for International Trade & Transportation (CITT) at California State University, Long Beach
All of the Center for International Trade & Transportation’s (CITT’s) research, education, and industry engagement efforts are guided by the belief that the nation’s ability to successfully deliver and manage an efficient, safe, and effective transportation system is dependent on the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the transportation workforce. Toward that end, CITT facilitates results-driven partne
rships with State Departments of Transportation, State Departments of Education, industry, and other public and private stakeholders throughout the transportation, education, labor, and workforce communities.
Today, there are a number of challenges in trade and transportation workforce development. Baby-boomer generation retirements, competition from other industries, difficulty in recruiting women and minorities, and new technologies driving the need for new skills from incumbent transportation workers, all present unique industry challenges to developing a qualified pipeline of talent. To address these challenges, CITT is actively pursuing workforce development solutions that target middle schools and high schools, technical schools and community colleges, and universities and post-graduate programs, as well as professional development programs that up-skill incumbent transportation workers.
CITT is working to develop a skilled and career-ready transportation workforce by:
- Engaging regional and national stakeholders to identify successful curricula and training programs.
- Developing a Transportation Workforce Data Clearing House that will draw together previously siloed fields of business, education, transportation and labor;
- Convening national, regional, and state forums for strategic innovation and collaboration;
- Analyzing labor force and job needs;
- Identifying programs that facilitate transfers between secondary schools, community colleges, and 4-year institutions;
- Pursuing innovative methods of reaching a diverse set of educational markets;
- Establishing a communications strategy to share best practices and innovative programs, including the effective use of social media.
Learn more about the work and mission of CITT by contacting Center Director Tyler Reeb (tyler.reeb@csulb.edu) at California State University, Long Beach.
Western Transportation Institute (WTI) at Montana State University
The Western Transportation Institute (WTI) at Montana State University is a university-based center with a mission to advance rural transportation through research and education. WTI promotes transportation workforce development by adopting a holistic view of the education to career continuum, and targets education and outreach opportunities from K-12 to career-level professional development to support life-long learning.
WTI serves as a resource to support, grow, and maintain a skilled and career-ready transportation workforce through:
- Research to identify evidence-based strategies for fostering recruitment, retention, and preparation of a skilled 21st century workforce.
- Program development and leadership in fostering early career awareness, real-world experiential learning, student research engagement, and professional development opportunities.
- Collaboration and partnership-building between industry, educators, and communities to better align education and training to workforce needs.
Learn more about the work and mission of WTI by contacting the Education and Workforce Program Manager, Susan Gallagher (sgallagher@montana.edu) at Montana State University in Bozeman.
Southeast Transportation Workforce Center (SETWC) at University of Memphis
The mission of the University of Memphis, is to coordinate existing regionally-based programs, plans, and processes while also strategically create partnerships that ensure students and persons seeking workforce reentry, career transition, or career advancement are aware of the opportunities, educational requirements, job skills, training options, and ladders to success within the regional transportation workforce. The University of Memphis team believes that by working in-concert with committed regional partners, together we can produce a “right-sized”, well-trained, and career-ready transportation workforce for the southeast region.
The goals of the University of Memphis include:
- Identify regional transportation job needs and priorities;
- Catalog existing training programs from K-12 through professional development;
- Identify education and training gaps;
- Develop partnerships and initiatives to bridge identified gaps;
- Fully engage regional stakeholders to showcase successful programs and practices and to increase impact in the southeast region.
Learn more about the work and mission of SETWC by contacting Center Director Stephanie S. Ivey (ssalyers@memphis.edu) at the University of Memphis.