FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The Mack-Blackwell Rural Transportation Center and the University of Arkansas will host a lecture by former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater. The lecture, entitled "The Changing Face of Transportation," will be held at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 5, in the Combs Auditorium, located in the Bell Engineering Center.

"It is truly an honor to bring Secretary Slater home to Arkansas to share his wealth of knowledge and experience," said Melissa S. Tooley, director of the Mack-Blackwell Rural Transportation Center. "His tenure as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation with the Clinton administration was notable for its progressive vision, its bipartisan nature and its inclusiveness of all transportation modes and disciplines."

Slater was born in Marianna, Ark., in 1955. He earned a law degree from the university in 1980. From 1987 to 1992, he was a member of the Arkansas State Highway Commission, serving as the commission’s chair in 1992, before joining the Clinton Administration.

As a partner with the Washington, D.C., law firm Patton Boggs, Slater concentrates on many of the public policy and transportation objectives that were set under his leadership, including aviation competition and congestion mitigation, maritime initiatives, high-speed rail corridor development, and overall transportation safety and funding.

While Secretary of Transportation, Slater outlined his vision in two major Department of Transportation reports: "The Changing Face of Transportation" and "Transportation Decision Making: A Policy Architecture for the 21^st Century." These reports were prepared with input from hundreds of transportation stakeholders throughout the nation - including members of industry, labor, academia, government, citizen groups and other community interests.

Slater’s lecture will encompass the former report, "The Changing Face of Transportation." He will also discuss his view of a transportation system that is more than just a physical infrastructure of concrete, asphalt and steel - he believes transportation is about people and their total quality of life.