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The Board designated Charles D. Nottingham as its Vice Chairman on January 4, 2011.
Vice Chairman Nottingham was confirmed by the Senate and joined the Surface Transportation Board (STB) in August 2006. He served as the STB’s Chairman from August 2006 until March 2009. Vice Chairman Nottingham’s tenure as Chairman of the STB was marked by significant reform initiatives aimed at making the agency more accessible, transparent, and efficient. The Surface Transportation Board was ranked first among small federal agencies by the Partnership for Public Service and American University in their survey of the 2009 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government. The agency also earned the top rating for “Effective Leadership.”
Under his leadership, the Board modernized the way it calculates the freight rail industry’s cost of capital; streamlined the large rate case process; developed practical means for freight rail customers to bring small and medium-sized rate cases; improved the transparency of railroads’ fuel surcharge practices and declared certain fuel surcharge practices unreasonable; strengthened the Board’s Rail Customer and Public Assistance Program; established the Rail Energy Transportation Advisory Committee; and ended more than 70 years of controversial exemptions from the antitrust laws related to the motor carrier industry.
From 2002-2006, Vice Chairman Nottingham served as the Associate Administrator for Policy and Governmental Affairs at the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), managing policy development and analysis, legislation, Congressional affairs, highway funding and system performance analysis, and international programs. He played a leading role in developing the Administration’s surface transportation reauthorization proposal in 2002-2003, and advised Congress throughout the deliberations on that legislation until enactment in August 2005.
Between 1998 and 2002, Vice Chairman Nottingham served as Assistant Secretary of Transportation and then Commonwealth Transportation Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Virginia. As Commonwealth Transportation Commissioner between 1999 and 2002, he served as the chief executive officer of the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), managing more than 10,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $3 billon.
Vice Chairman Nottingham also has served as Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Government Reform; Counsel and Chief of Staff to former Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia; and Chief of Staff to Congressman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia.
