SURFACE TRANSPORTATION BOARD

Deb Miller

Deb Miller was sworn in on April 28, 2014, as a Member of the Board for a term of office expiring on December 31, 2017, following her September 25, 2013, nomination to the Board by President Obama and her confirmation by the United States Senate on April 9, 2014.  She was designated Vice Chairman (May 27, 2014-December 31, 2014); served as Acting Chairman (January 1, 2015-June 26, 2015); and was again designated Vice Chairman on January 7, 2016, in the agency’s annual rotation of the Vice Chairmanship.

Commissioner Miller, a Democrat from Kansas, served the seat formerly held by Francis P. Mulvey, whose term expired.  She was the Board’s 12th Member since the agency’s inception in 1996.

Prior to joining the Board, Ms. Miller served as a Senior Consultant with Cambridge Systematics, Inc., a firm specializing in transportation planning and policy, primarily for public-sector clients.  From 2003 to 2011, she was the Secretary of the Kansas Department of Transportation (Kansas DOT), a term of office marked by her distinguished service for three successive Governors of Kansas.  She has the distinction of being the longest-serving Secretary of Transportation in Kansas history.

Prior to serving as Secretary of the Kansas DOT, Ms. Miller was a consultant at HNTB, a national architecture, engineering, and planning firm.  In that position, she provided strategic planning and public-communications assistance to state departments of transportation and municipalities.  She also served as the Director of the Kansas DOT’s Division of Planning and Development, Special Assistant to the Secretary of Transportation, and as a Policy Assistant to the Governor of Kansas.

Ms. Miller was active with the Transportation Research Board (TRB), a division of the National Research Council that is the principal operating agency of the National Academies of Sciences, and was a member of the TRB’s Executive Committee for five years, including a year serving as Chair.  She also was active with the American Association of Highway and Transportation Officials, where she headed numerous task forces and workgroups and served for nine years as the Chair of the Standing Committee on Planning.  She also served on the Eno Foundation’s Board of Advisors.

Ms. Miller graduated magna cum laude from Kansas State University with a B.S. in Sociology.