WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will nominate Jennifer Homendy to serve another term as chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, the White House announced last week.
Homendy has served on the board since 2018 and has been its chair since Aug. 13, 2021, when she became the 15th chair since the agency’s creation in 1967. The nomination announcement describes her as “a staunch advocate for improving safety across all modes of transportation.”
From 2004 to 2018, she was staff director of the House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials. Previously, she held positions with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, and Naitonal Federation of Independent Business. A Penn State graduate, she is pursuing a Master of Transportation Safety Administration degree at Clemson University’s Institute for Global Rload Safety and Security. A more detailed biography is available at the NTSB website.
I think she has done a good job, focusing on the issues and not the politics, and deserves to keep her job. The only other job I would like to see her have is as head of the Surface Transportation Board. She has a lot of the same skills as Martin Oberman and isn’t afraid to tackle a problem head on, something this board needs more of. But she is best right where she is, forcing the efforts on transportation safety issues. In some ways it surprises me to say it but its true.