Slater, Rodney Earl, 1955-

<p>Rodney Earl Slater (born February 23, 1955) is an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as the United States Secretary of Transportation under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. Prior to being appointed to the Clinton Cabinet, Slater served as the administrator of the Federal Highway Administration from 1993 to 1997.</p>

<p>Slater graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 1977, and received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Arkansas School of Law in 1980.</p>

<p>Slater became a research assistant to the State Judiciary Committee of the Arkansas Constitutional Convention in 1979–80, an assistant attorney general for the state of Arkansas in 1980. He was appointed to several state government positions in Arkansas by Bill Clinton. Positions included assistant to the governor between 1983 and 1987, and member of the Arkansas State Highway Commission between 1987 and 1993. Slater was also the director of governmental affairs for Arkansas State University during that time.</p>

<p>Former US Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater helps clients integrate their interests in the overall vision for the transportation system of the 21st century – a vision he set as Transportation Secretary to promote a safer, more efficient, environmentally sound and sustainable worldwide transportation infrastructure.</p>

<p>Secretary Slater also helps state and local government clients address the vexing challenge of closing the gap between transportation demand and capacity by employing public-private strategies and innovative financing solutions. Secretary Slater’s practice focuses on many of the policy and transportation objectives that were set under his leadership, including automobile use and development, aviation competition and congestion mitigation, maritime initiatives, high-speed rail corridor development, and overall transportation safety and funding. He continues to embrace the framework he established as secretary for making transportation decisions that called for more open, collaborative and flexible decision making across the transportation enterprise here and abroad.</p>

<p>Secretary Slater’s bipartisan and inclusive approach to problem solving has earned him tremendous respect and admiration on both sides of the aisle, enabling him to have one of the best relationships with the White House, Congress and business, labor and political leaders worldwide in the history of the US Department of Transportation (DOT). His work at DOT forever altered America’s and the world’s appreciation of transportation as more than just concrete, asphalt and steel. Secretary Slater brings the same strategic, results-oriented and collaborative approach to the practice of law to his public policy practice.</p>

<p>Lawyer Rodney Slater was born on February 23, 1955, in Tutwyler, Mississippi. By the age of six, Slater was picking cotton with his mother in order to earn money for a bicycle, and he continued to pick cotton throughout his youth to supplement the family income. He attended Eastern Michigan University on a scholarship, where he was captain of the football team and star of Eastern Michigan's national championship forensic team, graduating in 1977. He went on to attend the University of Arkansas School of Law, earning a J.D. degree in 1980.</p>

<p>Slater became an assistant Attorney General upon graduation from law school, and he remained in that position until 1982. It was during that time that he met then-governor Bill Clinton. In 1983, Clinton named him one of his assistants, where he worked first in the economic and community affairs areas, and then later as special assistant for community and minority affairs. In 1987, Clinton named Slater to the Arkansas Highway Commission, where he became chairman in 1992. During this time, Slater served as director of government affairs for Arkansas State University. Following the election of Clinton as President of the United States, Slater was named the director of the Federal Highway Administration, and in 1997, he was named Secretary of Transportation, a position he held until the end of the Clinton administration. Today he is with the law firm of Patton Boggs LLP.</p>

<p>Slater is involved in numerous civic organizations, including the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Community for the Future, the Boy Scouts of America and the Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation, among others. He has been named one of the “100 Most Influential Black Americans” by Ebony, and has received an Albert Schweitzer Leadership Award and an honorary doctorate from Howard University. Slater and his wife, Cassandra Wilkins, have two children.</p>

<p>Rodney Earl Slater rose from poverty to become an Arkansas assistant attorney general and served in several positions under Arkansas governor (and later U.S. president) Bill Clinton. He was chairman of the Arkansas Highway Commission, director of governmental affairs for Arkansas State University (ASU) in Jonesboro (Craighead County), the first African-American director of the Federal Highway Administration, and U.S. secretary of transportation.</p>

<p>Rodney Slater was born on February 23, 1955, in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. Soon after, Slater’s mother married Earl Brewer, a mechanic and maintenance man about whom Slater has said, “My stepfather was my father.” When Slater was a small child, the family moved across the Mississippi River to Marianna (Lee County), where, by age six, Slater was picking cotton in the fields with his mother. Slater picked cotton and peaches throughout his youth to supplement the family’s income despite his father working five or six jobs to provide for Slater, his two younger brothers, and two younger sisters.</p>

<p>Slater attended segregated schools in Marianna until the eleventh grade, when he attended the newly integrated Lee High School, where he was a class officer. In 1972, city officials charged him with inciting a riot during a student demonstration on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. He and other students were taken to the police station, booked, and charged. John Walker, a civil rights attorney from Little Rock (Pulaski County), helped to get the charges dropped, but Slater was prohibited from participating in extracurricular activities his senior year. This was significant because Slater was a star halfback on the school football team and had hoped to attend college on an athletic scholarship.</p>