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Sharon D. Banks Award for Humanitarian Leadership in Transportation

This award was established in 2001 in memory of Sharon D. Banks, who was the General Manager of Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (AC Transit), Oakland, California, from 1991 to 1999 and served as Chair of the Transportation Research Board Executive Committee in 1998. She died in 1999. Banks was nationally known for her personal integrity, for nurturing and mentoring young transportation professionals, and for bringing together people of diverse backgrounds and commitments in the pursuit of organizational excellence.

“Sharon was pioneer,” says former industry colleague and 2020 award winner Bob Prince, “It is important that we don’t forget the shoulders that we stand on.”

Presented biennially, the award is honors others who exemplify her ideals of humanity and service by recognizing recipients that have a documented record of innovative and successful humanitarian leadership in areas such as the education, training, and mentoring of transportation professionals; community-sensitive transportation facilities and services; and other people-oriented initiatives that bring together individuals of diverse backgrounds in the pursuit of excellence. Selection of recipients is made by a committee appointed by the Chairman of the TRB Executive Committee.

"Future leaders need to know that Sharon was never too busy to mentor," remembers Prince.

This award was established by TRB with the encouragement and support of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT). Other contributors to the award, in addition to TRB and USDOT, include the American Public Transportation Association, AC Transit, the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials, and the California Transit Association.

Award recipients:
  • 2022 - Jacquelyne D. Grimshaw
  • 2020 - Robert H. Prince
  • 2018 - William W. Millar
  • 2016 - Carol A. Lewis
  • 2014 - Beverly A. Scott
  • 2012 - J. Barry Barker
  • 2010 - Michael S. Townes
  • 2008 - Shirley A. DeLibero
  • 2006 - Sandra L. Draggoo
  • 2004 - Shirley Clair McCall
  • 2002 - Naomi W. Ledé
During her time as TRB Executive Committee Chair, TRB was focused on the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). Annual funding for TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) increased significantly. The bill reauthorized TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) and named six specific consensus projects.

In 1995, Banks presented successful partnership approaches during a TRB event. She highlighted guiding principles with applications to the transit industry. These principles focus around forming a sense of community within a team and sharing responsibility, including leadership. Banks challenged participants to break out of box and stretch the envelope.

The Executive Committee meeting under her leadership reflected Banks’ dedication to transit with a special session, Zero-Car Households: Strategies to Improve Mobility and Accessibility for the Carless. She started her career with AC Transit in 1990 and became an active TRB volunteer shortly thereafter.

Starting in 1991, Banks served as member on various committees:
  • Committee for a Feasibility Study for a Transit Research Coordinating Council
  • Steering Committee for the Conference on Redefining the Urban Partnership in Transportation: A New Era in Federal, State, and Local Relations
  • Executive Committee Subcommittee for the Transit Cooperative Research Program (Chair in 1998)
  • Subcommittee on Planning and Policy Review
  • Subcommittee for NRC Oversight
  • Committee for a Feasibility Study for a Transit Research Coordinating Council
  • TCRP Project Panel on International Transit Studies Program
  • TCRP Project Panel on Dissemination and Implementation of Research Findings
  • Workshop on Research Needs in Transportation Planning, Programming, and Finance
  • TCRP Project Panel on New Paradigms for Labor-Management Relations in the Transit Industry for the 21st Century
She also chaired more than TRB’s Executive Committee, including:
  • Executive Committee Subcommittee for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program
  • Panel on Innovative Labor-Management Practices (TCRP)
Before moving into public transit, Banks was a senior associate attorney at a private law firm, assistant to the Oakland City attorney, and law clerk and legal assistant with Oakland Unified School District. Her legal expertise brought her to AC Transit as its general counsel in 1990. Banks was particularly proud of her success in getting the district and its three unions to engage in collaborative bargaining last year instead of a more confrontational style of negotiation, said AC Transit Director Clinton Killian at the time of her death.



Further reading:
  • The Transportation Research Board: Everyone Interested is Invited, 1920-2020
  • Teaching transit the importance of principles. Presentation at workshop session “The changing environment in public transportation management and planning” at Public Transportation Management and Planning in a Rapidly Changing Environment: Strategies for Survival
  • AC Transit Chief Sharon Banks Dies – Pioneer in Field/ First black, woman to head bus agency, SFGate, Dec. 29, 1999
  • TRB Annual Report 1999 (print only)
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