Emil Frankel

Emil H. Frankel is the Director of Transportation Policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) in Washington, DC, and an independent consultant on transportation policy and public management issues. In June 2009 BPC’s National Transportation Policy Project, under Mr. Frankel’s leadership, issued its report and recommendations, Performance Driven: A New Vision for U.S. Transportation Policy. In 2008 and 2009, Mr. Frankel was a Visiting Lecturer at the Yale School of Management and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where he taught on issues of transportation, energy, and environmental policy and public management. Mr. Frankel was Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy of the U.S. Department of Transportation from 2002 to 2005. Appointed by President George W. Bush, Mr. Frankel played a key role in the coordination and development of the Administration’s proposal to reauthorize the Federal highway, transit, and highway safety programs. He also provided policy leadership in such areas as intermodal freight transportation, reform of the nation’s intercity passenger rail system, transportation project financing, and the application of information technologies to transportation systems operations. From 2005 to 2007 he was a Principal Consultant of Parsons Brinckerhoff, the international engineering and consulting firm. From 1995 to 2001 Mr. Frankel was Of Counsel to Day, Berry & Howard in the law firm’s Stamford, Connecticut, office. During that time he was also a Management Fellow at Yale University’s School of Management and a Senior Fellow at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. In 1995 he was a Joint Fellow at the Center for Business and Government and the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Mr. Frankel was Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Transportation from 1991 to 1995, responsible for managing an agency with more than 4,000 employees and an annual budget of over $1 billion. During the 1970s and 1980s, he was a senior executive of The Palmieri Company, a national firm engaged in business and real estate reorganizations. Previously, Mr. Frankel served as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and as a Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Jacob K. Javits of New York. Mr. Frankel served as a founding Vice Chair of the I-95 Corridor Coalition and as a Director of the Regional Plan Association of New York He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Cambridge Systematics, Inc. Mr. Frankel was a Selectman of the Town of Weston, Connecticut, from 1999 to 2001. Mr. Frankel received his Bachelor’s Degree from Wesleyan University and his LL.B. from Harvard Law School, and was a Fulbright Scholar at Manchester University in the United Kingdom. From 1981 to 1997 he was a Trustee of Wesleyan University, where he is now a Trustee Emeritus.