When the incoming administration of new US President George W Bush asked Norm Mineta to take over the Transportation Department, they gave him one mandate: keep aviation off the front pages of the nation's newspapers or at least below the fold of page one. In that sense, it hasn't been a mission fulfilled for Mineta, who has perhaps reluctantly become the most visible transportation secretary in recent memory.
Before the events of 11 September, Mineta was concerned with budget woes at Amtrak, the nation's threatened interstate passenger rail system and matters such as the long simmering dispute on aircraft noise with Europe. In fact, he was at a meeting on noise on the morning of 11 September when aides told him about the World Trade Center disaster. Within two-and-a-half hours, all aircraft flying in US airspace were on the ground in the first ever such grounding, and Mineta was on the front page and everywhere else.
The security crisis that has lasted since September has kept Mineta from some of his transportation interests such as automated toll-collection technology to speed road and bridge travel and advanced passenger transportation such as magnetic-levitation passenger trains. He had worked in these areas at Lockheed Martin, which he joined in 1995 after leaving the House of Representatives when the Democratic Party lost control of the House and Mineta lost control of the House Transportation Committee. As he said at the time, he knew the limits of power well enough to know the limits of powerlessness.
He learned a lot about political limits on the city council and then as mayor in his native San Jose, California, where he developed experience in "public works" - the art and science of getting roads and highways built without losing political allies. He had learned this from his father, a well- known businessman and insurance agent in the town. When he was 10, the Mineta family was forced to relocate to an internment camp for Japanese-Americans, where the guards took away the baseball bat Mineta loved to carry. Since he came to Washington, Mineta has kept baseball bats, balls and mementos in all of his offices.
Source: Airline Business
