Professional Education

A session at the 2008 Wharton Transportation Executive Program.

The Center offers a new platform for education on project finance aimed at helping State DOT officials and other transportation professionals advance projects and leverage their limited funding more effectively. While there are other for-profit venues that address project finance from the perspective of the finance community, the Center's educational programs focus on the kinds of knowledge and expertise truly relevant and accessible to State DOT decision-makers. Providing an objective and balanced perspective, the Center's three different educational programs help to set the appropriate context for using the array of financial tools available to help DOTs and other transportation stakeholders get projects built.

Wharton Transportation Executive Program

The Center's flagship professional training component is the Wharton Transportation Executive Program. Intended for top public sector executives on an invitation-only basis, the Wharton Program emphasizes the critical role played by finance and studies its interrelationship with other related disciplines. Alumni of the program form a cadre of transportation finance thought-leaders who can accelerate the development of policies, adoption of techniques, and transformation of organizations. The public and private sector professionals completing the program receive a Wharton Certificate, and have meaningful opportunities to continue interacting with their colleagues long after the three-day program has ended. This Program is held once each year at Wharton's state-of-the-art Steinburg Conference Center on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Technical Workshops for Transportation Professionals

The Center's two-day Technical Workshops for Transportation Professionals are designed to provide practical, state-of-the-art education and training to mid- and senior-level practitioners on concepts and techniques necessary to develop, assess, and implement financial plans for transportation projects. Based on AASHTO's successful Project Finance Institute, sessions are led by experienced practitioners in project finance and selected presenters from the various State DOTs and transportation authorities. The Technical Workshops are held twice each year, once in Washington, D.C., and once in another location around the country.

Project Finance Seminars

The one-day Project Finance Seminars are held at the request of state and local officials or in conjunction with conferences and workshops sponsored by industry groups, such as the Transportation Research Board and the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. The Seminars are led by USDOT and FHWA officials and focus on federal programs for project finance and public-private partnerships such as the FHWA Office of Innovative Program Delivery. The Project Finance Seminars can help to disseminate more broadly the financing techniques, organizational strategies, and policy issues being considered and applied across the country and beyond. These seminars are held four times each year at various sites around the country.

More information about upcoming Center events.