East SFV Today

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has awarded Cal State Long Beach’s Center for International Trade & Transportation (CITT) and its ongoing collaboration with the University of Southern California and University of California, Davis a grant to renew the center for five more years.

Housed in the College of Professional and Continuing Education, CITT is a prominent center for workforce development, dedicated to community outreach, innovative research and education in the area of goods movement. CITT, which houses six major research centers, accelerates research and policy insights across the global supply chain.

DOT’s University Transportation Center Program (UTC) helps develop the next generation of transportation professionals. Cal State Long Beach, USC and UC Davis form the Pacific Southwest Region UTC, which began in 2016. CITT works with USC in the METRANS Transportation Consortium in the research of freight and goods movement and transportation issues.

The center also collaborates with UC Davis, with a concentration on equitable decarbonization which will create efficient transportation systems and create a healthier environment for communities. Through efforts with UC Davis, they will directly help local businesses with new zero-emissions standards.

“CITT has a focus on professional development. Traditionally, our strength has been in training students to help build the future transportation workforce and be career ready. We work with programs such as the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program to help identify students who we can fund through our UTC program,” said Tom O’Brien, executive director of the CITT. “Being that we are a continuing-education university, a lot of our students are also non-traditional who we help teach skills for the workplace. We do things to directly serve our students and this grant will be a huge benefit.”

In 2021, CITT played a pivotal role in the California Supply Chain SUCCESS Initiative to help solve the freight backlog issue due to COVID-19.

The grant, said O’Brien, validates and helps to continue the work the center has been doing. “It helps us to expand our reach throughout the campus and our community. I love being able to raise the profile for something that is an important contributor to the economy and to Long Beach,” he said.

UTC received 230 applicants this year, with 34 universities being awarded a grant toward their UTC to help in research, development, technology and innovation.

This grant requires a non-federal 100% dollar match, which was met by CalTrans.

Original source can be found here.