Christine J. Vineis has a lifetime of public affairs experience in both Washington, New York and Columbus, Ohio. Her legislative expertise is grounded in diverse public policy areas, having worked for a ranking Republican on the House Commerce Committee, represented one of the nation's top railroads before Congress and the Administration, and founded the international, 45-chapter Women's Transportation Seminar.

Christine left the Hill to become the first female officer of I.C. Industries. As Assistant Vice President of Government Affairs, she represented the Illinois Central Railroad, PET Foods and the Hussman Corporation.

In the New York City headquarters of Pfizer, Inc., Christine was director of the pharmaceutical industry's first consumer advertising campaign. She also managed the public relations elements of the AT&T divestiture for Posner Public Relations.

After moving to Columbus Christine worked as assistant to the Speaker of the House of the Ohio General Assembly and then as Director of Public Affairs for the region's metropolitan planning organization.

Today, as president of her own business, Ms. Vineis consults on a wide range of public policies, bringing strategic communication messages to Capitol Hill and impressive results to her many clients. She is affiliated with Washington, D.C. firm RBC & Associates.

Ms Vineis is a Strategic Advisor to the Coalition of America's Gateways and Trade Corridors as well as Transportation Matters.

Christine is founder and past-president of Ohio Women in Government, which she organized in 1997 to promote women to leadership positions within Ohio government. She is President of the Board of CHOICES, which helps victims of domestic abuse, and member of the WTS Advisory Board.

She has a BA from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts and a Masters in Public Affairs from the George Washington University.

Ray Chambers has 44 years of experience in government affairs. He began his career as a chief of staff to Members of Congress and served as a political appointee in two presidential Administrations. In that capacity he was responsible for congressional relations that led to the reorganization the eight Northeast bankrupt railroads into a viable system as well as a new law that created a unified trust fund to support local transit operations.

In 1974 he opened a management consultant and government relations firm which became Chambers, Conlon & Hartwell-LLC (CCH) and later established a subsidiary Seneca-International. For Seneca he led an effort to commercialize the Romanian Railway system. He has retired as a partner of CCH-Seneca. He then launched a second career, established RBC & Associates and became a partner in Capital Partnerships.

Mr. Chambers is primarily known for his work in the transportation arena. In the 1980s he was instrumental in legislation that broke the Burlington Northern monopoly into the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and introduced his principal client Chicago NorthWestern (now part of the Union Pacific system) as a competitor. In 1997, Mr. Chambers drafted an innovative railroad loan program which was enacted into law by Congress with a $3.5 billion ceiling. In 2005, the Congress expanded the loan program to $35 billion. Chambers is deeply involved in the development a new Surface Transportation Act and is pressing an agenda to reform the highway-transit trust fund program to include the rail mode as an equal partner. Chambers is currently Senior Transportation Policy Advisor to a number of associations and firms including the National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association, RAILCET (a union & management organization of 30 companies and two unions); DesertXpress, which proposes to build a true high speed rail line between Las Vegas and Southern California; Herzog, a rail construction and contract passenger train operator, Ansaldo-STS -US Switch and the State of Ohio in the development of its rail passenger program.

Mr. Chambers is consultant and Transportation Fellow of the Discovery/Cascadia Institute of Seattle. He is developing an initiative for Cascadia called “Beyond Oil – Transforming Transportation through Modal Rebalancing between Highway and Rail.”

Mr. Chambers holds a BA, magna cum laude, from the University of Redlands in California and a Masters from Rutgers in New Jersey.

Ms. Rohde has an extensive career in public service, in both the policy and legal arenas, concerning transportation. Ms. Rohde has held senior positions in both the Legislative and Executive branches of the Federal Government, serving directly two U.S. Secretaries of Transportation, as well as a number of Members of Congress and other senior officials at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Department of Justice and the White House.

Most recently, Ms. Rohde served as Chief Counsel for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), at DOT, where she served as the principal legal and policy advisor to the Administrator and at times, the Secretary. Prior to joining FMCSA, Ms. Rohde served as a Policy Assistant to the Secretary of Transportation, responsible for advising on multi-modal transportation matters. Ms. Rohde initially joined DOT as Associate Administrator for Policy and Congressional Affairs for the Research and Special Programs Administration, the agency responsible for the safe transportation of hazardous materials and pipeline operations. In this role she was responsible for all Congressional activities for the Agency, as well as preparation of the Agency’s budget and rulemaking oversight. Ms. Rohde’s appointment to DOT in 2001 was based on her role as counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, where she initially served on the Full Committee as Associate Counsel, and later served as counsel to a number of subcommittees, gaining extensive experience in various areas of transportation law as well as supporting a number of significant legislative efforts.

In addition to her federal service, Ms. Rohde served as Vice President of Government Affairs and Affirmative Action for the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), in Chicago, Illinois. As Vice President of Government Affairs at a federally regulated transportation entity, Ms. Rohde represented the CTA in the federal surface transportation reauthorization process of 2004-2005. Prior to her positions in public service, Ms. Rohde held positions with a transportation consulting firm and a law firm, both serving clients in the railroad industry.

Ms. Rohde received her A.B. from the University of Michigan, with a major in Political Science and emphasis in Business. She received her J.D. from the Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C., and attended Johns Hopkins University, for continued studies.

Ms. Rohde and her husband, Brian, are the parents of twins and reside in the Mount Vernon area of Alexandria, Virginia.

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