Welcome to COMTO Connecticut
COMTO was created to provide a forum for senior minority professionals in the transportation industry.
The Voice of Equity.
COMTO’s mission is to provide full access to employment, career and contract opportunities for minorities within the transportation industry. Over the past thirty years, our mandate has evolved to include not only public transportation industry executives, but also professionals at every level of industry encompassing a variety of fields and disciplines. Now, as was then, members are encouraged to share information, opportunities and personal expertise. With 39 chapters throughout the United States, our mission is as relevant today as we strive to provide full access to employment, career and contract opportunities for minorities within the transportation industry.
Leadership/Committee Chairs
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Sharon Okoye
President
Sharon Okoye is a Senior Transportation Engineer for the Connecticut Department of Transportation with over 28 years of varying experience, including extensive project management experience with federal aid programs and asset life-cycle planning for the Department’s $10 billion Public Transportation system.
Sharon serves as President of the Connecticut Chapter of the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials. During her tenure, she has led the development of the Chapter’s first strategic plan, working with a nine-member Executive Board to set goals and strategies to achieve COMTO’s mission. Sharon has also created partnerships between the Chapter and the Connecticut Department of Transportation and Connecticut's Airport Authority. Partnership efforts include promoting contracting opportunities for MWDBEs for upcoming projects funded by the Biden Infrastructure Law and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the workplace. She also serves on COMTO National’s legislative committee, which provides agendas on DEI to Congress' Transportation Committee for consideration in new bills for improving equitable opportunities for MWDBEs in contracting.
For six years, Sharon has served as Program Manager for the Federal Highway Administration's National Summer Transportation Institute Program for Connecticut, which provides oversight of local universities in administering a two-week summer program for underrepresented high school students to pique interest in transportation-related careers. She is also on the Board of Directors for the Southern New England Chapter of the Project Management Institute, overseeing the Professional Development Education portfolio, whose mission is to provide quality project management content and professional development training to assist in personal/professional growth and help prepare and qualify for attainment of project management related credentials.Sharon has a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and is a certified Project Management Profession. Sharon has received the Women’s Transportation Seminar’s (WTS’s) Rosa Parks Diversity Leadership Award, and WTS Silver Award for Leadership.
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Tamara Smith
Vice President/Scholarship Chair
Dr. Smith is an associate vice president/senior project manager at AECOM. She has over 20 years of professional experience managing major state and local projects. During her career in the STEM industry, she has worked as a Project Manager or Administrator with AECOM, providing services to several clients on large multi-million-dollar projects in the Connecticut area, including Amtrak and the Connecticut Department of Transportation. As a project management professional, she is responsible for planning, overseeing, and leading projects from inception to completion. She meets budgetary objectives and adjusts project constraints based on financial analysis. With a strong understanding of the impact and implications of decisions, she consistently analyzes project issues to make sound, well-informed, objective decisions for her clients.
Dr. Smith holds a doctoral degree in organizational leadership. Her doctoral research study explored the status of women in STEM leadership positions. The qualitative exploratory case study aimed to understand what engineering industry leaders and former leaders perceive as obstacles to female career advancement to STEM leadership positions. She hopes to use the study’s results to help practitioners understand the obstacles female employees are experiencing and to drive positive changes that will increase leadership diversity in the STEM fields.
With a passion for giving back to the STEM industry, she serves on various professional organizations, including Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS) CT Chapter, American Council of Engineering Companies of Connecticut (ACEC/CT), and Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO), CT Chapter. She is the current Treasurer, an Executive Board member, and the scholarship chair of the Connecticut COMTO chapter. She is the 2022-2024 co-chair for ACEC/CT Emerging Leaders and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEI&B) committees. She was recently elected to serve as a director, alternate for ACEC/CT 2023-2026 term. She serves as an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee member of WTS International. She is a member of COMTO National Strategic Planning Committee. She is an active member of the West Indian Social Club of Hartford and the Greater Hartford West Indian Lion’s Club—Dr. Smith mentors at the University of Phoenix, College of Doctoral Studies.
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Doris Boursiquot
Executive Secretary
Doris Boursiquot has been a Graduate Project Controls Specialist at WSP since 2019. She has experience with job cost analysis and report, cost & design change tracking, risk management, and project documentation. Doris received her Bachelor's in Civil Engineering from the University of Connecticut (2019) and her Master's in Construction Management from Central Connecticut State University (2023).
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Michael Chong
Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Committee - Director at Large
Michael is a Civil Rights Manager for the Connecticut and Rhode Island Divisions of the Federal Highway Administration. He is a transportation professional with over 25 years of experience in Civil Rights, Federal-Aid, NEPA, Program/Project Management, and Metropolitan and Statewide Transportation Planning. From 2005 to 2016, he was the Planning and Environmental Program Manager at the Massachusetts FHWA Division. Since October 2016, he has served as the Civil Rights Manager for the Connecticut and Rhode Island FHWA Divisions. He oversees all the civil rights programs, including DBE, ADA, Title VI, and Contract Compliance. He graduated from Central Connecticut State University with a B.A. in Geography and a Master of City & Regional Planning from Morgan State University.
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Deepa Vaswani
Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Committee - Director at Large
Deepa is the Manager of Operations for Northeast BES, Inc. She possesses a unique, well-rounded combination of educational and professional expertise in the Building Industry. She has successfully worked in Advertising/Marketing, Architecture, Engineering, and Construction. Her design and project management accomplishments span-new and rehabilitated/renovated residential, commercial, and institutional architectural and landscape design projects in London, New York, and Mumbai.
Concurrently, she was the Director of Marketing for over fifteen years for a well-established New York-based Architectural/Engineering and Construction Management firm and, after that, held the position of Manager of Operations for five years. Deepa is the Manager of Operations for the Northeast for BES, Inc., an established Transportation Engineering firm with offices in Florida and Connecticut.
Deepa is adept in design, new business development, project budgeting and management, strategic planning, and all marketing facets, including advertising, community/public outreach, client liaison work, estimating, presentation, and promotion. Her knowledge and understanding of public and private sector clients’ standards and requirements in the New York Tri-State Area allow her to successfully manage a wide range of contracts.
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Sharmistha Ghosh
Program Committee - Director at Large
Sharmistha is the National Director of Project Controls for WSP. Within WSP, she provides leadership for planning, cost control, measurement and reporting for the program, and direction and guidance for the resolution of project control and project management issues as they arise. Ms. Ghosh brings her operational oversight of the cost and schedule management functions, document control and management, implementing project control systems, and scheduling and estimating to her construction projects.
Sharmistha has accumulated many years of managerial experience, having managed groups of project control professionals in day-to-day mega-project environments. During her career, Sharmistha has been assigned to numerous projects in the transportation, rail, commercial, and education industries.
Sharmistha is actively involved with the Inclusion & Diversity initiatives in the industry and co-leads the WSP Inclusion & Diversity efforts in the Northeast Region. She is also the Program Committee Chair for Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO) – Connecticut Chapter.
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Carl Jackson
Legislative Committee - Director at Large
Carl Jackson currently serves as Director of Transportation for New Haven Public Schools, Connecticut's most extensive public school system. Carl oversees the transportation for more than 17,000 daily students and provides contract overnight for more than 400 buses and routes.
Prior to his current position, Carl served as a Public Transit Administrator for the Connecticut Department of Transportation, responsible for oversight of contract operators and consultants, including design and construction managers for the New Haven Line, Branch Lines, Shore Line East, and the recent startup of the Hartford Line that operates between New Haven, CT, and Springfield, Mass. Carl is a State of Connecticut's Aspiring Leader's Program graduate.
Carl has more than 44 years of transportation experience, having also worked as the Associate Director at the District of Columbia Department of Transportation, Director of Greenville Transit Authority, General Manager/CEO at Macon Transit Authority, General Manager at Transdev, and General Manager at Chicago Transit Authority. Carl began his transportation career as a brakeman for the Long Island Railroad and progressed to Director of Market Development.
Carl earned a B.S. from Adelphi University, an M.A. from SUNY/Stony Brook, and an MBA from Long Island University. Carl also holds several professional designations and certifications, including Certified Community Transit Manager (CCTM), Project Management Professional (PMP), Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (LSSGBC), and Certified Parking Professional (CPP).
Carl holds memberships in several professional transportation organizations, including the immediate past president of the Connecticut Chapter of the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials, the Connecticut Chapter of the Woman's Transportation Seminar, The Community Transportation Association of America, and the National Parking Association.
Carl has received awards and professional recognition from the Connecticut Department of Transportation, the District of Columbia Department of Transportation, the Connecticut Association of Community Transportation, the South Carolina Transit Association, the Georgia Transit Association, and the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials.
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