Welcome to COMTO St. Louis
COMTO was created to provide a forum for senior minority professionals in the transportation industry.
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United States
The voice of Equity.
COMTO’s mission is to provide full access to employment, career and contract opportunities for minorities and women 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.
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Vivian Martain
President
As DEI Compliance Officer, Vivian leads Millstone Weber’s DEI commitments and manages the firm’s portfolio of compliance and community capacity-building initiatives. In that role, Vivian administers highway design, engineering, and construction project compliance and monitors and enforces the diverse, equitable, and inclusive participation of disadvantaged businesses, professionals, the construction workforce, and on-the-job trainees.
Vivian also serves as the administrator of three Millstone Weber Equity Initiatives: the MW Communiversity, a one-stop resource center targeting the needs of area DBEs; Project PAVE, an award-winning STEM Initiative she designed and created which introduces metropolitan St. Louis high school students to transportation and highway design, engineering and construction and the MW Lunch & Learn series, a virtual collaborative aimed at dismantling the framework of systemic racial, social, academic and economic inequities in our region.
Vivian is the former Executive Director of the Construction Prep Center (CPC), a nationally recognized construction pre-apprenticeship training school in St. Louis, and the former Director of the Contracts, Legal and Risk Management Divisions of the St. Louis Housing Authority.
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Missy Stuedle
1st Vice President
Missy Stuedle is the External Civil Rights Director for MoDOT. Missy has been with MoDOT for over twenty-three years. She has served in various capacities in the External Civil Rights Division, including Administrative Assistant, Civil Rights Specialist, Civil Rights Manager, and her current role as the External Civil Rights Director.
As Director, Missy is responsible for directing the department’s external affirmative action, equal opportunity & non-discrimination programs, which include the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program, On-the-Job Training Program, Equal Employment Opportunity, Title VI, ADA, and all other non-discrimination or affirmative action programs related to federal-aid contracting activities.
In addition to her day-to-day activities, Missy is the lead administrator of the Missouri Unified Certification Program, which includes St. Louis Lambert Airport, Bi-State Development, Mid-America Regional Council, the City of Kansas City, and the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority.
Missy graduated from Central Missouri State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice and graduated from Columbia College with a Master’s degree in Criminal Justice.
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Andrew Potthast
2nd Vice President
Andrew Potthast, PE, is a Vice President at HDR Engineering, Inc, and is the Managing Principal of the St. Louis office. He brings over 26 years of diverse transportation experience as a senior project manager, leading complex projects involving roadway expansion, traffic and roadway studies, light rail transit system projects, and multi-discipline public infrastructure projects.
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Alonzo Washington
Secretary
Alonzo Washington is a senior project engineer manager for WSP, USA, St. Louis office. Alonzo has over 13 years of experience in design, project management, and Resident Construction Engineering. Alonzo has worked on numerous IDOT, MoDOT, and Local Agency projects throughout his career. Alonzo is a native of Starkville, MS, but has called St. Louis his home for the past 13 years.
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Francoise Lyles-Wiggins
Member-At-Large
As Assistant Airport Director-Community Programs in the Business Diversity Development department at St. Louis Lambert International Airport in St. Louis, Missouri, Francoise Lyles-Wiggins is responsible for implementing all aspects of the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program (DBE), Airport Concessions Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program (ACDBE), administering the City of St. Louis-Minority and Women Business Enterprise (MBE/WBE) Certification Program, monitoring the City of St. Louis Living Wage Program and providing various outreach services to the small, disadvantaged, minority and women business enterprise contracting and consulting community.
Mrs. Lyles-Wiggins sets the agency’s overall three-year DBE goal; analyzes the Airports progress toward DBE/ACDBE goal attainment and outlines corrective action when necessary; reports agency DBE/ACDBE progress to the Federal Aviation Administration and reports Airport progress toward meeting the City of St. Louis MBE/WBE goals to St. Louis Development Corporation; sets contract goals on federally assisted projects; plans and participates in training seminars and workshops for emerging, small, disadvantaged, minority and women contractors; advises Airport and City officials on DBE/ACDBE matters; provides technical support to small emerging businesses; implements various outreach activities aimed at building capacity, equity and sustainability in the region; and collaborates with regional stakeholders, community organizations and multiple agencies to assist businesses in steady growth and development.
Mrs. Lyles-Wiggins is a summa cum laude graduate of Mississippi Valley State University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. She holds a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Also, she obtained a Certified Compliance Administrator (CCA) certification and Masters Compliance Administrator (MCA) from Morgan State University at the American Contract Compliance Association National Training Institute.
Mrs. Lyles-Wiggins is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.; recipient of the 2012 Joe Rinke Owner Award for her efforts to advance the spirit of teamwork and harmony within the St. Louis construction industry, named Small Business Monthly’s 2018 Diversity Hero and in 2021 named among 100 St. Louisans You Should Know To Succeed In Business. -
David Glastetter
Member-At-Large
David Glastetter is a senior project engineer for HNTB Corporation’s Saint Louis office. David has over 25 years of experience in the design, repair, load rating, and inspection of roadway bridges. David is a member of the MoDOT Client Service Team for HNTB and has worked on numerous MoDOT projects throughout his career. David is a native of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, but has called St. Louis his home for the past ten years.
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Abe Adewale
Member-At-Large
Abe Adewale founded ABNA in 1994 with his wife/partner Nicole after an exemplary 10-year career working as a project manager on highway & bridge infrastructure projects for the Illinois Department of Transportation. Mr. Adewale is a licensed professional engineer in Missouri and Illinois with an I.B.S. in Physics from Clark College, a BS in Civil Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and an MBA from SIU Edwardsville. Mr. Adewale has been a part of the St. Louis Community since 1988 and currently resides in University City with his wife and four daughters.
Mr. Adewale is a leading voice in the engineering profession, regionally and nationally. He served on the board of directors for the Engineers Club of St. Louis from 2010 to 2011, is currently the Vice Chair of the Engineering Division of the State Board of Architects, Engineers, Land Surveyors and Landscape Architects (APELSLA), and is a member of the board of National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES). In 2011 he served on the ABET accreditation committee responsible for University of Missouri – Columbia’s Engineering Program-accreditation. Mr. Adewale is also an active member of the State Design Alliance, American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC), where he serves on various committees, American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Institute for Transportation Engineers (ITE), Missouri Society of Professional Engineers (MSPE), National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), Associated General Contractors (AGC), St. Louis Council of Construction Consumers (SLCCC), and the Engineers Club of St. Louis. In 2013, the Missouri Society of Professional Engineers (MSPE) selected Abe Adewale PE as the Engineer of the Year.
Mr. Adewale has been married to Nicole, a civil engineer, for twenty years. They have four daughters ranging in age from 8 to 19 years old. The oldest daughter is a second-year architectural student at the University of Kansas (KU). He often jokes that he would need to work until he’s 80 to put them through college and pay for four marriages. All jokes aside, he relishes being a father and holds his children in the highest regard.
Under Mr. Adewale’s leadership, the company has grown from a staff of 2 to over 80 in 18 years. It has become a formidable engineering powerhouse in the Midwest, providing services on some of the region's most significant and highest-profile public projects. In 2007, Abe was awarded the Central/Midwest Region’s Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for outstanding entrepreneurship with Professional Services. He has led the transformation of ABNA into a full-service Civil engineering operation offering services in Aviation, Rail, Highways, Bridges, Water/Wastewater, GIS, Surveying, and Construction Management. Some of these projects include the design of the Lindbergh Tunnel at Lambert’s Airport, the new Lambert Runway and Taxiways, the New I-64 Design Build, the Cross County Metrolink Extension, the MSD CSO Masterplan, the MRB Illinois Approach Flyovers, and the I-55 Mainline Reconstruction among others. This transformation also includes ABNA’s addition of a Heavy Civil General Contractor Division servicing such clients as St. Louis Public Schools and Salvation Army.
Mr. Adewale’s community involvement includes the St. Louis Science Center, the Chair of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Scholarship Fund, and the Rotary Club of St. Louis. For the last ten years, he has served as a judge and sponsor of the St. Louis FIRST Robotics Competition. He also employs and mentors high school and college interns during the summer to expose them to surveying, engineering, CADD and general office operations.
For years, he has leveraged his position throughout various organizations to develop strategies to promote the engineering profession, and the civil engineering profession in particular, to enhance the number of young people pursuing the profession. To that end, Abe is tremendously honored to be recognized by MSPE and hopes that it will continue to inspire students of all backgrounds to pursue engineering and build a better community.
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Gina Montgomery
Member-At-Large
Gina Montgomery, a native of San Diego, California, brings over twenty years of experience and working knowledge of D/M/WBE programs. Currently, Gina is the Compliance Manager for the St. Louis County M/WBE program, where she oversees the Contract Specialist Team of professionals, where together they work to ensure M/WBE participation is obtained on County and federal projects. Before St. Louis County, Gina served as a Civil Rights Specialist for the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT), where she certified Minority and Women-owned businesses for Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) status, developed new initiatives and programs to assist certified DBEs with capacity building, fostered relationships with prime contractors, key MoDOT personnel and community organizations. Before MoDOT, Gina was responsible for Diversity and EEO training for the Missouri Office of Commission on Human Rights for the State of Missouri. Her office investigated all the discrimination complaints for housing, employment and public accommodations for the State of Missouri. Gina is a strong advocate for small businesses, a proud Mom of four, and a distinguished member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
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