Mary Martha Churchman
Senior Policy Advisor, Office of Program Management , U.S. Department of Transportation

Mary Martha Churchman works for the Federal Transit Administration in its Washington, D.C. headquarters. Since January 2008 she has served as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Program Management. Among other responsibilities, she oversees the work of the team implementing the United We Ride initiative to promote coordination of public transit with human service transportation. Since January, 2009, she has been actively involved in the development of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and implementation of FTA’s Recovery Act Programs.

From 2001 through 2007 she served as Director of the Office of Transit Programs, where she was responsible for administration of the major FTA formula and discretionary grant programs, including the urbanized and non-urbanized formula programs, the formula program for elderly and persons with disabilities, the Job Access and Reverse Commute Program, the bus discretionary program, the fixed guideway modernization formula program, the Over-the-Road Bus program, and two new programs authorized by SAFETEA-LU – the tribal transit program and the New Freedom formula program.

For many years previously Mary Martha managed the Section 5311 program of formula assistance for public transportation and intercity bus service in other than urbanized areas and the Rural Transit Assistance Program (RTAP) and oversaw the management of the Section 5310 program for elderly and persons with disabilities.

She entered the Department of Transportation as a DOT Management Intern in 1976. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wittenberg University, in Springfield, Ohio, and a Masters of Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.