Joe Milazzo II
Alliance Executive Director

Regional Transportation Alliance Executive Director Joe Milazzo II serves as executive director of the Regional Transportation Alliance (RTA), the regional business leadership group that focuses on relieving traffic congestion and enhancing mobility in the Triangle region of North Carolina. He serves as the public voice of the Alliance to civic, government, community, business, media, and professional boards and organizations.

Under Milazzo's leadership, the Alliance spearheaded the successful drive to include the accelerated widening of I-40 between Cary and Raleigh in the 2009-15 State Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP), approved in June 2008. In addition, the Alliance has led the region's efforts to accelerate the completion of 540/Triangle Expressway as a turnpike freeway, approved by the region's planning organizations and the NC Turnpike Authority in 2007, and authorized for a $25m annual statutory gap funding supplement in 2008 as part of the state budget act. Related initiatives that provided the groundwork for success in 2008 included the approval by the General Assembly of turnpike corridor revenue retention legislative amendments in 2006 and a similar policy by the NC Turnpike Authority that year. In 2004, the Alliance successfully lobbied to have the entire Raleigh Outer Loop (540 beltway) eligible for the NC Highway Trust Fund.

Since Milazzo joined the Alliance in 2002 as the organization's first executive director, the RTA has more than doubled in size to around 100 members and increased the number of member chambers of commerce from 4 to 23. In 2008 the Regional Transportation Alliance was named a national finalist for the regional organizational champion of the year by the Alliance for Regional Stewardship, a constituent program of the American Chamber of Commerce Executives organization. The Regional Transportation Alliance was also named the Exemplary Regional Partnership for the Research Triangle region in 2002 as one of the inaugural recipients of the Goodmon awards.

Milazzo holds master's degrees in both Management and Civil Engineering from NC State University, and a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from Penn State. His traffic engineering research at NC State has been incorporated in the 2000 U.S. Highway Capacity Manual and the 2003 Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Toolbox of Engineering Countermeasures to Reduce Red Light Running. A licensed professional engineer (PE) in North Carolina since 1998, Milazzo was named the Young Professional of the Year for 2001 by the North Carolina section of ITE. Milazzo served as the 2005 Young Executives Forum chair for North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry Industry (NCCBI, now the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce). He was a founding member of the NC State University MBA Alumni Board.

Joe and his wife Claire have a son, Joey and two daughters, Mary Chiara and Ellie. The Milazzo family lives in Cary in western Wake County and are members of St. Andrew the Apostle Catholic Church in Apex. Milazzo is a native of Indiana County, Pennsylvania, 40 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Contact Joe at 919.664.7065 or email at joe@letsgetmoving.org