Maria Cino, deputy secretary for the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), announced last week that after roughly two years, she will be leaving the agency on March 2.
In her address to colleagues Cino wrote, "You should know that making the decision to come to DOT was easy. The decision to leave was not."
According to her biography, Cino was nominated by President Bush as the deputy secretary of Transportation on April 6, 2005, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate a month later. Following the resignation of Norman Mineta, she served as the acting secretary of transportation from July 7, 2006 until Oct. 4, 2006, when Mary E. Peters was sworn in as the new secretary of transportation.
In the Bush administration's first term, Cino served as assistant secretary and director general of the U.S. and Foreign Commercial Service at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Before joining the U.S. DOT, Cino served as deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Before joining the administration, Cino was a public policy and government affairs consultant for the law firm of Wiley, Rein & Fielding in Washington, D.C. From 1993 to 1997, she served as the executive director and chief operating officer of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
A native of Buffalo, N.Y., Cino served as chief of staff for U.S. Representative Bill Paxon prior to joining the NRCC. She is a graduate of St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y.
