When: September 11, 2008, 11:30 AM
Where: Maggiano’s Little Italy
Cost: $30 members / $40 non members
Topic: Update on Highway Construction in the Greater Houston Area
Speaker: Raquelle Lewis, Public Information Officer, Houston District for TxDOT

Raquelle Wooten Lewis, a native Houstonian, is the new Public Information Officer for the Texas Department of Transportation’s six-county Houston District. As TxDOT’s lead media representative in the Houston area, Lewis is responsible for providing needed information to the motoring public regarding highway construction. The Houston District is the state’s largest district by population and volume of construction. Each year for three years, Fiscal Years 2003, 2004, and 2005, more that $1 billion of construction funds were awarded to the Houston District. In 2006, the six counties that comprise the Houston District – Brazoria, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Montgomery and Waller Counties – contained more than 5 million people, the largest population of any of the 25 TxDOT Districts. The district also has the largest volume of traffic in the state with area motorists driving more than 83 million miles every day.

Prior to working for TxDOT, Lewis worked in the private sector for PB, TxDOT’s General Engineering Consultant for the Katy Freeway Reconstruction and was responsible for the development, implementation and quality assurance of the public information, involvement and communications programs for the $2.8 billion IH 10/Katy Freeway Reconstruction Project. With more than fifteen years of experience in public relations, media relations and transportation planning, Lewis has coordinated and implemented public information programs for infrastructure projects in South and Central Texas. She received her bachelor degree in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin and did her graduate studies in Sociology at Texas Southern University. Raquelle is the wife of Arnold Lewis and the proud and devoted mother of son Andrew Lewis.