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2020 SESSION


HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 57
Celebrating the life of Shirley Jean Ybarra.

 

Agreed to by the House of Delegates, February 10, 2020
 

WHEREAS, Shirley Jean Ybarra, former Secretary of Transportation for the Commonwealth and dedicated civil servant, died on November 10, 2019; and

WHEREAS, Shirley Ybarra earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; and

WHEREAS, early in her career, Shirley Ybarra was senior policy advisor and special assistant for policy for United States Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole from 1983 to 1987; her major accomplishment in that role was the corporatization of Dulles International Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and their transfer to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority; and

WHEREAS, between 1994 and 1998, Shirley Ybarra was the Deputy Secretary of Transportation for the Commonwealth, at which time she authored the state’s Public-Private Transportation Act of 1995, which became a model for Public-Private Partnership Transportation laws nationwide; and

WHEREAS, Shirley Ybarra served from 1998 to 2002 as the Secretary of Transportation in Governor James S. Gilmore’s cabinet, overseeing a budget of $3.2 billion and a staff of 13,000 people; in this position, she established the first ongoing state public-private partnership program, which led to billions of dollars of new transportation investment during a period of significant economic and population growth; and

WHEREAS, in 2001, Shirley Ybarra received the Public-Private Ventures Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the American Road & Transportation Builders Association in recognition of her leadership in the design of innovative infrastructure financing; and

WHEREAS, in recent years, Shirley Ybarra was senior transportation policy analyst at Reason Foundation, a nonprofit think tank committed to advancing free minds and free markets, values she lived by her entire life; and

WHEREAS, preceded in death by her parents, Verguet and Myrtle, and her brother, Russell, Shirley Ybarra will be dearly remembered and missed by her sister, Lynette, and her family, and numerous other family members and friends; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the House of Delegates hereby note with great sadness the loss of Shirley Jean Ybarra, a former Secretary of Transportation for the Commonwealth devoted to improving the lives of countless Virginians; and, be it

RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to the family of Shirley Jean Ybarra as an expression of the House of Delegates’ respect for her memory.