Maurice Henderson
Maurice A. Henderson II, '97, joined the American infrastructure design firm HNTB Corporation as vice president of corporate development in March 2023. During the prior two years, he served as a senior advisor at the U.S. Department of Transportation at the request of the Biden administration. And for the two years prior to that, he was the senior director of government partnerships at Bird, a micromobility company that provides eco-friendly transportation via electric bikes and scooters. In October 2020, Gov. Kate Brown appointed him to the Oregon Transportation Commission.
He has worked both domestically and internationally in the public and private sectors as well as on a number of political and advocacy campaigns across the country. Whether in his time as an educator, in his roles in the public sector, through his advocacy for working people under the banner of organized labor, or on the campaign trail for individuals and causes he supported, he has spent nearly his entire professional career working towards providing equitable access to opportunities, most recently through his work in the Smart Cities arena.
In his previous public service, Henderson worked in various capacities at the highest levels of the local and state government as well as in the transit industry. Those roles have included working as the chief operating officer for the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet) in Portland, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler’s chief of staff, deputy director at the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), chief administrative officer for the Office of the Chief Technology Officer in Washington, D.C., and as the deputy press secretary for former Virginia governor, now U.S. senator, Tim Kaine. He has served on a number of boards that are dedicated to equity, sustainability, and environmental justice through expansion of electric- and human-powered mobility options and land-use planning, NABSA, Greenroads Foundation, and Forth Mobility.
Henderson is a member of the inaugural class for the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. He holds a bachelor’s degree in leaderships studies and a master’s degree in public administration and lives with his wife, MaryClare, and their black lab, Shady, in Bend, Ore.