A Great Honor: My Life Shaping 20th Century Transportation

A Great Honor is the extraordinary memoir of Alan S. Boyd and his remarkable journey across the twentieth century. From his Florida boyhood, bounced from one set of relatives to another by his mother to protect him from conflict with his stepfather, to flying paratroopers on D-Day, to being named by President Lyndon Johnson as the first secretary of the newly created Department of Transportation, Boyd was guided by an inner resilience and determination to meet the challenges of the future.

Boyd is a great storyteller-and stories abound, from supplying Florida moonshiners with glass jugs to flying over the Champs-Élysees at treetop level to salute the thousands of Parisians celebrating Germany's surrender. His battles for the common good in both his public and private careers continue to touch our lives-from his labors to save the American railroad industry from its intransigent commitment to the past; to his leadership in revitalizing a near-moribund Amtrak through modernizing its fleet, its management, and its mission; to his championing automobile safety regulations over the fierce opposition of the auto industry, resulting in saving hundreds of thousands of lives.

A Great Honor is the story of a man and a century of great change-and how both helped shape the other to the benefit of many.