Department of Transportation Nomination of Mortimer L. Downey HI To Be an Assistant Secretary.

The President today announced that he will nominate Mortimer L. Downey III, of Reston, Va., to be an Assistant Secretary of Transportation. His area of responsibility would be budget and programs, and he would replace Hamilton Herman, resigned.

Downey was born August 9, 1936, in Springfield, Mass. He received a B.A. from Yale University in 1958 and an M.P.A. from New York University in 1966.

From 1958 to 1962, Downey was a management trainee and staff assistant in various departments of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. From 1962 to 1968, he was assistant to the chief of the central research division in the planning and development department .of the Port Authority, and from 1968 to 1973 he was principal transportation planner for that department.

Downey was supervisor of rail public services for the Port Authority from 1973 to 1975. He was a budget priority analyst for the House Budget Committee in Washington from 1975 until January 1977, when be became Deputy Under Secretary of Transportation.