2/20/26 MS Email: My friend, Joe Schwieterman, Director of the Chicago office at the Transportation Research Forum lets set them up as an academic partner of OTNA.
Goals
Enroll TRF as a Founding sponsor on all Initiatives and IntelliConferences in a trade for $50,000 to $100,000 depending on the event rate
TRF
They provide promotion services to all their members for each of our activities
They provide a coordinator for our rail economics pages
They recurit Academic organizations to be OTNA partners under a trade deal similar to this
They recruit economics SMEs for the OTNA BrainTrust
They supply participating stakeholders to all OTNA relevant IntelliSynthesis activities
Discount of 25% to OTNA members for their forums
OTNA papers wil be submitted for TRF events
OTNA
Listing in all materials as an Initiating Sponsor
Co-coordinator on all our rail economics pages
Their SMEs and Champions listed in our BrainTrust
Their papers distributed to our community
A 25% reduction to their members when they become OTNA Members. This would be a 3 year rate
Promotion to our members to register for their events
Promotion to our sponsors to sponsor their events
Strategy
Work through Joe Schwieterman, President of TRF Chicago Chapter
Questions
It appears they host one forum annually, is this the case?
Are their Chapter Presidents volunteers or paid staff
What do local Chapters do?
What are the challenges that they face?
Enrolling paying sponsors for their forums and recuriting participants
Getting interesting papers submitted for their Forums
Only a single 2021 newletter is posted on their site.
