The Surface Transportation Act of 1982 allocated billions of dollars to highway construction and restoration. The Surface Transportation Act, which changed the name of the program from MBE to Disadvantage Business Enterprise (DBE), which required 10% of all federal aid highway dollars spent by states be awarded to firms owned and controlled by racial minorities. The primary goal of the program was designed to provide initial contracting opportunities for DBE firms so that they could eventually transcend into the mainstream of the transportation industry. In 1987, the Surface Transportation Act was passed and the definition of DBE was expanded to include firms owned and controlled by women.

Early in the life of the DBE Program, the FHWA identified a critical need for supportive services programs to assist minority and women owned business concerns in obtaining the engineering and management skills that were necessary for those entities to be successful in the highway construction industry.

The On-the-Job Training Program’s primary goal is to assist in the inclusion of minorities and women in the highway construction skill industry. The On-the-Job-Training component of the program is designed to create a potential labor pool of qualified individuals with construction based skills to be utilized by contractors in fulfilling their federal hiring goals.