Elaine Chao is the daughter of a shipping magnate. She was an administrator in the U.S. Maritime Administration in the mid 1980s. And when the calendar turned to the late part of the decade, she became chairwoman of the separate Federal Maritime Commission. Chao, who has had extensive government experience since, did not travel to her place as Donald Trump’s choice for Secretary of Transportation by land, but by sea.

However, as deputy secretary in the department during President George H.W. Bush’s administration, she served among Republican leadership that favored a robust ground infrastructure policy—an approach that seems to have returned a quarter-century later with the incoming Trump presidency. Bush pledged during his 1991 State of the Union address to send Congress “a blueprint for a new national highway system [and] a critical investment in our transportation infrastructure.” His team, led by department chief and Chao’s superior Sam Skinner, followed through with a request to boost investment in highways and bridges by 40 percent over a five-year period. Chao called the transportation blueprint “the first growth budget in seven years.”