Inspired by accident

When Katherine Freund’s son was three years old he was seriously injured when a car hit him. The driver was 84 years old. Katherine had an unusual reaction. Instead of lashing out at the driver, she became angry at the system. Intuitively, Katherine knew that crashes caused by older people were not the problem – they were the result of a transportation system that wasn’t meeting the needs of an aging population. She was determined to change that.

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Katherine began working toward her Master’s Degree in public policy at the Edmund Muskie School of Public Service in Portland, Maine. She analyzed transportation for older people from every conceivable angle.

While her passion for the subject grew, so did the scope of her work. Soon she was focusing on and solving related problems of resources, logistics, technology and policy. The result is the Independent Transportation Network®. What began as one woman’s mission has become a sustainable solution to a growing national problem, and a lesson in social entrepreneurship.