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Meet KellyAnne Gallagher, CAE!
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KellyAnne Gallagher, CAE
Assistant Vice President-Member Programs and Services
Member Services Department
What are the three job elements you focus on the most—your primary responsibilities?
Member service, member service, member service.
My job title is assistant vice president-member programs and services. Under that umbrella, my team and I directly serve a broad cross-section of the APTA membership and interests, including public transit agency CEOs and business members. I work on international programs and relationships with partner organizations, as well as overseeing the programming and planning of APTA’s conferences. I also have modal responsibility for commuter rail.
Our team of 10 is responsible for 30 percent of all APTA committees and nearly half of all association revenue in an EXPO year.
Please talk about recent times you’ve helped out a member.
Everything I do comes back to providing value to APTA members. I field countless phone calls and emails each day, and spend the majority of my time working on projects that serve either a class of members or an individual’s needs.
One moment I may be preparing a compensation comparison for the CEO of a public transit system, and in the next scheduling the FTA administrator’s participation at an APTA conference so members can have direct contact with the federal agencies. |
What initiatives, projects or programs have you worked on at APTA that you have taken particular pride in completing?
I’m proudest of introducing the “practicum” model of content delivery—an in-depth, hands-on examination of case studies in an interactive forum—for singularly focused topics.
We introduced this format in 2010 for high-speed rail, and used it again last year on the topic of innovative transit funding and financing. An APTA practicum is comprised of multiple modules, each centered on a case study, focusing on best practices and lessons learned.
Also, I co-chaired the UIC’s organizing committee for the 8th World Congress on High-Speed Rail, held in Philadelphia in 2012, and served as APTA staff lead as the event host. I continue to serve on the UIC’s Congress planning team, now working on the 9th World Congress, which will take place in Tokyo later this year.
How did you “land” at APTA? How long have you worked here?
I landed at APTA 15 years ago when I interviewed to lead the association management practice that APTA was launching with its new contract to manage the Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS). The practice grew to include American Transit Services Council, the High Speed Ground Transportation Association and the WTS scholarship fund. I was responsible for these organizations for my first six years at APTA.
What professional affiliations do you have?
I am a member of the American Society of Association Executives, and a Certified Association Executive (cae®).
Could you tell us something about yourself that might surprise us?
I was a Russian Studies major in college and, after a time on Capitol Hill, spent nine years of my career working on Soviet human rights issues. From Washington I orchestrated the first human rights conference in Moscow sponsored by a Western non-governmental organization.
My other activities have allowed me to breakfast with Gloria Steinem, lunch with Geraldine Ferraro and dine with Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Years ago, when my daughter was too young to participate in Take Your Daughter to Work Day, I organized “Take A Daughter to Work” day, pairing Capitol Hill offices with the DC Boys and Girls Club. These children lived two miles from the Capitol but had no connection with women on the other side of the Anacostia River—and vice versa. Each year we kicked off with a speaker breakfast, where the girls heard from members of Congress and met their hosts for the day. After a couple of years of this, Gloria Steinem heard about what we were doing and invited herself to breakfast with a television crew in tow.
I lunched with Geraldine Ferraro when I was doing political consulting, putting together a nonprofit that supported new Americans. After the formalities of pledging her support, she was eager to share baby pictures of her grandchildren, and gently scolded me for not having more pictures of my own kids to share.
But meeting these two icons of the feminist movement may have paled in comparison to my encounter with Archbishop Tutu, which was at the height of his work on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I was coordinating his appearance at a gala in New York and had worked extensively with commission staff on every detail, but I was unprepared for the man himself. There is incredible power in his presence: he simply exudes a joyous energy that is infectious. In his personality you could understand his zeal to heal South Africa following the collapse of apartheid.
Currently. I serve on the boards of a political action committee and a human rights organization, and find that the most restorative vacations involve being on my road bike within earshot of the ocean.
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