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Who's Doing What in the Industry

Sumwalt previously worked 32 years as a pilot. He chaired the Air Line Pilots Association’s Human Factors and Training Group and was a consultant to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System.

Bella Dihn-Zarr, who had served as NTSB vice chairman since 2015, was the acting chairman between the end of ­Christopher A. Hart’s term on March 15 and Sumwalt’s appointment March 31. Both Dihn-Zarr and Hart remain on the five-member board.


CLEVELAND—The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) Board of Trustees elected George F. Dixon to his 24th consecutive one-year term as its president. Dixon, a past APTA chair, is the longest-serving transit board president in Ohio and one of the longest-serving in the nation; he joined the board in 1992 and was first elected president in 1994. He was named APTA’s Outstanding Public Transportation Board Member in 2006 and has served on numerous APTA committees.

Westlake Mayor Dennis Clough, a board member since 1999 and vice president since 2011, also was re-elected. He has been mayor since 1986 and represents the Cuyahoga County Mayors and City Managers’ Association on the RTA board. Clough serves on the APTA Transit Board Members Committee.


SAN DIEGO—Cubic Transportation Systems has named Tony Gale vice president and general manager of NextBus®, the company’s real-time passenger information business. Gale has more than 20 years of experience in Software as a Service (SaaS) as well as domestic and international IT/Geographic Information System (GIS) markets. He formerly was general manager of a business unit of Trapeze Software.


NEW YORK CITY—Dominick M. Servedio, executive chairman of STV, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) “for leadership and effective advocacy on behalf of the engineering and construction professions.” Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.

Servedio joined STV in 1977 and rose through the ranks, becoming president and chief operating officer and then chief executive officer and chairman.

Also, STV announced the promotion of Scott McIntyre from senior project manager to senior vice president. His career of more than 35 years has included work on the multimodal World Trade Center Transportation Hub in Lower Manhattan, AirTrain JFK and New Jersey Transit Corporation’s Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Transit project.

Tyler Bonstead, the firm’s West Coast deputy regional manager in the Transportation & Infrastructure Division in Los Angeles, has been named vice president. He joined the firm as a transportation planner in 2005 and worked his way up to heading its national planning practice. Bonstead is a former member of the APTA Board of Directors.


ARLINGTON, VA—The National Transit Institute (NTI) recently named Diana Mendes, HNTB Corporation transit/rail practice leader and senior vice president, its 2017 Training Professional of the Year in recognition of her more than 15 years of providing training for both NTI and FTA.

Mendes co-chairs the APTA Legislative Committee and serves on the APTA Board of Directors and numerous other APTA committees. She regularly speaks at transportation-related conferences.


ITHACA, NY—The Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit (TCAT) Board of Directors elected David Howe, assistant dean at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, as its chairperson. He has served on the board since 2012 and succeeds Bill Gray, who is immediate past chairperson.

Ducson Nguyen, a TCAT board member since 2016 and an Ithaca alderperson, was elected secretary/treasurer and Peter Stein, a county legislator who joined the board in 2013, is vice chairperson.


SEATTLE—Julie Honeywell has joined Sound Transit as chief human resources officer. She previously was chief human resources officer for a building and sustainability consulting firm and earlier worked eight years for a publisher of education and trade publications.


LOS ANGELES—The Southern California Regional Rail Authority Board of Directors, the governing body of Metrolink commuter rail, elected Riverside County Transportation Commission representative Andrew Kotyuk its chair. He is a council member and former mayor of San Jacinto and succeeds Orange County Supervisor Shawn Nelson, who represented the Orange County Transportation Authority and had chaired the board since 2015.

Ventura County Transportation Commission representative Brian Humphrey was elected first vice chair, while Los Angeles Metro representative and Glendale City Councilmember Ara Najarian was named second vice chair.


PHOENIX—The Phoenix Public Transit Department has promoted Joseph Bowar to deputy director of the Facilities and Oversight Division. Bower served as interim public transit director for nine months and has worked for the city for almost nine years.

He has 36 years of experience in the public and private sectors, including serving at the South Dakota Department of Environmental and Natural Resources and as an environmental consultant.


KANSAS CITY, MO—HNTB Corporation announced the following:

Jacob (Jake) Agiro joined the firm as Connecticut office operations manager and associate vice president, based in Rocky Hill. His more than 18 years of transportation management and operational experience includes a tenure with Connecticut DOT and serving as civil engineering department manager for another consulting firm.

Amit Bose, a former FRA deputy administrator and chief counsel, has joined the firm’s Arlington, VA, office as mid-Atlantic district transit and rail director and associate vice president. He also was associate general counsel and deputy assistant secretary for U.S. DOT and worked for New Jersey Transit Corporation and New Jersey DOT.

Lisa Ives, based in Seattle, joined the firm as a senior project manager and associate vice president. She has 28 years of project management experience and has been an instructor for the National Transit Institute’s course on project management for transit professionals.

Mark Niles joined the Washington, DC, office as senior project manager and associate vice president. He has 30 years of transit planning experience and has worked extensively on projects in the Washington region. Niles is a member of the APTA Policy & Planning Committee.

Rob Troup, a company vice president based in Philadelphia, was named transit and rail market sector leader for the Northeast Division. He previously was deputy general manager of operations for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority and has worked in the field for more than 35 years.


NEW YORK CITY—WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) has announced the appointments of Victor Martinez as area manager for its Orange and San ­Bernardino, CA, offices and Kevin Reed as operations manager for the west region, based in San Diego.

Martinez has 37 years of transportation industry experience in California. Reed joins WSP | PB from another international engineering organization where he was a vice president responsible for the operations of five offices in Southern California.


BURLINGAME, CA—Ryan Popple, chief executive officer of Proterra, has been named to the board of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG). As a Silicon Valley-based public policy organization, SVLG represents nearly 400 companies on issues, programs and campaigns that affect the economic health and quality of life in the region.


NEW YORK CITY—Dan Suraci, lead transportation planner for SYSTRA in New York City, received the 2017 Emerging Leader Award from the League of American Bicyclists for exceptional leadership and advocacy on bicycle mobility.
Suraci is working on a recommended practice for bicycle accessibility to public transit through the APTA Standards Development Program. He is also a member of the APTA Research & Technology Committee, Sustainability Committee and Urban Design Working Group.

Before joining SYSTRA, he worked in New York City DOT’s bicycle program and was communications manager for Bike New York.

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