June 2012 - People in the News

Mary Childress has joined the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) as chief financial officer, announced APTA President Michael Melaniphy. Childress has more than 25 years’ experience leading the financial and administrative functions of associations and non-profit organizations. Before joining APTA, Childress served as chief operating officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. Previously, she has held senior-level finance positions at the American Wind Energy Association, Optical Society of America, National Association for Home Care, and Partnership for Democracy.

Frank Alejandro is the chief operations officer for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro). As COO for Metro, Alejandro oversees and directs the activities of Metro’s bus and rail service that includes six rails lines and more than 1,800 peak-hour buses with more transit projects soon opening. Riders board Metro buses and trains about 1.5 million times on an average weekday. Alejandro provides counsel to the CEO on significant matters affecting bus and rail operations, in addition to assisting the CEO in developing and implementing short-range and long-range goals and business plans for the agency. Alejandro began his career 34 years ago as a bus operator. Having worked through the ranks, he rose to hold top management positions at Los Angeles County Metropolitan Authority (Metro), Hiawatha Light Rail system in Minneapolis, Minn., and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.

John Annoni has been named a senior supervising construction engineer in the New York City office of Parsons Brinckerhoff. In his new position, Annoni is working on the construction of the new 72nd Street station for the Second Avenue Subway, for which Parsons Brinckerhoff serves as construction manager. Annoni has more than 35 years of construction management experience, working primarily on transit projects, many valued at more than $1 billion. He has managed construction for both light and heavy rail as well as subway and commuter railroad systems, including projects involving new stations, rehabilitated stations, track work, tunneling and underground construction. Mark Mulvey has been named a senior principal technical specialist at Parsons Brinckerhoff. In his new position with the firm’s Transit & Rail Technical Excellence Center, Mulvey will perform rail operations analyses for terminal operations, operating plans (current and future) and fleet utilization. He has more than 40 years of railroad and rail transit industry experience, with expertise in the design of rail service and operating plans, and development of equipment and crew manipulations and track assignments for passenger terminals and yards. Prior to joining Parsons Brinckerhoff, he was senior rail operations analyst at Systra Consulting.

David Farrar, CFM, has recently been appointed director of Real Estate for FirstGroup America (FGA). In this role he supports FGA by handling routine property management responsibilities, such as sales and acquisitions of real estate within the First Student and First Transit divisions. Farrar joins FGA with more than 25 years of real estate and leadership experience. In 2006, he was the vice president of Facilities and Construction for Learning Care Group, the world’s largest pre-school company. In his previous position, Farrar was the director of Real Estate for the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., West Region.

Laketran welcomes Ben Capelle as the newest operations manager. Capelle will oversee the daily operations of Laketran’s three core services, in-county fixed routes, commuter express service to Cleveland and door-to-door Dial-a-Ride service, including Medicaid and Lake County board of DD contracts for the Dial-a-Ride service. Capelle comes to Lake County from Clermont Transportation Connection in Clermont County, Ohio, where he served as general manager. Under his direction at Clermont, Capelle improved ridership by an average of 23 percent per year. He brings along his statewide experience working as a bus operator at Kent State University and The Ohio State University, where he graduated. He worked at First Transit out of Cincinnati prior to Clermont Transportation.

RNL is pleased to announce the addition of Ala Hason as MENA regional director. With more than 30 years in the industry, Ala's experience and diverse portfolio of projects, located in countries around the world, will further RNL's goals of delivering world-class design and exemplary client service throughout the Middle East North African region and beyond.