John Santamaria’s professional career began at Grumman Aerospace (Northrop-Grumman), where he spent more than 14 years as a design and test engineer, specializing in the integration of avionic electronic systems utilizing custom designed aircraft carrier-based automatic test equipment.
From 1997-2021, Santamaria was employed by New York City Transit, retiring as the vice-president and chief mechanical officer of the Division Car Equipment within the Department of Subways. Prior to this, Santamaria spent four years as the assistant chief mechanical officer of NYCT’s Car Equipment Engineering Department and held the position of assistant chief officer of NYCT’s Central Electronics Shop for more than 10 years, managing the engineering and maintenance activities of electronic repair and technical integration projects in support of NYCT’s Department of Car Equipment, Automatic Fare Collection, Subway Electronics Maintenance and Bus Electronics Maintenance divisions.
In Santamaria's current role as the senior vice president of Rail for Clever Devices, he is responsible for developing and executing short-term and long-term business plans to increase market share in the Rail industry. John also leads and manages rail industry activities and personnel engaged in Business Development, Project Management & System Deployment, Product Management, and Quality Management sectors within the company.
Santamaria is a licensed professional engineer in three states and is currently the Vice Chair of the APTA Rolling Stock Technical Committee. He is an active participant within the UITP Rolling Stock Sub Committee and is also a member of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society and Metropolitan Railway Club.