Bryan D. Smith
Chief Operating Officer
Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (MTD)
- Alma Mater: Kent State University and University of Akron
- Fun Fact: He is a very licensed individual. He’s had a CDL for 19 years and in Ohio is licensed to practice law and is licensed as a fireworks exhibitor
- Favorite Book: "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein
- Favorite TV Show: "Sherlock"
- Favorite Movie: "We’re the Millers"
Bryan Smith started working in transit as a driver at the campus bus service while attending Kent State University. He moved up as road supervisor, both on-street and dispatch, and then a full-time dispatch position opened at Portage Area Regional Transportation Authority (PARTA).
Smith was at PARTA for 16 years and when the opportunity of chief operating officer at Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (MTD) opened, it turned out it would be a good fit. While at PARTA they had about 1-1/2 million riders per year and at MTD they’re looking at beating last year’s record of 13 million riders.
As COO he will be a construction meeting in a trailer one moment of the day and then sitting in on the information specialists/call takers monthly meeting. There’s diversity every day in being able to help solve people’s problems. He has managed staff, educated Congress, supervised long-range planning and procurement, and headed the statewide transit risk pool board that manages the $9.5 million risk pool for 9 Ohio transit companies.
He also enjoys being a part of the partnership between the city of Champaign, the city of Urbana, the University of Illinois and MTD to provide the best solutions for the community and passengers. While at PARTA, a similar experience was a TIGER grant, which he was responsible for securing as the director of Planning, which resulted in a transformation of downtown Kent, Ohio. He served as the implementation project manager of the capital construction project, a multi-modal facility with a bus terminal, a parking deck for park-and-ride, bicycle storage, public meeting space, and ground-floor retail.
Among his critical responsibilities at PARTA was procurement. He had supervised multiple FTA triennial reviews successfully for PARTA and was also responsible for funding and business development at PARTA. He identified and landed more than $30 million in state and federal grants for coordinated transit, bio-diesel, CNG fueling station, IT projects and new buses.
Smith was selected to be a member of the class of the American Public Transportation Association’s (APTA) Leadership APTA 2014.
“I like being able to help people. I realize that sounds little corny but I think we have the ability to change people’s lives and help people with such a basic need that one of the things, I’ve looked it up, in Ohio and then here, it costs as much to own a car per month than it does to rent a two-bedroom apartment. If we can be part of somebody’s overall life solution to get a job and be able to rent an apartment and not have to have a car, how awesome is that? That’s participating in being able to help somebody live and put a roof over their head. That’s what I love most about my job."
“I would love to see a long-term, fully funded transportation bill. I get very frustrated by the lack of foresight when it comes to our infrastructure and this bridges over not only transit, but roadways and bridges as well. We’re critically underfunding our infrastructure."
"We’re underfunding what we have we’re investing in the wrong thing with what we do have because we continue to want the shiny new road to the greenfield instead of the bridge five miles up the road is falling down. I’ve moved to farm country and as I drive around I see more farms turning into housing and I know from my perspective as a transit professional, that’s going to be really hard to service. And as a citizen, I know that’s going to be hard to police, that’s going to be hard to provide water to and sewer to and fix all of those roads and all of that. It’s frustrating to see."
"My wife and I have owned three homes and we always try to find projects to do at each of them. That’s one of the things I enjoy doing — fixing or upgrading the house I’m living in."
