Keynote Speaker:
Beverly A. Scott, PhD.
Beverly Scott Associates
Beverly A. Scott, PhD, is a trailblazing leader in public transportation management and a powerful voice for workforce development, diversity, and people-oriented service. Her career in the public transportation industry spans more than three decades, including as General Manager for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), Rail & Transit Administrator for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, CEO and General Manager of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), CEO and General Manager of the Sacramento Regional Transit Authority (SRTD) and General Manager of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA). She has also served in senior level positions at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York), New Jersey Transit Corporation (NJT), the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (WMATA), Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), and the Houston Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Houston METRO).
Dr. Scott is a past chair of the Rail-Volution Board of Directors, currently serves on the boards of the American Public Transportation Association and the Transportation Learning Center and was appointed to the Federal Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity as well as the California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group. Dr. Scott also serves in an advisory capacity to the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute of Race and Justice at Harvard University Law School in the areas of transportation, infrastructure and equity and as a research associate at the Mineta Transportation Institute at San José State University. She also founded Introducing Youth to American Infrastructure, Inc. (“iyai+”), a national non-profit dedicated to inspiring, educating and engaging today’s youth to be tomorrow’s community builders, with special emphasis on improving the active participation of our most vulnerable youth and historically underutilized groups in infrastructure careers.
Among her many accolades, Dr. Scott received the 2014 Sharon Banks Humanitarian Leadership Award in Transportation from the Transportation Research Board for her advocacy on behalf of public transit users and workers and for her tireless efforts to improve the lives of others, and was named a “Transportation Innovator of Change” by President Barack Obama in 2016.
Panelists:
Therese McMillan
Executive Director, Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC)
Therese Watkins McMillan is Executive Director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), assuming the agency's top staff position March 1, 2019. She also serves as the top executive for the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG).
McMillan previously worked for 25 years at MTC, and for more than eight years as MTC’s deputy executive director for Policy before her 2009 appointment by then-President Barack Obama to serve as deputy administrator of the Federal Transit Administration in the U.S. Department of Transportation. McMillan subsequently served as Acting FTA administrator from March 2014 to March 2016 before taking the position as Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s chief planning officer in April 2016. During the final five years of her original MTC tenure, McMillan also was an instructor of transportation funding and finance in the Transportation Management Graduate program at San Jose State University’s Mineta Transportation Institute.
Darwin Moosavi
Deputy Secretary, Environmental Policy and Housing Coordination, California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA)
Darwin Moosavi was appointed Deputy Secretary for Environmental Policy and Housing Coordination at the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) in August of 2019 by Governor Gavin Newsom.
In his current role, Darwin focuses on initiatives related to reducing vehicle miles travelled, housing and transportation coordination, and climate resilience, amongst other issues. He was lead author of CalSTA’s Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure (CAPTI) published in 2021 and currently works on its implementation. Before joining the team at CalSTA, Darwin served as Sustainability Project Manager the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), leading initiatives to champion walking, bicycling and transit use, promote zero emission vehicles and integrate equity considerations into the Department’s work. Under the administration of Governor Brown, Darwin was appointed as a Senior Planner at the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR), where he worked on various transportation policy issues centered around building sustainable communities and reducing vehicle miles traveled. Darwin spent several years helping build the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) program, and later served as its Program Manager at the Strategic Growth Council.
Darwin earned his Bachelor of Science in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning from UC Davis and a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from Portland State University, with an emphasis in Transportation Planning.
Jeffrey Tumlin
Director, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA)
Jeffrey Tumlin was named Director of Transportation of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency in December 2019. He oversees the Municipal Railway (Muni), parking, traffic engineering, bicycle and pedestrian safety, transportation accessibility, and taxi regulation for the City & County of San Francisco.
Jeffrey is the former director of strategy at Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates, a San Francisco-based transportation planning and engineering firm that focuses on sustainable mobility. Previously he served as Interim Director of the new Oakland Department of Transportation.
For more than twenty years, he has led station area, downtown, citywide, and campus plans, and delivered various lectures and classes in 20 U.S. states and five countries. His major development projects have succeeded in reducing traffic and CO2 emissions by as much as 40 percent, and accommodated many millions of square feet of growth with no net increase in motor vehicle traffic. These projects have won awards from the U.S. General Services Administration, Institute of Transportation Engineers, American Planning Association, American Society of Landscape Architects, Congress for the New Urbanism, and Urban Land Institute.
He is the author of Sustainable Transportation: Tools for Creating Healthy, Vibrant and Resilient Communities (Wiley, 2012).
Alicia John-Baptiste
President and CEO, SPUR
Alicia John-Baptiste is the president and CEO of SPUR. She is responsible for defining the overall vision and strategy for the organization. A seasoned leader and public policy professional, Alicia has over 20 years of experience reimagining systems to create better outcomes for people. Her optimistic vision and practical approach inform SPUR’s efforts to build a Bay Area where all people can thrive.
Prior to her time at SPUR, Alicia developed deep appreciation for local government and its commitment to the collective good while serving in leadership roles for the City and County of San Francisco, most recently as Chief of Staff at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. Locally and nationally recognized for her public policy expertise, inspirational perspective and creative approach to systems change, Alicia focuses her talents and experience on building shared dreams. Alicia holds a Masters degree in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University.
