Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) has announced the addition of Maureen McCole, Garrome “Jerry” Franklin and David Schulze to the roles of VP, commuter rail/railroad management, VP, chief safety officer and VP for policy and strategy, respectively.

As VP, commuter rail/railroad management, McCole will focus on day-to-day leadership of the Trinity Railway Express and serve as DART’s liaison with the Fort Worth Transportation Authority who jointly owns the 35-mile commuter rail line with DART.  She is also responsible for managing contracted commuter rail service for the Denton County Transportation Authority and managing more than 200 miles of DART-owned freight rail corridors.

McCole began her career with the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) where she held several positions including chief clerk mechanical, special assistant to the president (Northeast Corridor), government affairs officer and senior manager operations (engineering department). She moved to New Jersey Transit in 2004 as policy and strategic analysis manager before becoming superintendent of River Line light rail operations in 2007. McCole holds a bachelor’s of business administration/organizational management from Cabrini College in Radnor, Penn.

Franklin brings more than four decades of transportation-related experience to his new role as vice president, chief safety officer, where he will be responsible for the agency’s operations safety program. Franklin began his career at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). At the FAA, he served as regional administrator and deputy associate administrator for civil aviation security.

Prior to DART, he was a regional administrator for the Federal Transit Administration. In 2006 he joined DART and worked as interim vice president of procurement, vice president of executive affairs and vice president economic opportunity/government relations. Franklin holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Park College and a Master of Business Administration from Webster University in Webster Groves, Mo.

Schulze will be leading DART’s strategic planning initiatives, developing and reviewing policies, providing analysis of critical issues and overseeing and managing projects that have agency-wide impacts in the newly established VP policy and strategy role. For the past 25 years, Schulze has worked in various attorney roles for the city of Dallas and general counsel roles for DART. Schulze attended the University of Texas at Austin where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration before getting his law degree from Baylor University in 1990.