METRO's People Movement covers the latest personnel moves in the public transit, motorcoach, and people mobility industries. 

In this latest edition, METRO covers the latest announcements at COTA, New York MTA, and more.

COTA Names Chief LinkUS Program Officer, New CFO

The Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) announced that Dorinda McCombs will join the agency as its Chief LinkUS Program Officer, and Earl Jackson has been named its new Chief Financial Officer. 

McCombs will be responsible for strategic planning, project implementation, performance evaluation, policy development, and executive oversight of the LinkUS project team. At the same time, Jackson will assume responsibility for financial strategy, accounting, procurement, and financial strategic planning initiatives.

McCombs is an associate vice president at HNTB Corporation, where she has worked for over two years. Before that, she served as the chief capital planning and project delivery officer for the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority in Alabama, where she helped implement bus rapid transit. She also has served as senior director, capital programming for the Metropolitan Rapid Transit Authority in Atlanta. 

Jackson is CFO for the City and County of Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, where he manages a team of 130 and an annual budget of $850 million. Jackson’s career in financial management and planning includes a leadership role at the Chicago Transit Authority, the second largest transit agency in the country, where he oversaw budget development, oversight, and financial planning of more than $775 million in annual operating expenses.

He also served in leadership roles at BNSF Railway, the New York State MTA, and Bank of America. Jackson will join COTA on September 15.

Denver’s RTD Names New COO

Denver’s Regional Transportation District (RTD) appointed Patrick Preusser as its new chief operations officer (COO). 

Preusser was selected following a national search and brings more than 28 years of experience at major U.S. transit systems and in cities around the world. He will join RTD on September 2, filling the role that was vacated after the previous COO retired in 2024.

Preusser most recently served as COO of the Utah Transit Authority and has held senior leadership roles with the City and County of Honolulu Department of Transportation Services, the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon, and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. 

He also managed national passenger rail programs for the Federal Railroad Administration, within the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Nationally, Preusser serves as a member of the American Public Transportation Association’s Rail Transit Operating Practices Working Group and Bus Operations Committee. In 2022, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appointed him to the Transit Advisory Committee for Safety, which provides strategic safety guidance to the USDOT and the Federal Transit Administration. 

New York MTA Names Arts & Design Director

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) named Tina Vaz as director of MTA Arts & Design. 

Vaz will be responsible for leading the MTA’s comprehensive range of visual and performing arts programs, as well as design initiatives that contribute to the cultural vitality of the transit system used by millions of riders daily. Her oversight will include Poetry in Motion, MTA Music, digital art, photography, and the Permanent Art Program, which consists of work commissioned by more than 400 established and emerging artists and has distinguished New York’s transit system with one of the world’s largest and most diverse collections of site-specific contemporary art. 

With expertise in art, culture, and brand communications, Vaz brings proven leadership, artistic vision, and creative strategy to MTA. 

Most recently, Vaz served as deputy director, chief brand and communications officer for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, leading communications, marketing, design, digital, and external affairs for Guggenheim New York while overseeing brand strategy for the Guggenheim's international constellation of museums in Bilbao, Venice, and Abu Dhabi.  Under her leadership, the Guggenheim established its first actual logo: a bold, dynamic “G” symbol based on the museum’s architectural forms. 

Vaz initially joined the Guggenheim in 2011 and led communications strategy for a range of Guggenheim global initiatives until 2019.