Sound Transit announces that search team’s pick for new CEO is Julie Timm of Virginia

Greater Rich­mond Tran­sit Com­pa­ny leader Julie Timm is the can­di­date that the Sound Tran­sit Board of Direc­tors’ CEO Selec­tion Com­mit­tee would like to see hired as the agen­cy’s next Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer, the agency announced today.

Known pub­licly before today only as “Can­di­date A,” Timm was iden­ti­fied as a poten­tial suc­ces­sor to cur­rent CEO Peter Rogoff through a nation­al search process run by a group of board­mem­bers that includ­ed all three Puget Sound coun­ty exec­u­tives (Dow Con­stan­tine of King Coun­ty, Bruce Dammeier of Pierce Coun­ty, and Dave Somers of Sno­homish Coun­ty) as well as Auburn May­or Nan­cy Backus, Seat­tle City Coun­cilmem­ber Deb­o­ra Juarez, Ren­ton City Coun­cilmem­ber Ed Prince, and Uni­ver­si­ty Place Coun­cilmem­ber Kent Keel, who chairs ST’s board.

“Julie Timm’s deep expe­ri­ence, lead­er­ship skills and pas­sion for pub­lic trans­porta­tion will make her a great leader for Sound Tran­sit as we work to deliv­er the largest tran­sit expan­sion pro­gram in the nation and dra­mat­i­cal­ly expand our oper­a­tions in the years ahead,” said Sound Tran­sit Board Chair and Uni­ver­si­ty Place May­or Kent Keel in a state­ment sent to NPI.

“I am thrilled and hum­bled to be con­sid­ered for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sup­port the Sound Tran­sit Board and staff in deliv­er­ing invest­ments that are tru­ly trans­for­ma­tive and his­toric in their scale and impact,” Timm said in response to her selec­tion by the search team. “Pub­lic trans­porta­tion is about serv­ing peo­ple and improv­ing lives, and I am eager to work along­side the region’s com­mu­ni­ties to con­tin­ue mak­ing the region’s vision for its future into reality.”

The full Sound Tran­sit Board will need to approve the hire and autho­rize a con­tract with Timm. The board is expect­ed to dis­cuss the search com­mit­tee’s rec­om­men­da­tion at its June 23rd pub­lic meeting.

Sound Tran­sit offered the fol­low­ing primer of Tim­m’s employ­ment his­to­ry and work expe­ri­ence to the pub­lic and the news media:

Timm is cur­rent­ly CEO of Greater Rich­mond Tran­sit Com­pa­ny, where her more than four hun­dred employ­ees oper­ate suc­cess­ful region­al bus routes serv­ing the Rich­mond, Vir­ginia area.

Timm is known as a high­ly col­lab­o­ra­tive leader who forges strong rela­tion­ships with com­mu­ni­ty groups and part­ners, and for build­ing an agency cul­ture focused on ded­i­ca­tion to pub­lic ser­vice and equity.

From 2016 through 2019 Timm served as Chief Devel­op­ment Offi­cer for WeGo Pub­lic Tran­sit in Nashville, Tennessee.

Her efforts includ­ed direct­ing devel­op­ment activ­i­ties and agency staff across func­tions includ­ing engi­neer­ing, out­reach, cus­tomer care, plan­ning, grants, mar­ket­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, ser­vice qual­i­ty and Inno­va­tion. She over­saw the imple­men­ta­tion of major region­al cap­i­tal projects asso­ci­at­ed with the more than $6 bil­lion nMo­tion Strat­e­gy that the Nashville region adopt­ed in 2016.

From 2012 through 2016, Timm served as Tran­sit Devel­op­ment Offi­cer and Title VI and Envi­ron­men­tal Jus­tice Com­pli­ance Offi­cer for Hamp­ton Roads Tran­sit in Nor­folk, Virginia.

She worked with state and local part­ners and the Fed­er­al Tran­sit Admin­is­tra­tion to man­age cap­i­tal project and strate­gic plan­ning process­es sup­port­ing light rail and oth­er tran­sit projects through approval, fund­ing and implementation.

From 2000 through 2012 Timm worked in North Car­oli­na in senior posi­tions devel­op­ing tran­sit, high­way and oth­er projects for Mof­fatt and Nichol, Carter and Burgess, and URS Corporation.

From 1996 through 2000 she worked as a con­tract employ­ee man­ag­ing projects and pro­grams for the Unit­ed States Air Force Air Com­bat Com­mand Head­quar­ters in Virginia.

Timm earned a mas­ter of busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion degree from Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty as well as bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biol­o­gy from Old Domin­ion University.

Our team at NPI looks for­ward to meet­ing Julie and learn­ing more about her vision for imple­ment­ing Sound Tran­sit 3 and tack­ling some of the thorny prob­lems fac­ing the agency, like Line 1’s fre­quent­ly bro­ken ele­va­tors and esca­la­tors, a prob­lem that the Sound Tran­sit Board seems not to be tak­ing seri­ous­ly enough.

We’re encour­aged that the selec­tion com­mit­tee appears to have found a can­di­date who — at least from the agen­cy’s descrip­tion — shares many of the attrib­ut­es that made leg­endary for­mer CEO Joni Earl, one of NPI’s Lynn Allen Award hon­orees, so suc­cess­ful dur­ing her long tenure at Sound Transit.

Earl was known for being col­lab­o­ra­tive and for get­ting results. She had an excel­lent work eth­ic and built strong rela­tion­ships with the peo­ple who worked for her. Her truth­ful lead­er­ship and account­able stew­ard­ship secured Sound Tran­sit’s future in the ear­ly 2000s. Today, the agency is over­see­ing a mas­sive expan­sion of bus and rail tran­sit through­out Cen­tral Puget Sound.

A big ben­e­fit of secur­ing a new leader through a nation­al search is that it affords an oppor­tu­ni­ty for an orga­ni­za­tion to find new tal­ent from out­side the region it serves. Timm is com­ing to Sound Tran­sit from Vir­ginia, and could bring a valu­able fresh per­spec­tive to the agen­cy’s C‑Suite at a crit­i­cal time in the agen­cy’s history.

We will be track­ing the meet­ing on the 23rd here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate and look for­ward to the board­’s dis­cus­sion and decision.