Sound Transit Board unanimously hires Julie Timm as its new Chief Executive Officer

It’s offi­cial: Puget Sound’s Region­al Trans­porta­tion Author­i­ty, bet­ter known as Sound Tran­sit, is get­ting a new chief exec­u­tive officer.

Julie Timm, who cur­rent­ly heads the Greater Rich­mond Tran­sit Com­pa­ny, will soon be mov­ing across the coun­try to take the helm of Sound Tran­sit. Formed in the 1990s after the Leg­is­la­ture gave King, Pierce, and Sno­homish coun­ties the autho­riza­tion to form a new region­al tran­sit enti­ty to increase free­dom of mobil­i­ty in Wash­ing­ton’s urban heart, Sound Tran­sit is in the mid­dle of a decades-long effort to con­struct a high capac­i­ty tran­sit net­work across the region.

“In hir­ing Julie Timm, the Sound Tran­sit Board chose an accom­plished CEO who offers the right mix of skills and knowl­edge to guide our tran­sit sys­tem for­ward,” said Sound Tran­sit Board Chair and Uni­ver­si­ty Place Coun­cil Mem­ber Kent Keel in a state­ment. “It’s no easy task to plan, build and oper­ate the largest tran­sit expan­sion in the nation. Julie brings the lead­er­ship and col­lab­o­ra­tive approach to ensure our suc­cess­ful work continues.”

The board­’s deci­sion to accept the exec­u­tive search com­mit­tee’s rec­om­men­da­tion was unan­i­mous, with two coun­ty exec­u­tives (Pierce Coun­ty’s Bruce Dammeier and King Coun­ty’s Dow Con­stan­tine) voic­ing great sat­is­fac­tion with the search process and its out­come. State law pro­vides that coun­ty exec­u­tives sit on the Sound Tran­sit Board and also appoint the oth­er board­mem­bers from their respec­tive coun­ties, so they have a lot of influ­ence on Sound Tran­sit’s trajectory.

Timm suc­ceeds Peter Rogoff, who was hired in 2015 to replace leg­endary CEO Joni Earl, one of NPI’s Lynn Allen Award honorees.

Via WebEx, Timm told board­mem­bers she’s extreme­ly appre­cia­tive to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to lead Sound Tran­sit and will now be look­ing for a place to live.

After hear­ing that com­ment, mul­ti­ple board­mem­bers jok­ing­ly sug­gest­ed that she buy a home in the city or coun­ty they represent.

“I am pro­found­ly grate­ful to join the Sound Tran­sit team’s work to trans­form lives across the Puget Sound region for gen­er­a­tions to come,” Timm said in a pre­pared state­ment. (She also thanked the board, as men­tioned, dur­ing the meeting.)

“Togeth­er, we will con­tin­ue to show what is achiev­able when we pri­or­i­tize the health of our peo­ple and our plan­et. More than dou­bling the reach of light rail in the next few years rep­re­sents a his­toric lev­el of investment.”

“We will keep these and fur­ther projects rolling through strong part­ner­ships and inno­v­a­tive solu­tions that ben­e­fit our par­ents, our chil­dren, and our children’s chil­dren. It will not be easy or com­fort­able to com­plete this vision. I am tru­ly hum­bled to become part of such a tremen­dous effort.”

Timm is cor­rect that the jour­ney ahead won’t be easy or comfortable.

Sound Tran­sit has a lot of dif­fi­cult, thorny fis­cal and align­ment deci­sions to make in the next few years, espe­cial­ly with respect to the vot­er-approved Bal­lard and West Seat­tle exten­sions, as was evi­dent from the pub­lic com­ment peri­od of today’s meet­ing, in which numer­ous speak­ers offered align­ment feedback.

Our friends at The Urban­ist have put togeth­er an exten­sive list of issues that will be on Tim­m’s desk from day one as Sound Tran­sit’s new CEO, which is def­i­nite­ly worth read­ing. We con­cur that improv­ing the rid­er­ship expe­ri­ence should be a top pri­or­i­ty for Julie, along with fig­ur­ing out how to make the board and senior staff more acces­si­ble to more peo­ple. Sound Tran­sit will make bet­ter deci­sions if its lead­er­ship are more ground­ed and con­nect­ed to the com­mu­ni­ties where the agency is plan­ning to con­struct or mod­i­fy right of way.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Julie Timm on being unan­i­mous­ly select­ed as Sound Tran­sit’s next leader. We hope her arrival gives the agency a ben­e­fi­cial jolt of ener­gy at a crit­i­cal point in its more than twen­ty-five year history.