Recently hired Sound Transit CEO Julie Timm departing agency to care for her father

Sound Tran­sit’s chief exec­u­tive offi­cer Julie Timm will be leav­ing the agency in a few weeks to return to the East Coast and care for her father, the agency announced today. Tim­m’s depar­ture, which came togeth­er quick­ly, was described by ST’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions team as prompt­ed by a fam­i­ly matter.

“Sound Tran­sit CEO Julie Timm announced today she will be leav­ing the agency in order to return to the East Coast to take care of fam­i­ly mat­ters,” the state­ment said. “Since join­ing Sound Tran­sit in Sep­tem­ber 2022, Timm has over­seen a renewed empha­sis on the rid­er expe­ri­ence as Sound Tran­sit approach­es the open­ing of sev­er­al new exten­sions, start­ing with East Link next spring. Her focus and lead­er­ship in cen­ter­ing cur­rent and future rid­ers in the agency’s cap­i­tal and oper­at­ing pro­grams will ben­e­fit the region for years to come.”

“Timm’s last day with Sound Tran­sit will be Jan­u­ary 12th,” the state­ment went on to say. “The board and staff lead­er­ship will form a tran­si­tion team to nav­i­gate the agency through the lead­er­ship tran­si­tion. The board is expect­ed to appoint an inter­im CEO in the weeks ahead.”

“While not impos­si­ble, it would be incred­i­bly chal­leng­ing for me to main­tain a split focus while main­tain­ing the intense lev­el of sup­port and sta­bil­i­ty Sound Tran­sit deserves from its CEO,” Timm explained in the all-staff email.

“The Board has expressed their full com­mit­ment that they will pro­vide sta­bil­i­ty dur­ing the tran­si­tion peri­od as a new CEO is select­ed to lead the vision and mis­sion of the ST [Sound Tran­sit] Pro­gram, and they will be pro­vid­ing more infor­ma­tion in the com­ing weeks,” Tim­m’s note added.

The “fam­i­ly mat­ter” ref­er­enced in the announce­ment per­tains to Tim­m’s father, who resides on the oth­er coast and needs an increased amount of care.

Timm was hired in 2022 after the Sound Tran­sit Board of Direc­tors decid­ed not to renew the con­tract of Peter Rogoff, who was cho­sen as Joni Ear­l’s replace­ment sev­er­al years ago. The Sound Tran­sit Board is an eigh­teen-mem­ber fed­er­at­ed body con­sist­ing of the King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive, the Sno­homish Coun­ty Exec­u­tive, the Pierce Coun­ty Exec­u­tive, the WSDOT Sec­re­tary, and fif­teen coun­ty and city elect­ed offi­cials appoint­ed by the three executives.

Timm quick­ly made a favor­able impres­sion with tran­sit advo­cates and con­stituen­cies served by Sound Tran­sit. She often post­ed com­mute and work pho­tos to her Twit­ter account. She is known for her cheer and professionalism.

An impor­tant mile­stone dur­ing her tenure was the open­ing of the Hill­top Link exten­sion in Taco­ma ear­li­er this autumn, an event we cov­ered right here on The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate. Anoth­er mile­stone was the deci­sion to open part of East Link / Line 2 between Red­mond and Belle­vue as a stand­alone “starter line” next spring.

On the oth­er side of the ledger, plan­ning for key ST3 projects remains mired in devel­op­ment pur­ga­to­ry. ST3 is short­hand for Sound Tran­sit Sys­tem Expan­sion Phase III, an ambi­tious bal­lot mea­sure approved by vot­ers in 2016. Although NPI’s research has found that vot­ers remain very sup­port­ive of ST3, Sound Tran­sit’s Board has yet to approve final align­ments for many of the projects (such as light rail to West Seat­tle and Bal­lard) which is caus­ing deliv­ery dates to slip.

Whether or not Tim­m’s depar­ture neg­a­tive­ly impacts the next stages of ST3 plan­ning remains to be seen. Hope­ful­ly, it won’t. Sound Tran­sit is los­ing its chief exec­u­tive, but it has many oth­er senior staff, so the agen­cy’s gears will keep turn­ing despite the lead­er­ship tran­si­tion. The board found Timm through a nation­al search and may opt for a sim­i­lar process to find Tim­m’s successor.