PRESIDENT
Ashby Johnson
Executive Director, Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, Austin, TX
Ashby Johnson is the Executive Director of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) which is the metropolitan planning organization for the six-county central Texas region and has served in that capacity since August 2014. Ashby also served as the Deputy MPO Director at the Houston-Galveston Area Council, which is the transportation planning agency for the eight-county greater Houston region for the preceding 11 years. Prior to H-GAC, he spent eight years with the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Planning and one year with the Federal Transit Administration’s Office of Planning. Prior to USDOT, Ashby spent five years with the Texas Department of Transportation in the Environmental Affairs Division. He holds a Bachelors degree in Government and a Masters in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin.
VICE PRESIDENT
Pragati Srivastava
Director, Memphis Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), Memphis, TN
Pragati Srivastava has served as the Director of the Memphis MPO since 2011 and is responsible for multimodal Long Range Transportation Planning for the Memphis MPO region. She serves more than 1 million residents of the Memphis MPO region and works closely with the 29 member Policy Board, comprising of various local, State and Federal agencies. She formerly served as the Principal Transportation Planner for the Memphis MPO where she was responsible for managing the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP) and managed various transportation planning studies. Pragati received a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture and Master’s Degree in Urban and Rural Planning from India. Additionally, she also holds a Master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas, at Austin.
Gregory Stuart
Executive Director, Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization (Southeast Florida)
Greg brings more than 32 years of transportation, land use planning and logistics experience in both private and public sectors. Greg currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations and the National Association of Regional Councils Executive Directors Council, elected nationally. He is Chair of the Florida MPO Advisory Council (MPOAC) Staff Directors Advisory Committee and the MPOAC Freight Committee. In his spare time, Greg is the Chair of the City of Fort Lauderdale’s Transportation Management Agency, a transit provider, with an annual ridership exceeding 650,000 passengers. Greg also spent his formative years working in logistics related to the manufacturing of the IBM Personal Computers in Boca Raton.
BOARD MEMBER
Bill Austin, AICP
Executive Director, Morgantown Monongalia MPO, Morgantown, WV
Bill Austin is a graduate of Virginia Tech having earned both a Bachelors and Master’s Degrees in Political Science. He has worked for or with Metropolitan Planning Organizations for the last thirty plus years. He has a long history of supporting both large and small MPO’s as part of the leadership of MPO Association’s in two different states. He began his career with MPO’s at the Fifth Planning District Commission (now the Roanoke Valley Transportation Planning Organization) as a technician performing both data collection/analysis duties and administrative duties. Upon leaving the Fifth Planning District Commission he served as the lead planner for the Burlington NC MPO for five years. He left Burlington to work in Wilmington NC as the lead MPO Planner and lead Transportation Planner for the City of Wilmington. During his tenure in North Carolina he was one of the primary founders of the North Carolina Association of MPO’s serving two consecutive terms as the Association’s chairman. In 2001 he left the City of Wilmington to become a consultant to Florida’s Turnpike where he worked as a planning liaison to South Florida’s MPOs-Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Indian River counties. His primary responsibility at this time was working with the Miami-Dade MPO. During this time he also conducted a Community Impact Assessment for the widening of the Turnpike in South Florida as well as completing other planning duties. He has been the Executive Director of the Morgantown Monongalia MPO since 2009. During his time in Morgantown he has led numerous planning efforts including public involvement and technical aspects of the Metropolitan Transportation Plan update and for several smaller scale studies. He has also worked with the West Virginia University School of Public Health to identify best practices for reaching underserved communities in the transportation planning process. He was one of the primary founders of the West Virginia Association of MPO’s where he is in his sixth term as Chairman. He has been married to his wife Laurie for 35 years. They have a 27 year old son who lives in Morgantown. They also have two dogs. He is an avid bad golfer. He also enjoys chess and backgammon.
BOARD MEMBER AND TECHNICAL COMMITTEE LIAISON
Reese Brewer
MPO Director, Frontier MPO, Ft. Smith, AR
Reese acts as the MPO director of the Frontier Metropolitan Planning Organization for the Fort Smith area. She successfully led efforts to implement bike share, integrate health into the design of transportation infrastructure, and ensure communities in the region have improved access to local parks. In addition, she wrote and received the inaugural Parsons Smart Cities Transforming Intersection Challenge on behalf of the City of Fort Smith and the Arkansas Department of Transportation. She has served on the Eno Center for Transportation’s Freight Funding and Finance group and was a contributor to the Eno Center for Transportation paper, “Delivering the Goods: Recommendations for Funding a Federal Freight Program, along with serving on Transportation Research Board Committees. While the focus of her work is in transportation planning and freight infrastructure, Reese received her Master of Science in Intermodal Transportation Management from the University of Denver, obtained certificates from the University of Maryland Senior Management Operations Academy, I-95 Corridor Coalition Freight Academy, and attended the Florida Coastal School of Law studying Transportation Law & Policy.
BOARD MEMBER
Nick Haven
MPO | Division Manager, Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, Stateline, NV
Nick Haven is a Transportation and Land Use planning professional at the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA). Nick is the Division Manager for the Long Range and Transportation Planning Division that is responsible for the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) role of TRPA that is coupled with other regional land use planning functions to protect and improve mobility at Lake Tahoe. Nick has worked at TRPA for 24 years. With over 24 years in the MPO/transportation planning space, Nick has been instrumental in establishing and growing the bi-state Lake Tahoe MPO since its designation in 1999. As a bi-state MPO, Nick has fostered strong working relationships with the USDOT, state DOTs and FHWA division offices in California and Nevada. Nick is an advocate and mentor for small and medium sized MPOs nationwide and has been an active member of the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO) for over 15 years, contributing to the AMPO Policy Committee and sharing presentations and information at various AMPO events. Nick brings to his role a passion for collaboration and partnerships along with a well-established background in transportation planning to reach multi-benefit solutions to complex challenges. Nick holds a degree in Public Administration, with a minor in Transportation Geography from San Diego State University.
BOARD MEMBER AND POLICY COMMITTEE LIAISON
Matt Johns
Executive Director, Rapides Area Planning Commission, Alexandria, LA
Matt Johns has 16 years of planning experience between the Rapides Area Planning Commission and the Louisiana DOTD. He is currently the Executive Director of the Rapides Area Planning Commission, a member of the Louisiana Planning Council, and on the board of directors for the Louisiana Transportation Authority as well as the Louisiana Community Development Authority. He also serves as vice-chairman of the policy committee for AMPO and serves on multiple committees for the Transportation Research Board. Since joining RAPC, Matt has led the expansion of the MPO from 5 staff members to 19 – accompanied by an annual operating budget that grew from $250,000 to $2.5 million per year. This was accomplished by offering technical assistance to surrounding jurisdictions, providing the expertise of RAPC’s talented staff to assist almost any need – transportation related or otherwise. Matt has a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from Louisiana College and obtained his professional planning certification from the American Institute of Certified Planners.
BOARD MEMBER
Tegin Teich
Executive Director, Boston Region MPO, Boston, MA
Tegin Teich is the Executive Director of the Central Transportation Planning Staff (CTPS) to the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) in Boston, Massachusetts. CTPS supports the Boston Region MPO Board in developing a transportation vision for the 97 cities and towns in the region. CTPS also supports the Board’s decision-making for allocating federal dollars to transportation projects, while advancing strategies to achieve greater transparency and equity in transportation planning processes. In addition to our work directly supporting the MPO, CTPS provides transportation planning expertise to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), Regional Transit Authorities, municipalities, and other stakeholders in the region.
BOARD MEMBER
Jim Wild
Executive Director, East-West Gateway Council of Governments, St. Louis, MO
Jim Wild is the Executive Director of the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, the Metropolitan Planning Organization for St. Louis, which represents the 2.6 million residents of the city of St. Louis and the surrounding seven counties in Illinois and Missouri. Jim started at East-West Gateway in 1993 as a transportation analyst and held a variety of positions before his appointment as executive director in 2015. During his 28 years at East-West Gateway, Jim’s primary responsibilities have included overseeing the council’s freight, intelligent transportation systems, bicycle/pedestrian, paratransit, and transportation safety programs as well as development and implementation of the Regional Transportation Plan and the Transportation Improvement Program. In addition to transportation, East-West Gateway developed OneSTL, the region’s sustainability plan, provides local government, research and environmental services and through its St. Louis Area Regional Response System coordinates planning and response for large-scale critical incidents. Before coming to St. Louis, Jim worked at Tri-County Regional Planning Commission, the MPO for Peoria, IL. Jim received his Bachelor of Science in Community and Regional Planning from Iowa State University.
BOARD PAST PRESIDENT
Ronald Chicka
Director, Duluth-Superior Metropolitan Interstate Council, Duluth, MN
Ron Chicka has served as the Director of the Metropolitan Interstate Council (MIC), the MPO for the Duluth – Superior metropolitan area since 1998. He began with the MIC in 1995 as a Senior Planner. Prior to this he was employed with the City of Janesville (WI) Planning Department as the MPO Coordinator from 1990 to 1995. Ron has a Master’s degree in Urban Planning from the University of Kansas (specialty in transportation and land use) and an undergraduate degree in Geography from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is a member of the American Planning Association and is certified by American Institute of Certified Planners. Ron has presented the MICs work at a number of regional, state and national conferences/workshops including (at the national level): AMPO, Transportation Research Board (TRB) and the National Association of Development Organizations.
AMPO Board Election
Congratulations to our newly elected board members, Nick Haven from the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, and Bill Austin from the Morgantown Monongalia MPO.
The 2024-2026 AMPO Board of Directors call for interest will open in May of 2023.
