Less than one year after the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority hired away CEO Philip Washington from that same job at Denver’s Regional Transportation District, he has made a second high-level poach of his own in six months. Metro said on March 3 that, acting administrator of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), will join the California transit agency as chief planning officer. She was awaiting U.S. Senate Banking Committee permanent confirmation to the FTA top job amid increased tension between the White House and Congress. President Obama nominated McMillan in 2014. Top committee Democrat, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, told Politico on March 4 that he “can’t blame” McMillan for taking the L.A. role. She joined FTA in 2009 as deputy administrator. McMillan also was a top policy executive at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which serves the San Francisco Bay Area.
Last October, L.A. Metro hired Joshua Schank as its first-ever chief innovation officer. He had been president and CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation, a Washington, D.C., transportation think tank. Schank heads the California agency’s Office of Extraordinary Innovation, newly created to push mobility improvement ideas. On Feb. 29, Eno named Robert J. Puentes to replace him, effective on April 11. Puentes is now a senior fellow and director of the Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative at the Brookings Institution.