Leadership Team

Brad Wright is the President and CEO. He has more than 18 years of experience in the transportation field and has worked extensively with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), states, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and private clients on a range of transportation consulting and technology engagements. Most recently, Mr. Wright served as the manager of the firm’s Freight Transportation business line providing planning, policy, program support, and technology services for public- and private-sector clients in the freight industry. Prior to this, Mr. Wright served as the business line manager for the firm’s Transportation Products and Services business unit which provided a wide range of technology-based services and solutions. He launched and managed a business line for Cambridge Systematics focused on providing technology and consulting services for state and Federal agencies charged with regulatory and safety oversight of the motor carrier industry. Mr. Wright has been an active speaker and participant in multiple organizations, including ITS America, the Transportation Research Board, and the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance. He served as the Chairman of the Massachusetts Chapter of National Transportation Week. Mr. Wright received a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Northeastern University.

Candace Tobin is the Chief Financial Officer. She is responsible for all financial and treasury functions at Cambridge Systematics and ensures maintenance of appropriate internal control systems to protect the assets of the company. She oversees compliance with Federal, state, and local government costing and reporting requirements; monitors internal control systems; and manages monthly financial reporting. Ms. Tobin previously served as Chief Financial Officer/Vice President Finance at The Herzog-Hart Group, Inc., and Manager at Deloitte & Touche. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from Syracuse University and attended the Executive Programs at the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. Ms. Tobin is a Certified Public Accountant in Massachusetts and North Carolina.

Steven Capecci is the Chief of Consulting Operations. He is responsible for overseeing Cambridge Systematics’ domestic and international consulting business, growth-oriented initiatives, and client relationships. He leads a team of transportation professionals dedicated to providing value-added and innovative services and products. Mr. Capecci has more than 15 years of experience providing consulting services to public-sector transportation agencies at the Federal, state, local, and regional levels. A certified Project Management Professional, Mr. Capecci is a nationally recognized expert in the use of advanced technologies to improve freight mobility and safety. Mr. Capecci serves as the firm’s Program Manager for numerous key contracts, including those that support the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Freight Mobility and Operations, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Mr. Capecci provides senior quality assurance oversight, manages staff resources, and monitors client satisfaction. Mr. Capecci also co-led the firm’s strategic safety initiative. Mr. Capecci received a Master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA.

Sarah Ginand is the Chief of Corporate Services. She is responsible for aligning the corporate services functions with Cambridge Systematics’ business needs and growth opportunities. She will lead a team of corporate services managers focused on improving, enhancing, and making internal operations more efficient. With 20 years of experience in the areas of management, process improvement, information systems, marketing, and corporate communications, Ms. Ginand most recently served as Cambridge Systematics’ Director of Marketing. She was responsible for strategic marketing, market positioning, proposal and presentation strategy and development, and marketing communications, and marketing infrastructure support systems. Ms. Ginand received a Master’s of Business Administration from Babson College and a Bachelor’s degree from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Vassili Alexiadis is an Executive Vice President. He manages the firm’s Transportation Operations business line. With more than 20 years of experience in ITS and operations planning, design, and evaluation, Dr. Alexiadis has directed projects for numerous Federal, state, and local clients, including the development of the Financial Plan for California’s Transportation Management Systems; the evaluation of the Twin Cities’ ramp metering system; and the traffic analysis effort for the East Boston/Logan Airport area of the Central Artery/Tunnel project in Boston. Dr. Alexiadis has lead several large studies using state-of-the-practice commercial microsimulation tools. He directed the development of the ITS Deployment Analysis System (IDAS); the FHWA’s decision support methodology for selecting traffic analysis tools; and national guidelines for applying traffic simulation tools. Dr. Alexiadis received a Ph.D. in Transportation from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a Master’s degree in Transportation Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the Aristotelian University at Thessalonski, Greece.

James Brogan is an Executive Vice President. He manages the firm’s Freight Transportation business line. With more than 14 years of freight and intermodal planning, operations, and policy development experience, Mr. Brogan has led or supported freight plans and studies in 10 states, and has managed a number of seaport, highway, border-crossing, and rail plans and studies. He is the Principal Investigator for the National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Project 5 – Framework and Tools for Estimating Benefits of Specific Freight Investment Needs, and was the Principal Investigator for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Project 8-53 – Integrating Freight into Transportation Planning and Project Selection Processes. He currently is managing the El Paso Ports of Entry Operations Plan. Prior to joining Cambridge Systematics, Mr. Brogan was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard. He received a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Virginia, and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

Steve Pickrell is an Executive Vice President. He manages the firm’s Transportation Planning and Management business line. With more than 25 years of consulting experience in transportation planning and engineering, Mr. Pickrell has played project management and technical roles on projects for public and private sector clients. He has participated in numerous performance-based planning projects for state departments of transportation (DOT) and regional planning agencies. Mr. Pickrell was the Principal Investigator for National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), Project 8-32(2), Multimodal Transportation: Development of a Performance-Based Planning Methodology. In Maryland, Texas, Colorado, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, and California, he has helped state DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations (MPO) to better integrate performance measures into planning and programming processes. Mr. Pickrell received a Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Planning from Stanford University.

Kimon E. Proussaloglou, Ph.D. is an Executive Vice President. He manages the firm’s Travel Demand Forecasting business line. Dr. Proussaloglou specializes in market research, statistical analysis and modeling, and survey design. With more than 20 years of experience working with state departments of transportation, regional planning agencies, public transportation agencies, and private sector transportation companies, he has managed numerous studies in transportation planning, traffic engineering, traffic management, and travel demand modeling and forecasting. Dr. Proussaloglou’s recent project experience includes managing the 2010 Travel Behavior Inventory, a major data collection and modeling study for the St. Paul/Minneapolis area; leading a congestion pricing study for commercial vehicle movements in Southern California; and developing a tour-based model for Tel-Aviv. Dr. Proussaloglou received both a Doctorate and Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from Northwestern University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the Aristotelian University, Greece.

Eric Ziering is an Executive Vice President. He manages the firm’s Software Business Unit, and is responsible for software and product strategy, and software intellectual property protection. He also manages the company’s software development staff. Mr. Ziering has spent more than 25 years leading the development of enterprise systems, massively scalable Internet services, geographic information systems, and desktop application products serving the transportation and information publishing industries.  He oversees systems development projects for performance measurement and assessment, travel demand modeling and forecasting, safety planning, and operations data management, with a focus on rich, interactive, web-based applications. Prior to joining Cambridge Systematics, Mr. Ziering served as Chief Operating Officer of LingoMotors, Inc. and founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fact City, Inc. He was a founder of Caliper Corporation, and the creator of TransCAD, the leading transportation planning software product in North America.  Mr. Ziering received a Master’s and Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from MIT.

Moshe Ben-Akiva is the Edmund K. Turner Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, and Director of the MIT Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Program. He received a Ph.D. in Transportation Systems from MIT and is the recipient of honorary doctor degrees from the Université Lumière Lyon, France and the University of the Aegean, Greece. Dr. Ben-Akiva’s areas of research include transportation systems, transportation demand and network modeling, infrastructure management, market research and econometrics. He has pioneered in the development and application of the discrete choice and demand modeling techniques that are being widely applied in a variety of disciplines and industries. His work in this area was cited in the 2000 Nobel Prize in Economics awarded to Dan McFadden.

Emil H. Frankel is the Director of Transportation Policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and an independent consultant on transportation policy and public management issues. In early 2008, he served as Acting Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT), where he also served as Commissioner from 1991 to 1995. In 2008 and 2009, he was a Visiting Lecturer at the Yale School of Management and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where he taught on issues of transportation, energy, and environmental policy and public management. Mr. Frankel was Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy of the U.S. DOT from 2002 to 2005. Appointed by President George W. Bush, Mr. Frankel played a key role in the coordination and development of the Administration’s proposal to reauthorize the Federal highway, transit, and highway safety programs. He also provided policy leadership in such areas as intermodal freight transportation, reform of the Nation’s intercity passenger rail system, transportation project financing, and the application of information technologies to transportation systems operations. From 1995 to 2001, Mr. Frankel was Of Counsel to Day, Berry & Howard in the law firm’s Stamford, Connecticut office. He also served as a founding Vice Chair of the I-95 Corridor Coalition. Mr. Frankel received an LL.B. from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Manchester University in the United Kingdom.

Rob Kasameyer’s professional activities focus on strategy and finance for technology-based companies. He currently is the CEO of Cambridge Viscosity, a venture backed process-instrument company. Mr. Kasameyer has consulted for numerous companies and teaches for the World Bank Institute and Hult International Business School in corporate restructuring and strategy. He has conducted assignments on behalf of clients on strategy and finance, business development, strategic partnering, corporate restructuring, and corporate and venture finance. Mr. Kasameyer has served on the Board of Cambridge Systematics since the mid 1980s. He also serves as a member of the Industrial Advisory Board for Tufts University, and has served as an elected official in his town. Mr. Kasameyer received an MBA from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s degree from Tufts University.

Lance Neumann has more than 30 years of experience in transportation policy, planning, programming, and finance. He has worked for a broad range of Federal, state, regional, and local agencies, as well as private and international clients. Dr. Neumann started the firm’s management systems practice in the late 1970s, and has worked with many agencies developing practical approaches to measure and improve performance, evaluate projects and programs, improve resource allocation decisions, and increase accountability. Dr. Neumann has been involved in major program evaluation projects for the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), as well as at the state and local levels. He is the chairman of the TRB Subcommittee on Performance Measures. Dr. Neumann has published numerous articles and lectured on topics related to resource allocation decision-making, management systems, and evaluation. Dr. Neumann received a Ph.D. and a Master’s degree in Transportation Systems from MIT, and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Brown University.

Kathy Stein is a transportation planner with more than 30 years of experience in the public and private sectors. Now semi-retired, Ms. Stein is co-founder and former owner of Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, a transportation planning and traffic engineering firm. Prior to starting the firm, she served as Director of Transportation for the New York City Department of City Planning and Director of Field Staff for the metropolitan Boston region’s Central Transportation Planning Staff. Ms. Stein has served on many TRB committees and Cooperative Research Program panels, including the Division A Council, which oversees all the Board’s committees. She was appointed a lifetime Associate of the National Academy of Sciences, and was elected Woman of the Year by the Boston Chapter and the national organization of Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS) in 2003. She received a Master’s degree in Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina, and a Bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College.

Pravin Varaiya has been instrumental in the development of performance-based solutions for the transportation industry, specializing in transportation systems and communication networks. He has received numerous awards in the area of research and has co-authored 4 books and more than 300 technical papers. Dr. Varaiya is a Professor in the Graduate School with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences as well as a past Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Sensys Networks. From 1994 to 1997 he served as Director of the California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH) program. He is a Fellow of IEEE, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Varaiya received a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and a B.S. from University of Bombay, both in Electrical Engineering. Dr. Varaiya has received Honorary Doctorates from L’Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, L’Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, and the Technical University of Crete.

Brad Wright is President and CEO. He has more than 18 years of experience in the transportation field and has worked extensively with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), states, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and private clients on a range of transportation consulting and technology engagements. Most recently, Mr. Wright served as the manager of the firm’s Freight Transportation business line providing planning, policy, program support, and technology services for public- and private-sector clients in the freight industry. Prior to this, Mr. Wright served as the business line manager for the firm’s Transportation Products and Services business unit which provided a wide range of technology-based services and solutions. He launched and managed a business line for Cambridge Systematics focused on providing technology and consulting services for state and Federal agencies charged with regulatory and safety oversight of the motor carrier industry. Mr. Wright has been an active speaker and participant in multiple organizations, including ITS America, the Transportation Research Board, and the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance. He served as the Chairman of the Massachusetts Chapter of National Transportation Week. Mr. Wright received a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Northeastern University.