Leadership
Officers
The Cambridge Systematics leadership team focuses on ensuring that the firm continues to earn our reputation as a leader in providing innovative, objective, high-quality and pragmatic solutions to the transportation industry’s mobility, infrastructure, safety and economic challenges. We are driven to exceed client expectations, attract and retain the field's top talent, and deliver the best results possible. Our leaders are expert practitioners as well as managers. You can find them doing what they love most: solving client problems, developing partner and client relationships, and sharing their expertise with industry organizations.
Brad W.
Wright
781.539.6729
Brad Wright is the President and CEO of Cambridge Systematics. He has more than 23 years of experience in the transportation industry and has worked extensively with public agencies and private sector clients on a range of transportation and technology challenges. Before assuming his current role, Mr. Wright helped launch and then managed the firm's Commercial Vehicle Operations, which evolved from his work to better serve agencies charged with regulatory and safety oversight of the motor carrier industry. Mr. Wright also managed the firm’s Transportation Products and Services business line, which provided information technology solutions, and its Freight Transportation business line. He 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 Chairman of the Massachusetts Chapter of National Transportation Week. Mr. Wright received a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Northeastern University.
Steven A.
Capecci
PMP
781.539.6724
Steven Capecci is the Chief Operating Officer of Cambridge Systematics, overseeing the firm's domestic and international consulting businesses, growth-oriented initiatives, client relationships and internal operations. He directs a team of diversely skilled professionals in a shared mission to deliver innovative, objective, industry-leading work. Mr. Capecci has more than 15 years of consulting experience with public-sector transportation agencies at the Federal, state, local and regional levels. A certified Project Management Professional, he is a national expert in the application of technologies to improve freight mobility and safety. He serves as the firm's Program Manager for key contracts including those supporting the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Freight Mobility and Operations and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. He provides quality assurance oversight, manages staff resources, and monitors and assures client satisfaction. 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, Massachusetts.
Karen
Nocito
781.539.6771
Karen D. Nocito, CPA, serves as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Cambridge Systematics. Ms. Nocito serves as a key member of the Executive Leadership Team of Cambridge Systematics. She devises and implements growth and profitability strategies, helps to further strengthen the firm’s internal accounting controls and processes, and identifies cost reduction strategies. She has more than 25 years of experience in accounting, including strategic planning and implementation; team leadership; stakeholder relations; government contracting; audits; forecasting and budgeting; compliance; business process improvement; and policies and procedures. Before her appointment as CFO in 2016, Ms. Nocito served for 19 years as CS’ Controller; in that capacity she led a comprehensive re-engineering of the CS Accounting department that elevated the Accounting team’s role as a partner to the firm’s business lines while optimally organizing it around the functional needs of the firm and its clients. Prior to joining Cambridge Systematics in 1997, Ms. Nocito held positions of increasing breadth and responsibility in the professional services and manufacturing sectors. She earned a bachelor of science in accounting from Fitchburg State College and is a Certified Public Accountant.
Leanne
Gent
781.539.6752
Leanne Gent is the Chief Talent Officer at Cambridge Systematics, where she provides leadership and guidance in the development, implementation and administration of the firm’s talent acquisition activities, employee performance and development initiatives, total rewards package, and diversity, equity and inclusion strategies. As a member of the executive leadership team, she develops policies and programs that foster an employee-focused, high-performance culture that supports the overall business strategy and objectives. Gent is a solutions-focused, results-oriented and decisive leader with 15 years of management experience across multiple industries. She is passionate about developing talent and building a dynamic organization in which employees can thrive and contribute to a broader mission. Gent holds a BS from Emerson College.
Jim
Brogan
PMP
213.372.3022
Jim Brogan is an Executive Vice President of the firm and leads CS’ integrated planning and implementation business line that encompasses four national practice areas: Planning and Policy; Freight and Economics; Safety; and Transit and Rail. Mr. Brogan has nearly 20 years of experience in multimodal planning, operations, strategic planning, transit planning, and investment support at the national, state, and local levels. He has led or supported long range transportation and strategic plans for more than 10 states and the country’s largest multistate coalitions, including the I-95 Corridor Coalition, the West Coast Corridor Coalition, and the Gulf of Mexico States Partnership. He has led groundbreaking national freight research activities for the National Highway Cooperative and National Freight Cooperative Research Programs (NCHRP and NCFRP), including Guidebook to Integrate Freight within the Transportation Planning and Programming Process (NCHRP Report 594) and Guidebook and Tools to Estimate the Economic Benefits of Specific Freight Network Investments (NCFRP Report 12). Mr. Brogan currently oversees a $5M effort providing general planning consultant services to VIA Metropolitan Transit, one of the largest transit agencies in Texas, as well as a first-of-its-kind statewide Vehicle Inventory and Use Survey (VIUS) for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). Prior to joining Cambridge Systematics, Mr. Brogan was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard. He received a master degree in Civil Engineering (Transportation Systems and Management) from the University of Virginia and a bachelor degree in Civil Engineering from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.
Kimon E.
Proussaloglou
Ph.D.
312.665.0202
Kimon Proussaloglou is an Executive Vice President and manages the firm’s Travel Demand Forecasting business line. He 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, Dr. Proussaloglou has led groundbreaking studies in transportation planning, market research, and travel demand modeling and forecasting. His project experience encompasses all aspects of forecasting and 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 evaluating the use of cell phone data in travel demand modeling. 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.
Sarah
Anderson
781.539.6795
Sarah Anderson is a Vice President of Cambridge Systematics and manages business development for the Software business line. Ms. Anderson drives consideration of new opportunities for the Software business line and helps steward business strategy implementation across CS. With more than 13 years of experience in transportation software marketing and business development, she is well networked with agencies, teaming partners, thought leaders and national organizations that focus on technology empowering intelligent mobility. Her project work has focused on solving a wide number of technology challenges for large urban, medium suburban and small rural transit agencies across the country. Her insights into the business problems of our clients inspired Ms. Anderson to deliver the highest value and flexibility for their investments, while facilitating community collaboration and cost sharing, by leveraging open-source platforms. Ms. Anderson has authored a number of articles and presentations on the importance of expanding the use of open-data, open-standards and open-source technologies in the public transportation industry. Ms. Anderson has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Vassar College and is currently studying management, strategy and innovation at MIT.
Sheldon A.
Brown
781.539.6744
Sheldon A. Brown is a Vice President of Cambridge Systematics and manages the engineering strategy and team for the Software business line. He has more than 10 years of experience serving as technical lead and system architect for mission-critical, high-performance, real-time information systems. Mr. Brown leads significant open-source deployment and architecture work for some of the largest transit systems in the nation, including Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority and many in the greater Seattle region. He is the technical architect for the cloud hosted back end of many systems, with a sophisticated architecture designed to support the large amounts of data processed by them, ensure continuous operation, provide scalability to handle peak loads, and allow for zero-down-time maintenance and software updates. He is an advocate of open source who sits on the governance board for the open-source OneBusAway (OBA) and OpenTripPlanner (OTP) projects. Mr. Brown is one of a small handful of people who serve as technical gatekeepers for the OBA platform, reviewing and approving submissions and controlling the community’s permissions for modifying the code base. Mr. Brown has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from the Technical University of Nova Scotia.
Erin
Flanigan
PE, PMP
301.347.9134
Erin Flanigan is a Vice President of Cambridge Systematics and manages the operations of the Transportation Operations business line. Ms. Flanigan has more than 25 years of experience leading and managing research and analysis projects, with the last 14 years specifically concentrating on key Federal transportation programs. Her work areas include automated driving systems, TSMO planning and program development, strategic planning, and benefit/cost analysis. Her project experience includes large-scale ITS deployment projects, working closely with DOTs on statewide strategic business plans and TSMO Program Plans, and research efforts to support the U.S. DOT’s connected vehicle program. Ms. Flanigan is a registered Professional Engineer in multiple states and is a certified Project Management Professional. She received a Master’s degree in Transportation Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Purdue University at West Lafayette.
Jennifer
Strasser
PMP
646.364.5475
Jennifer Strasser, PMP is a Vice President of Cambridge Systematics and manages the operations of the Software business line. Ms. Strasser has 20 years of experience in the development and use of analysis tools in the field of transportation planning and engineering, with a concentration in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and traffic operations. Recently, Ms. Strasser has managed projects that involve the deployment and support of web-based software applications designed for end users that range from a few hundred technical specialists to the millions of bus riders in New York City. She is one of the founders of the firm’s New York office, now our second largest location. Ms. Strasser is a certified Project Management Professional. She received a Master’s degree in Transportation Planning and Engineering from the New York University Tandon School of Engineering (formerly Polytechnic University) and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis. She is the President of the Intelligent Transportation Society of NY (ITS-NY).
Susan
Krabbe
781.539.6806
Susan Krabbe serves as the Secretary to the Corporation and as Director of Facilities at Cambridge Systematics. Ms. Krabbe has more than 30 years of executive-level administrative experience providing a range of support for specialized client initiatives. She oversees the facilities strategy, real estate transactions and management of Cambridge Systematics’ corporate and branch offices. She earned a Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies from Harvard University.
Board of Directors
The members of Cambridge Systematics’ board of directors apply their extraordinary capacity in leadership, innovation and dedication to help guide the firm toward our goal of improving the quality of transportation services today and for future generations.
Kathleen
Stein
Board Chairperson
Kathy Stein is a transportation planner with four decades of experience in the public and private sectors. Now an independent consultant, she is cofounder and former owner of the transportation planning and traffic engineering firm Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates. In prior years, 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. A leading authority on public involvement and strategic planning in transportation, she has served on Transportation Research Board committees and Cooperative Research Program panels, chairing the Public Involvement, Strategic Management, and Management and Productivity Committees and the Division A Council. Ms. Stein was appointed a lifetime Associate of the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of her contributions to the field. For the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources on the National Research Council, she chaired a panel on data needs for place-based decision-making which led to the book Community and Quality of Life: Data Needs for Informed Decision-Making, published by the National Academy Press in 2002. She also served on the board of the Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems at New York University and was elected Woman of the Year by the Boston Chapter and the national organization of Women’s Transportation Seminar. She received a Master’s degree in regional planning from the University of North Carolina and a Bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College.
Flora
Castillo
Flora Castillo has over 20 years of experience as an accomplished and nationally recognized healthcare executive and a mobility and public transportation thought leader. Castillo is the President of Pivot Strategies, LLC, a consulting firm serving the infrastructure, aviation, healthcare and insurance industries. Her executive leadership in healthcare has led to transformative customer engagement, acquisition and health promotion strategies for the nation’s leading healthcare companies, including UnitedHealthcare and AmeriHealth Caritas. As former Vice President of Transportation for UnitedHealth Group, Castillo led innovative pilots to address social determinants of health barriers and spearheaded a medical transportation services program. Castillo also brings decades of experience as a former member of the board for multiple non-profit equity, transit and media organizations including National Urban Fellows, Rail-Volution, WHYY and others. In addition, Castillo was the first Latina and sixth woman elected chair to the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). In this role, Castillo represented APTA as an industry spokesperson in the U.S., Canada and other international associations. Serving as a senior policymaker and board member of New Jersey Transit between 1999 and 2019, Castillo was a champion for equity and affordability for transit-dependent riders and an advocate for service expansions and emerging technologies. Castillo holds a B.S. in Management Business Administration from Long Island University.
Marlene
Connor
Marlene has 30 years of experience in transportation management and planning. She blends private and public sector experience with an intense personal commitment to improving transportation policy. She was previously the chief executive officer of the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority in Springfield, MA where she directed numerous changes in service delivery, consolidated the fixed route and paratransit services programs, and implemented a systematic financial improvement process that improved efficiency while enhancing mobility. Following her time at PVTA, Marlene was a Director of Planning at CDM Smith and at Urbitran Associates. In 2015, Marlene launched her own consulting business (Marlene Connor Associates, LLC) which works primarily with public sector clients to improve public transportation and mobility.
Her experience includes a wide range of public transportation planning projects in modes from ADA paratransit to Bus Rapid Transit as well as studies that include operations, policy development, management and organization, IT, and financial analysis and review. Marlene is Past Chair of the American Public Transportation Association’s Mobility Management Committee and also Chair’s the Legislative Committee’s Intergovernmental Issues Subcommittee, and the Access Committee Subcommittee on Emerging Technology committees. Marlene is also a member of the TRB Study Committee on the Role of Transit and Mobility Management
David
Ferreira
David Ferreira has more than 30 years of corporate and consulting experience across a wide range of industries, companies and business cycles. He has held senior positions at GE, KPMG, and Beneficial; founded Back Bay Consulting; and most recently served as Chief Administrative Officer for Abt Associates. His primary focus has been helping companies grow and improve performance through roles in business strategy and planning, organizational assessment and talent management. Earlier in his career Mr. Ferreira worked as a Prosecutor for the Massachusetts Attorney General and a Public Defender for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Social Venture Partners and is a past board member of the Harvard Medical School Bio-Medical Science Career Program, the American Financial Services Association, and the Somerville New Jersey Home for Temporarily Displaced Children. Mr. Ferreira received a Master’s of Business Administration from the University of Michigan, a Master’s in Law from the University of Amsterdam, a Juris Doctorate from New England Law, and a Bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University.
Robert
Kasameyer
Rob Kasameyer brings a significant strategic perspective to Cambridge Systematics, based on his experience operating, counselling and directing companies. As CEO of a cloud-based provider of compliance management solutions, he has created value for industrial companies in process instrumentation, auto parts, electronic enclosures, aerospace parts and compliance. As a Consultant, he has provided strategic and financial counsel to numerous clients including the World Bank. Mr. Kasameyer has participated in a number of corporate and non-profit boards. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Cambridge Systematics as the Compensation Committee Chair and for the Harvard Business School Association of Boston. Mr. Kasameyer earned a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and a bachelor degree from Tufts University.
Robert
Skinner
Robert Skinner served as the Executive Director of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine from 1994 to 2015. Prior to becoming Executive Director, Skinner directed TRB’s policy study activities. Before joining TRB, Mr. Skinner was a Vice President of Alan M. Voorhees and Associates, a transportation consulting firm.
In a volunteer capacity, Skinner served on the Metrolink (Los Angeles) Commuter Rail Safety Review Panel and chaired the Special Advisory Panel for the Stem-to-Stern Safety Review of the Boston Central Artery/Tunnel Project. In addition, he has served on a number of university and other research advisory groups. Current assignments include the advisory boards for the MIT-Portugal Project; the University Transportation Center, a joint research center of Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pennsylvania; UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies; the Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers; and NCE, a Nevada-based engineering firm.
Skinner earned his bachelor degree in civil engineering from the University of Virginia and received a master degree in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A registered professional engineer, Skinner has received the Director’s Research Champion Award from the Texas Transportation Institute (2011), the James Laurie Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers (2003), and the P.D. McLean Memorial Award from the Road Gang (2001). He was the 2015 recipient of the Frank Turner Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Transportation and the 2016 recipient of the George S. Bartlett Award.