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After serving California’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) for 23 years, Executive Director Lawrence Dahms will retire at year’s end.

Dahms joined the then-7-year-old agency in 1977, steering its growth from a nearly unknown planning organization for the nine San Francisco Bay-area counties to one responsible for directly the spending of more than $1 billion in local, regional, state and federal transportation funds annually.

Dahms also has been active on the national scene. He is board chairman of Washington, D.C.-based Eno Transportation Foundation Inc.; and sits on the boards of trustees for San Jose State University’s International Institute for Surface Transportation Policy Studies and the board of D.C.-based Intelligent Transportation Society of America — which he chaired in 1994 - 95. Dahms also has chaired Transportation Research Board (TRB), an arm of National Research Council (NRC) and headed several TRB/NRC study committees, including NRC’s Committee on Infrastructure Innovation and TRB’s Committee for the Study of High Speed Surface Transportation in the United States.

James Beall Jr., Santa Clara County supervisor and MTC chairman, will appoint a special Commission committee to select a new executive director.

"[Larry Dahms] has overseen the expansion of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in several directions, the birth and growth of a modern light-rail system in Santa Clara County and a substantial expansion of the region’s carpool lane network," said Beall in a prepared statement. "He put MTC on the national map."