DART announces VP appointments; Valley Metro elects new board members

Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) named Maureen McCole vice president of commuter rail and railroad management, the agency announced yesterday.

McCole will focus on day-to-day leadership of the Trinity Railway Express commuter railroad and serve as DART's liaison with the Forth Worth Transportation Authority.

She also will manage contracted commuter-rail service for the Denton County Transportation Authority and manage more than 200 miles of DART-owned freight-rail corridors.

Prior to joining DART, McCole worked for Amtrak, including as chief clerk of mechanical, special assistant to the president for the Northeast Corridor, government affairs officer and senior manager of operations for the engineering department. In 2004, she took a job at New Jersey Transit as a policy and strategic analysis manager before being named superintendent of the River Line's light-rail operations in 2007.

In addition to McCole's appointment, DART named Garrome Franklin VP and chief safety officer and David Schulze, VP for policy and strategy. Franklin will assume responsibility for the agency's operations safety program. He has more than 40 years of transportation-related experience, starting with the Federal Aviation Administration, where he served as regional administrator and deputy associate administrator for civil aviation security.

Franklin joined DART in 2006, and he's served as interim vice president of procurement, vice president of executive affairs and vice president of economic opportunity/goverment relations.

Schulze will lead the agency's strategic planning initiatives, develop and review policies, provide analysis of critical issues and oversee projects that have agency-wide impacts, DART officials said. Schulze has worked various attorney roles for the city of Dallas, as well as general counsel positions for DART.

Meanwhile, Valley Metro's board elected Thelda Williams as chair and Mark Mitchell as vice chair. Williams currently serves as a council member in Phoenix, while Mitchell is mayor of Tempe, Ariz.