Darlene Cimino-DeRose
Walnut Creek, CA

Darlene Cimino-DeRose is a partner at Montague DeRose and Associates, LLC ("MDA"), a nationally ranked, independent financial advisory firm. Ms. DeRose has over fifteen years of municipal finance experience as an issuer or as a financial advisor and has completed more than $11 billion in short-term and long-term financings. She has worked with clients to issue debt obligations, prepare capital finance plans, examine revenue and expenditure data, evaluate debt capacity and develop rating agency strategy. Recent advisory clients include the Washington State Treasurer's Office, Tacoma Power, and the City and County of San Francisco, as well as cities such as Pasadena, San Diego, and Long Beach, California, among others. Ms. DeRose's prior positions include managing the State of Connecticut Clean Water Fund Revenue Bond Program, managing the West Coast regional office of a nationally ranked financial advisory firm, and serving as a credit analyst and commercial banker. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University and a Masters in Public and Private Management from the School of Organization and Management at Yale University.

Alan Kiepper
Annapolis, MD

Alan Kiepper has a management consulting firm in Annapolis and has had a long career of public service. He served as a Budget and Management Officer for the City of Richmond, VA; Assistant to the County Manager of Montgomery County, MD; County Manager of Fulton County (Atlanta), GA; City Manager of Richmond, VA; General Manager of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA); General Manager of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (Houston METRO); and President of MTA New York City Transit. After leaving public service he spent five years as Senior Vice President of Parsons Brinckerhoff, a planning, engineering and construction supervision firm specializing in rapid transit. Mr Kiepper received a Bachelor of Arts in Government from the University of New Hampshire, then attended Wayne State University under a Lent D. Upson Fellowship granted by the Detroit Bureau of Governmental Research. His education was interrupted by a call to active duty from the US Army during the Korean Conflict. After military service he received a Master of Public Administration from Wayne State.

William C. Lorenz, PE
La Mesa, CA

Mr. Lorenz has 40 years of professional experience in transportation planning and engineering. He retired from the San Diego Metropolitan Transit Development Board (MTDB) in 2002 after 14 years. He was Director of Engineering and Construction responsible for more than $1 billion in light rail transit (LRT) and bus facility development. He managed seven San Diego Trolley light rail extension projects, and completed these projects on-schedule and within budget. Prior to MTDB, Mr. Lorenz managed design engineering, traffic engineering, transit operations, program development and transportation planning for the County of San Diego and the California Department of Transportation. Since retiring from public service, he participated in several light rail transit and commuter rail peer reviews. Currently, he is providing business development for a California based engineering firm. He is a registered civil engineer and registered traffic engineer in California.

Steve Lundin
Olympia, WA

Steve Lundin is an expert on all aspects of local government law in Washington state. Mr. Lundin recently retired as a senior counsel for the Washington State House of Representatives after nearly 30 years. His primary assignment was to provide committee services for the Local Government Committee. He has written numerous papers on different aspects of local government in Washington state and drafted most local government legislation that was considered by the House of Representatives for nearly three decades. Mr. Lundin recently published a history of the local school district where he lives. Currently, he is writing a reference book on local government in Washington state. Mr. Lundin received the Angelo Petruss Award from the Washington State Bar Association in 1992 recognizing his contributions to the public and legal profession while serving as a lawyer in government service. He received a B.A. degree from the University of Washington and a J.D. degree from the University of Washington Law School.

Dr. Michael Meyer
Atlanta, GA
(Note: Dr. Meyer resigned from the Panel in June 2007

Dr. Michael D. Meyer is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and former Chair of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. From 1983 to 1988, Dr. Meyer was Director of Transportation Planning and Development for Massachusetts, where he was responsible for statewide planning, project development, traffic engineering, and transportation research. Prior to this, he was a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at M.I.T. Dr. Meyer has written more than 160 technical articles and has authored or co-authored numerous texts on transportation planning and policy, including a college textbook for McGraw Hill entitled Urban Transportation Planning: A Decision Oriented Approach. He was the author of Transportation Congestion and Mobility: A Toolbox for Transportation Officials, a book sponsored by the Institute of Transportation Engineers and the Federal Highway Administration that focuses on transportation actions that can be implemented to enhance mobility. Dr. Meyer is the recipient of numerous awards including: the 2000 Theodore M. Matson Memorial Award in recognition of outstanding contributions in the field of transportation engineering; the 1995 Pyke Johnson Award of the Transportation Research Board for best paper in planning and administration delivered at the TRB Annual Meeting; and the 1988 Harland Bartholomew Award of the American Society of Civil Engineers for contribution to the enhancement of the role of the civil engineer in urban planning and development. He was recently appointed Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board. Dr. Meyer has a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, an M.S. in Civil Engineering from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from M.I.T. He is a registered professional engineer in the State of Georgia.

Thomas G. Schmitt, PE, RLS
Glendale, AZ

Tom Schmitt PE, RLS, is the President of T & S Diversified, Inc. a company providing services, which include management consulting, and which offers assistance with public sector administrative processes. While in college, Mr. Schmitt worked for California Department of Transportation progressing from an Engineering Aid I to Associate Highway Engineer. After graduating he became a Facility Engineer for E & J Gallo Winery, went on to be a Plant Engineer for Peter Paul Candy Company, then a representative for Garratt Callahan in Industrial Water Treatment. He then joined the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) as a Resident Engineer, where he worked on the final section of I-10 in Arizona. He then was promoted to Area Engineer in Page, Urban Highway Engineer, and then District Engineer in Tucson, where he was responsible for construction and maintenance for the southwest portion of the state. Mr. Schmitt was then asked to be the Director of the Motor Vehicle Division where he was responsible to collect approximately $1 billion per year in revenue for the transportation system. As Director he had 1100 employees with a $50 million operating budget. In his next position as Chief Engineer he was responsible for an annual $800 million Capital Program with a workforce of 2,500. After retiring from his five year tenure as Chief Engineer with ADOT, he spent a couple years with RBF Consulting developing their Public Works section in Arizona. Mr. Schmitt helped pass the Design Build Legislation and oversaw the first three major Design Build projects while with ADOT. After retiring he was part of a design build team that submitted a proposal on the largest ADOT Design Build Project to-date. Mr. Schmitt has participated in a number of local and national committees including the Standing Committee on Highways (SCOH) with Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and The Association of General Contractors of America (AGC) Transportation Committee. He is also currently the Chairman of the Friends of Civil Engineering for the Arizona State University, Civil Engineering Department as well as Chairman of the Heavy Civil Committee for the Del E. Webb School of Construction. Mr. Schmitt is a Civil Engineering graduate of Cal Poly Pomona.

Dr. Siim Sööt, PhD
Chicago, IL

Dr. Siim Sööt is Professor Emeritus at University of Illinois. For 30 years Dr. Sööt was on the University of Illinois at Chicago faculty where he served as the Head of the Department of Geography, Executive Director of the Urban Transportation Center and President of the Illinois Universities Transportation Research Consortium. He has published nearly 100 articles and reports. He has been the principal or co-principal investigator of more than 50 research studies. These studies have been conducted for the U.S. Department of Transportation, National Science Foundation, Illinois Department of Transportation, Chicago Department of Transportation, Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), Chicago Area Transportation Study, Chicago Transit Authority and numerous foundations.

Alonzo Wertz
Portland, OR

Alonzo Wertz is Permits Coordinator at TriMet in Portland, Oregon. For the past 24 years, Mr. Wertz has been a member of TriMet's capital project development team. His tenure spans planning, design and construction of all but the initial Banfield LRT Project component of the Portland area Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) light rail system. For MAX system expansion and development of capital facilities to support the TriMet bus system, he is charged with assuring compliance with NEPA and related regulations for use of Federal funds, and obtaining regulatory agency permits and local jurisdiction land use approvals. TriMet's capital project development team is currently completing the PE/FEIS phase of the South Corridor Project, which will extend the LRT system 6.5 miles south along I-205 from the existing Blue/Red Line at Gateway to Clackamas Town Center, and will create a second LRT alignment in downtown Portland extending 1.8 miles along the 5th and 6th Avenue Portland Transit Mall. Mr. Wertz came to TriMet from the A&E firm CH2M Hill, and prior to that the U.S. Army. He holds graduate and undergraduate degrees in Urban Planning from the University of Washington.

John Howell
Seattle, WA

John Howell is the Panel Administrator. A founding partner of Cedar River Group, Mr. Howell specializes in project management, group facilitation and mediation, and community outreach. He provides clients with expertise and experience in the development of coalitions, in forming consensus on projects and in conceptualizing, funding and executing successful programs and projects. He recently served as the facilitator for several successful negotiations, including one resolving a long-standing dispute between the City of Tacoma and Pierce County regarding Tacoma Narrows Airport. In addition, he has served as project manager on numerous complex public policy projects that required extensive negotiation and facilitation skills, including the relocation of the Museum of History and Industry to the site of the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, the Sound Transit Central Link Light Rail Project Review Committee, and the Endangered Species Act and the Built Environment Study. Mr. Howell has also served as interim President/CEO for PacMed Clinics, deputy director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, Deputy Budget Director for the City of Seattle, and as Special Assistant to former Seattle Mayor Charles Royer. He currently serves as Chair of the Board of the Cascade Land Conservancy, a four-county land trust operating in Pierce, King, Kittitas and Snohomish counties, which has negotiated some of the region's largest land conservation transactions. He has a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University.