Melissa Sather brings diverse expertise and experience to her transit work at TMD, balancing service development and operations with sustainable community planning. With a strong background in economics and financial analysis, Melissa has helped advance the efficiency and effectiveness goals of numerous local and regional transit system clients. She has led transit system redesign and transit feasibility projects in cities as diverse as Los Angeles, CA, San Diego, CA, Nashville, TN, Newark, NJ, Des Moines, IA, and Little Rock, AR. As a project manager, Melissa focuses much of her project work on designing creative, cost-neutral service recommendations that optimize the use of agency resources. At UCLA, she focused her master’s research on transit agency partnerships with Transportation Network Companies such as Uber and Lyft. Her project experience reflects her knowledge of transit industry best practices for building sustainable communities.