Melissa Sather
Executive Vice President
Education
MA, Urban and Regional Planning, University of California at Los Angeles
BA, History, minor in Economics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
Experience
Transportation Management & Design, Inc.
City of Houston, Planning and Development Department
BRicK Partners, LLC
Vinson & Elkins, LLP
Overview
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. Since joining TMD, 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, and Little Rock, AR. As one of our project managers, 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.
Project Experience
OCTA Fixed-Route Bus Restructuring Study
Rock Region METRO R.I.D.E. 2020
MTS (San Diego) Transit Ballot Measure Planning
LA Metro NextGen Bus Study
Nashville WeGo (MTA) Better Bus Project (Network Redesign)
