OnTrackAmerica adds three staffers

Written by jrood

Expanding on the momentum it built throughout 2009, OnTrackAmerica (OTA), the Philadelphia-based non-profit transportation consultancy is expanding its staff to fully develop its comprehensive agenda for 2010.  

Ed Fischer was named
OTA’s director of development. Fischer, an accomplished fund-raising
consultant, will be charged with securing financial support for all of OTA’s
projects.

 

Jason Owens, a
master’s candidate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute of
Government, was also hired as project coordinator. Owens will oversee several
OTA initiatives for 2010, including OnTrackPennsylvania and Freight
Transportation Land Use Strategy.

 

Collin Keefe was
named director of public relations. Keefe brings 10-plus years of both newsroom
and public relations experience to OTA, and will serve as a media liaison while
overseeing all strategic communications efforts.

 

For 2010, OTA will
convene a yearlong series of in-person summits, co-facilitated by Barbara Gray,
Director of Penn State University’s Center for Research in Conflict and
Negotiation. This initial set of multi-stakeholder summits is designed to
define the parameters for measuring a doubling of freight transportation
efficiency by the year 2020.

 

Also in 2010, OTA
will continue to develop its model state freight transportation business plan
for improving freight transportation productivity and efficiency. It has
launched OnTrackPennsylvania, a statewide Collaboration for Optimal Freight
Transportation, and is working on partnerships to advance a parallel model in
western states. In 2009, OTA built support for OnTrackPennsylvania throughout
the state legislature, governor’s office and relevant non-governmental
organizations and associations, including the legislature’s transportation
committee chairmen and Governor Rendell’s policy team. A targeted fundraising
effort has been initiated to fully develop this concept into its most effective
approach. Authorizing legislation is intended to be ready for introduction by
the second half of 2010.

 

Additionally, OTA
will continue to champion the revitalization of Stony Creek, a 10-mile branch
line in metropolitan Philadelphia that runs from Norristown to Lansdale, Pa.
Saving and regenerating the Stony Creek line provides an opportunity to use
stakeholder engagement to expand the narrow economic lens that is used to
assess individual rail lines, a perspective that currently devalues the key
role of rail line segments in the regional transportation system.

 

Furthermore, in 2010
OTA will advocate a continental moratorium on rail line abandonments in support
of the effort to rebuild missing transportation links.

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