Executive Director of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization
Austin, TX
Full Time
Executive
Executive Director
Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization
Mackenzie Eason & Associates has been retained by the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) to recruit its next Executive Director. Reporting directly to the Transportation Policy Board, the Executive Director will lead the organization and work with elected officials, transportation agencies, local governments, and regional partners to develop and advance the transportation vision for one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing regions in the country.
This is an opportunity to lead CAMPO at a defining moment in Central Texas's evolution. The organization has become a nationally respected and effective Metropolitan Planning Organization with an experienced professional staff, strong technical capabilities, and a newly adopted 2050 Regional Transportation Plan. At the same time, the region CAMPO serves is changing dramatically. Population and employment growth are increasingly extending beyond the traditional Austin urban core, as suburban cities are becoming major employment centers in their own right and historically rural counties are rapidly urbanizing, leading to transportation needs across the six-county region.
The next Executive Director will have the opportunity to build on the progress of the past decade while helping CAMPO move into its next chapter, strengthening regional collaboration, increasing engagement with the Transportation Policy Board, expanding CAMPO's external influence both in and out of the state, building organizational capacity, and helping Central Texas prepare for transportation needs that will look very different over the next 25 years.
About the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization
CAMPO is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization for Bastrop, Burnet, Caldwell, Hays, Travis, and Williamson Counties. CAMPO was designated as the MPO for the Austin urbanized area in 1973, and its planning boundary expanded during the 2000s to encompass today's six-county region. Today, CAMPO coordinates transportation planning for one of the country's fastest-growing metropolitan regions.
CAMPO serves as the regional forum where local governments, transportation providers, TxDOT, and other partners establish shared transportation priorities. The organization develops and maintains the region's long-range transportation plan, provides the process through which local officials select projects for federal and certain state funding, and develops the demographic forecasts, travel demand models, and other data that underpin regional transportation decisions.
The six-county region is remarkably diverse. Austin and Travis County form the major urban core, while communities such as Round Rock, Georgetown, Cedar Park, Leander, Pflugerville, and others have developed into significant residential and employment centers of their own. At the same time, Hays, Bastrop, Caldwell, Burnet, and Williamson County are experiencing rapid growth that is transforming communities and putting metropolitan-level demand on infrastructure that was often developed for a much smaller population.
That diversity makes CAMPO's work both consequential and complex. The transportation needs of downtown Austin are not necessarily the transportation needs of Georgetown, Kyle, Bastrop, Lockhart, or Burnet County. A successful regional transportation system must recognize those distinctions while also connecting the communities into a functioning regional network.
The Executive Director will be expected to understand those differences and help the Transportation Policy Board build consensus around investments that advance the region as a whole.
CAMPO's Role in Regional Transportation
CAMPO's work is organized around three federally required core products:
Regional Transportation Plan (RTP)
The RTP establishes the region's long-range transportation vision over a 20-plus-year planning horizon. It is updated every five years, is fiscally constrained and multimodal, and establishes the framework through which projects become eligible for federal transportation funding.
Transportation Improvement Program (TIP)
The TIP identifies funded transportation projects expected to advance during a four-year period. It is adopted every two years and authorizes the use of federal transportation funds for projects drawn from the adopted RTP. CAMPO's current TIP covers Fiscal Years 2027–2030. (CAMPO)
Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP)
The UPWP establishes CAMPO's planning activities, studies, work program, and budget. It guides staff activity and documents how transportation planning resources will be used.
For FY 2026, CAMPO's amended UPWP reflects approximately $17.3 million in total work-program funding across CAMPO and participating partner-agency activities. CAMPO operates a relatively lean professional organization while managing a significantly large portfolio of federally, state, and locally funded transportation planning programs and studies. Annual UPWP funding fluctuates based on major grant awards, multi-year studies, and project timing; programmed funding has ranged from approximately $13.9 million to $16.7 million over the past three fiscal years, while actual annual expenditures grew from approximately $4.6 million in FY 2023 to $9.0 million in FY 2025 as major regional studies and project-readiness initiatives moved into implementation.
The Executive Director is responsible for ensuring that CAMPO continues to satisfy all applicable federal laws, regulations, work-program requirements, and responsibilities related to the RTP, TIP, and UPWP.
The 2050 Regional Transportation Plan
CAMPO adopted its 2050 Regional Transportation Plan in May 2025, establishing the long-range transportation framework for a region that is expected to look significantly different by the middle of the century.
The CAMPO region grew from approximately 869,000 residents in 1990 to 2.3 million in 2020 and is projected to reach approximately 4.7 million residents by 2050. At that size, the six-county Capital Area would be comparable in population to some of today's largest metropolitan areas in the United States. (CAMPO)
The 2050 Plan is organized around six major goals:
The financial scale is significant. CAMPO's fiscal analysis projects approximately $19.57 billion in federal and state transportation investment between 2025 and 2050, before accounting for the broader range of local transportation investments occurring throughout the region. (CAMPO)
For the next Executive Director, the 2050 Plan is more than a federally required planning document. The challenge is to translate that long-range framework into priorities, funding decisions, project readiness, partnerships, and ultimately transportation improvements that keep pace with extraordinary growth.
Beyond the Regional Transportation Plan
CAMPO's work extends well beyond maintaining the RTP, TIP, and UPWP.
The organization undertakes corridor studies examining mobility, safety, and design options; subregional plans addressing growth, connectivity, and land use; active transportation plans identifying bicycle, pedestrian, and trail networks; and transit and special studies addressing transit service, freight, resiliency, and other regional issues. Those efforts ultimately feed recommendations into the Regional Transportation Plan.
CAMPO is also advancing initiatives including:
The Opportunity
The Executive Director is CAMPO's chief executive and reports directly to the Transportation Policy Board. The role requires an uncommon combination of regional leadership, political judgment, transportation expertise, organizational management, communication skills, and external advocacy.
The Executive Director will lead an experienced professional staff responsible for transportation planning and programming, data and operations, regional planning, short-range planning, transportation demand management, community outreach, finance, and administrative functions. CAMPO has historically operated as a relatively lean organization and supplemented its internal staff extensively with professional consultants.
Internally, the next Executive Director will have the opportunity to examine CAMPO's organizational structure, staffing, succession depth, consultant utilization, financial and administrative processes, policies, and systems to ensure the organization is positioned for its next phase of growth.
Externally, the Executive Director must operate comfortably at multiple levels. On any given day, the position may require meeting individually with a county commissioner or mayor, explaining a complex federal funding issue to the Transportation Policy Board, working with TxDOT leadership, coordinating with another MPO, advocating for Central Texas before state or federal decision-makers, or sitting down with staff to work through an organizational issue.
This Role Offers the Opportunity to:
Shape the Future of Central Texas Transportation
CAMPO is also preparing to undertake a strategic planning process to help define the agency's role and priorities over the next five years.
The framework being discussed centers on three fundamental questions:
The next Executive Director will play a central role in helping the Transportation Policy Board work through these questions and convert the resulting strategy into organizational priorities and action.
Key Challenges
The next Executive Director will step into CAMPO at an important transition point.
CAMPO is not an organization that needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Over the past decade, the organization has moved from a period of growth and change to greater stability, stronger technical performance, and improved regional relationships. Staff tenure is strong, and stakeholders consistently recognize the quality and capability of the members of the CAMPO team.
The challenge for the next Executive Director is to preserve what works while moving the organization forward.
From Regional Stability to Regional Strategy
Previous leadership helped reduce significant historical conflict among CAMPO's member jurisdictions and strengthened the organization's credibility. The next phase requires moving beyond stability toward a more deliberate conversation about the future of Central Texas transportation.
The Executive Director must help the Board discuss difficult issues openly without allowing CAMPO to become either a debating society where nothing gets accomplished or an organization where meaningful discussion is discouraged.
The successful leader will create room for dialogue, surface important tradeoffs, provide professional recommendations, and ultimately help the Board make decisions.
Balancing a Region with Very Different Needs
CAMPO encompasses communities at dramatically different stages of development.
The urban core faces congestion, transit, multimodal, safety, operational, and redevelopment challenges. Major suburban cities increasingly function as independent employment and activity centers. Rapidly growing counties are dealing with metropolitan-scale development on roadways and infrastructure systems originally designed for much smaller communities.
A one-size-fits-all transportation philosophy will not work.
The Executive Director must help the Policy Board understand those differences while keeping members focused on a regional transportation network rather than simply competing for individual projects.
Building an Informed and Engaged Board
Metropolitan transportation planning is complex. New Board members must quickly learn an alphabet soup of programs and funding categories while understanding how the RTP, TIP, UPWP, project calls, federal regulations, state funding, and project-readiness requirements fit together.
The next Executive Director will need to make highly technical issues understandable and give Board members the information they need to govern effectively.
Strengthening Organizational Leadership
CAMPO has talented employees and significant institutional knowledge. The next Executive Director must be a visible organizational leader who communicates expectations, develops employees, empowers managers, addresses problems directly, and is willing to make difficult decisions when necessary.
Building the Right Organizational Capacity
CAMPO has historically remained lean and used consultants extensively. That model brings flexibility and access to specialized expertise. The next Executive Director should thoughtfully evaluate where consultants provide the greatest value and where CAMPO would benefit from building sustainable expertise internally.
This is particularly relevant as CAMPO expands its work around data, project readiness, program management, and support for rapidly growing member jurisdictions.
Moving Projects from Plans to Implementation
Not every CAMPO member has the same internal capacity to develop and deliver major transportation projects.
Larger jurisdictions may have sophisticated capital programs with staff dedicated to environmental clearance, engineering, right-of-way, utility coordination, grant management, and project delivery. Smaller and rapidly growing jurisdictions may not.
The next Executive Director can strengthen the organization's ability to help member governments move projects from long-range concepts toward environmental clearance, design, right-of-way, utility coordination, funding, and construction readiness.
The objective is not simply to have projects on a list; it is to develop a deeper regional pipeline of credible, fundable, implementation-ready projects.
Increasing CAMPO's Voice
CAMPO has established relationships with TxDOT and its federal transportation partners. The next Executive Director should ensure Central Texas is visible, organized, credible, and prepared when funding and policy decisions are being made.
The Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate will be a sophisticated regional executive who combines meaningful transportation and MPO expertise with exceptional political judgment, communication skills, organizational leadership, and the ability to work effectively across diverse interests.
The successful candidate must understand that the Executive Director does not represent one city, county, transportation mode, political philosophy, or constituency. The Executive Director serves the Central Texas region.
Candidates must bring sufficient technical knowledge to be credible with planners, engineers, DOT, FHWA, FTA, transit providers, consultants, and other transportation professionals, while also being able to explain complex transportation and funding issues clearly to elected officials and the public.
The ideal candidate will listen carefully and work hard to develop consensus. There will be times when the Executive Director must respectfully explain that a particular request cannot be accommodated, that another regional priority must come first, or that technical, financial, or regulatory requirements limit the available options.
The successful candidate will understand when to build consensus, when to compromise, and when to stand firm.
Attributes of a successful candidate include:
Leadership and Regional Vision
Required Qualifications
Candidates must possess:
Preference may be given to candidates possessing:
Compensation and Benefits
The starting salary range for the Executive Director is $180,000 to $280,000 annually, depending on qualifications and experience and at the discretion of the Transportation Policy Board.
CAMPO employees receive benefits through Williamson County, CAMPO's fiscal agent. The current package includes paid vacation and sick leave, regular and floating holidays, health, dental and vision coverage, life and disability insurance, employee assistance benefits, and healthcare and dependent-care flexible spending accounts.
Employees participate in the Texas County & District Retirement System (TCDRS) pension program and may also participate in a deferred compensation retirement savings program.
Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization
Mackenzie Eason & Associates has been retained by the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) to recruit its next Executive Director. Reporting directly to the Transportation Policy Board, the Executive Director will lead the organization and work with elected officials, transportation agencies, local governments, and regional partners to develop and advance the transportation vision for one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing regions in the country.
This is an opportunity to lead CAMPO at a defining moment in Central Texas's evolution. The organization has become a nationally respected and effective Metropolitan Planning Organization with an experienced professional staff, strong technical capabilities, and a newly adopted 2050 Regional Transportation Plan. At the same time, the region CAMPO serves is changing dramatically. Population and employment growth are increasingly extending beyond the traditional Austin urban core, as suburban cities are becoming major employment centers in their own right and historically rural counties are rapidly urbanizing, leading to transportation needs across the six-county region.
The next Executive Director will have the opportunity to build on the progress of the past decade while helping CAMPO move into its next chapter, strengthening regional collaboration, increasing engagement with the Transportation Policy Board, expanding CAMPO's external influence both in and out of the state, building organizational capacity, and helping Central Texas prepare for transportation needs that will look very different over the next 25 years.
About the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization
CAMPO is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization for Bastrop, Burnet, Caldwell, Hays, Travis, and Williamson Counties. CAMPO was designated as the MPO for the Austin urbanized area in 1973, and its planning boundary expanded during the 2000s to encompass today's six-county region. Today, CAMPO coordinates transportation planning for one of the country's fastest-growing metropolitan regions.
CAMPO serves as the regional forum where local governments, transportation providers, TxDOT, and other partners establish shared transportation priorities. The organization develops and maintains the region's long-range transportation plan, provides the process through which local officials select projects for federal and certain state funding, and develops the demographic forecasts, travel demand models, and other data that underpin regional transportation decisions.
The six-county region is remarkably diverse. Austin and Travis County form the major urban core, while communities such as Round Rock, Georgetown, Cedar Park, Leander, Pflugerville, and others have developed into significant residential and employment centers of their own. At the same time, Hays, Bastrop, Caldwell, Burnet, and Williamson County are experiencing rapid growth that is transforming communities and putting metropolitan-level demand on infrastructure that was often developed for a much smaller population.
That diversity makes CAMPO's work both consequential and complex. The transportation needs of downtown Austin are not necessarily the transportation needs of Georgetown, Kyle, Bastrop, Lockhart, or Burnet County. A successful regional transportation system must recognize those distinctions while also connecting the communities into a functioning regional network.
The Executive Director will be expected to understand those differences and help the Transportation Policy Board build consensus around investments that advance the region as a whole.
CAMPO's Role in Regional Transportation
CAMPO's work is organized around three federally required core products:
Regional Transportation Plan (RTP)
The RTP establishes the region's long-range transportation vision over a 20-plus-year planning horizon. It is updated every five years, is fiscally constrained and multimodal, and establishes the framework through which projects become eligible for federal transportation funding.
Transportation Improvement Program (TIP)
The TIP identifies funded transportation projects expected to advance during a four-year period. It is adopted every two years and authorizes the use of federal transportation funds for projects drawn from the adopted RTP. CAMPO's current TIP covers Fiscal Years 2027–2030. (CAMPO)
Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP)
The UPWP establishes CAMPO's planning activities, studies, work program, and budget. It guides staff activity and documents how transportation planning resources will be used.
For FY 2026, CAMPO's amended UPWP reflects approximately $17.3 million in total work-program funding across CAMPO and participating partner-agency activities. CAMPO operates a relatively lean professional organization while managing a significantly large portfolio of federally, state, and locally funded transportation planning programs and studies. Annual UPWP funding fluctuates based on major grant awards, multi-year studies, and project timing; programmed funding has ranged from approximately $13.9 million to $16.7 million over the past three fiscal years, while actual annual expenditures grew from approximately $4.6 million in FY 2023 to $9.0 million in FY 2025 as major regional studies and project-readiness initiatives moved into implementation.
The Executive Director is responsible for ensuring that CAMPO continues to satisfy all applicable federal laws, regulations, work-program requirements, and responsibilities related to the RTP, TIP, and UPWP.
The 2050 Regional Transportation Plan
CAMPO adopted its 2050 Regional Transportation Plan in May 2025, establishing the long-range transportation framework for a region that is expected to look significantly different by the middle of the century.
The CAMPO region grew from approximately 869,000 residents in 1990 to 2.3 million in 2020 and is projected to reach approximately 4.7 million residents by 2050. At that size, the six-county Capital Area would be comparable in population to some of today's largest metropolitan areas in the United States. (CAMPO)
The 2050 Plan is organized around six major goals:
- Safety
- Mobility
- Stewardship
- Economy
- Equity
- Innovation
The financial scale is significant. CAMPO's fiscal analysis projects approximately $19.57 billion in federal and state transportation investment between 2025 and 2050, before accounting for the broader range of local transportation investments occurring throughout the region. (CAMPO)
For the next Executive Director, the 2050 Plan is more than a federally required planning document. The challenge is to translate that long-range framework into priorities, funding decisions, project readiness, partnerships, and ultimately transportation improvements that keep pace with extraordinary growth.
Beyond the Regional Transportation Plan
CAMPO's work extends well beyond maintaining the RTP, TIP, and UPWP.
The organization undertakes corridor studies examining mobility, safety, and design options; subregional plans addressing growth, connectivity, and land use; active transportation plans identifying bicycle, pedestrian, and trail networks; and transit and special studies addressing transit service, freight, resiliency, and other regional issues. Those efforts ultimately feed recommendations into the Regional Transportation Plan.
CAMPO is also advancing initiatives including:
- Central Texas Traffic Management System (CTTMS) and regional traffic-signal coordination
- Transportation Demand Management
- Data and forecasting
- Project readiness and development support
- Regional and corridor planning
- Public engagement and community outreach
The Opportunity
The Executive Director is CAMPO's chief executive and reports directly to the Transportation Policy Board. The role requires an uncommon combination of regional leadership, political judgment, transportation expertise, organizational management, communication skills, and external advocacy.
The Executive Director will lead an experienced professional staff responsible for transportation planning and programming, data and operations, regional planning, short-range planning, transportation demand management, community outreach, finance, and administrative functions. CAMPO has historically operated as a relatively lean organization and supplemented its internal staff extensively with professional consultants.
Internally, the next Executive Director will have the opportunity to examine CAMPO's organizational structure, staffing, succession depth, consultant utilization, financial and administrative processes, policies, and systems to ensure the organization is positioned for its next phase of growth.
Externally, the Executive Director must operate comfortably at multiple levels. On any given day, the position may require meeting individually with a county commissioner or mayor, explaining a complex federal funding issue to the Transportation Policy Board, working with TxDOT leadership, coordinating with another MPO, advocating for Central Texas before state or federal decision-makers, or sitting down with staff to work through an organizational issue.
This Role Offers the Opportunity to:
Shape the Future of Central Texas Transportation
- Lead implementation and future updates of the 2050 Regional Transportation Plan.
- Help prepare a six-county region projected to reach approximately 4.7 million residents by 2050.
- Anticipate changing travel patterns as jobs and population increasingly extend beyond Austin.
- Ensure regional planning recognizes distinctly different urban, suburban, and rapidly growing rural transportation needs.
- Evaluate emerging technologies, connected and autonomous vehicles, transit, freight, roadway, active transportation, and other mobility solutions based on regional needs and the policy direction adopted by the Transportation Policy Board.
- Translate long-range planning into measurable transportation outcomes.
- Develop trusted relationships across the entire Transportation Policy Board.
- Bring elected officials together around transportation priorities that advance the region while recognizing differing jurisdictional needs.
- Create opportunities for meaningful regional discussion rather than simply managing individual transactions and funding decisions.
- Help Board members understand the complex planning, programming, funding, and regulatory framework governing an MPO.
- Establish strong onboarding and continuing education practices for Policy Board members.
- Create an environment where differing perspectives can be heard while still moving the organization toward decisions.
- Deepen partnerships with TxDOT, FHWA, FTA, Capital Metro, CARTS, CTRMA, local governments, neighboring MPOs, legislators, and other regional organizations.
- Increase CAMPO's presence with state and federal transportation decision-makers.
- Make the case for Central Texas transportation needs and position the region to maximize available funding.
- Strengthen coordination across jurisdictional and MPO boundaries as transportation patterns increasingly connect Central Texas communities.
- Serve as a highly visible and credible representative of CAMPO and the six-county region.
- Evaluate organizational structure, staffing, succession planning, and internal capacity.
- Determine the appropriate balance between internal expertise and consultant support.
- Strengthen administrative, finance, contracting, compliance, and human resources processes.
- Establish clear expectations and accountability while empowering capable employees to make decisions.
- Invest in employee development and build leadership depth throughout the organization.
- Create organizational systems and processes that do not depend excessively on the institutional knowledge of individual employees.
CAMPO is also preparing to undertake a strategic planning process to help define the agency's role and priorities over the next five years.
The framework being discussed centers on three fundamental questions:
- What role should CAMPO play?
- Clarify where CAMPO should lead, where it should convene regional conversations, and where it should support the work of its partners.
- Where should the region focus?
- Establish priorities related to growth, mobility, safety, funding, and transportation needs across the six-county region.
- How will success be measured?
- Establish meaningful outcomes and performance measures that demonstrate whether CAMPO and the region are making progress. The objective is to turn what can otherwise be an open-ended future into a clear and actionable five-year program of work.
The next Executive Director will play a central role in helping the Transportation Policy Board work through these questions and convert the resulting strategy into organizational priorities and action.
Key Challenges
The next Executive Director will step into CAMPO at an important transition point.
CAMPO is not an organization that needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Over the past decade, the organization has moved from a period of growth and change to greater stability, stronger technical performance, and improved regional relationships. Staff tenure is strong, and stakeholders consistently recognize the quality and capability of the members of the CAMPO team.
The challenge for the next Executive Director is to preserve what works while moving the organization forward.
From Regional Stability to Regional Strategy
Previous leadership helped reduce significant historical conflict among CAMPO's member jurisdictions and strengthened the organization's credibility. The next phase requires moving beyond stability toward a more deliberate conversation about the future of Central Texas transportation.
The Executive Director must help the Board discuss difficult issues openly without allowing CAMPO to become either a debating society where nothing gets accomplished or an organization where meaningful discussion is discouraged.
The successful leader will create room for dialogue, surface important tradeoffs, provide professional recommendations, and ultimately help the Board make decisions.
Balancing a Region with Very Different Needs
CAMPO encompasses communities at dramatically different stages of development.
The urban core faces congestion, transit, multimodal, safety, operational, and redevelopment challenges. Major suburban cities increasingly function as independent employment and activity centers. Rapidly growing counties are dealing with metropolitan-scale development on roadways and infrastructure systems originally designed for much smaller communities.
A one-size-fits-all transportation philosophy will not work.
The Executive Director must help the Policy Board understand those differences while keeping members focused on a regional transportation network rather than simply competing for individual projects.
Building an Informed and Engaged Board
Metropolitan transportation planning is complex. New Board members must quickly learn an alphabet soup of programs and funding categories while understanding how the RTP, TIP, UPWP, project calls, federal regulations, state funding, and project-readiness requirements fit together.
The next Executive Director will need to make highly technical issues understandable and give Board members the information they need to govern effectively.
Strengthening Organizational Leadership
CAMPO has talented employees and significant institutional knowledge. The next Executive Director must be a visible organizational leader who communicates expectations, develops employees, empowers managers, addresses problems directly, and is willing to make difficult decisions when necessary.
Building the Right Organizational Capacity
CAMPO has historically remained lean and used consultants extensively. That model brings flexibility and access to specialized expertise. The next Executive Director should thoughtfully evaluate where consultants provide the greatest value and where CAMPO would benefit from building sustainable expertise internally.
This is particularly relevant as CAMPO expands its work around data, project readiness, program management, and support for rapidly growing member jurisdictions.
Moving Projects from Plans to Implementation
Not every CAMPO member has the same internal capacity to develop and deliver major transportation projects.
Larger jurisdictions may have sophisticated capital programs with staff dedicated to environmental clearance, engineering, right-of-way, utility coordination, grant management, and project delivery. Smaller and rapidly growing jurisdictions may not.
The next Executive Director can strengthen the organization's ability to help member governments move projects from long-range concepts toward environmental clearance, design, right-of-way, utility coordination, funding, and construction readiness.
The objective is not simply to have projects on a list; it is to develop a deeper regional pipeline of credible, fundable, implementation-ready projects.
Increasing CAMPO's Voice
CAMPO has established relationships with TxDOT and its federal transportation partners. The next Executive Director should ensure Central Texas is visible, organized, credible, and prepared when funding and policy decisions are being made.
The Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate will be a sophisticated regional executive who combines meaningful transportation and MPO expertise with exceptional political judgment, communication skills, organizational leadership, and the ability to work effectively across diverse interests.
The successful candidate must understand that the Executive Director does not represent one city, county, transportation mode, political philosophy, or constituency. The Executive Director serves the Central Texas region.
Candidates must bring sufficient technical knowledge to be credible with planners, engineers, DOT, FHWA, FTA, transit providers, consultants, and other transportation professionals, while also being able to explain complex transportation and funding issues clearly to elected officials and the public.
The ideal candidate will listen carefully and work hard to develop consensus. There will be times when the Executive Director must respectfully explain that a particular request cannot be accommodated, that another regional priority must come first, or that technical, financial, or regulatory requirements limit the available options.
The successful candidate will understand when to build consensus, when to compromise, and when to stand firm.
Attributes of a successful candidate include:
- Exceptional political and interpersonal judgment
- Ability to build consensus among elected officials with competing priorities
- Strong understanding of metropolitan transportation planning and federal transportation funding
- Ability to translate highly technical information into clear and understandable language
- Strong executive presence without arrogance or unnecessary confrontation
- Willingness to respectfully challenge assumptions and defend sound professional recommendations
- Proven ability to develop trusted relationships across an entire governing board
- Credibility with local, state, and federal transportation partners
- Strong organizational leadership and a demonstrated commitment to staff development and accountability
- Understanding of project implementation and delivery in addition to planning and policy
- A forward-looking perspective on growth, technology, transportation choices, and changing travel patterns
- Ability to identify opportunities to increase federal and state investment in the region
- Intellectual curiosity and adaptability
- High integrity, transparency, and commitment to public service
Leadership and Regional Vision
- Lead CAMPO in carrying out the policy direction of the Transportation Policy Board.
- Help establish a clear strategic vision for Central Texas transportation.
- Facilitate alignment around regional transportation priorities while recognizing differing local needs.
- Implement the strategic priorities established through CAMPO's upcoming five-year strategic planning effort.
- Maintain CAMPO's focus on measurable regional outcomes.
- Directly support the Transportation Policy Board, Executive Committee, and other Board committees.
- Maintain consistent communication with Board officers and members.
- Provide accurate, timely, and understandable information necessary for Board decisions.
- Develop strong professional relationships with the entire Board.
- Strengthen Board onboarding and continuing education related to MPO responsibilities, funding, planning, and programming.
- Help the Transportation Policy Board successfully conduct the business of the MPO and support the region's continued growth.
- Ensure compliance with all federal and state MPO requirements.
- Oversee the Regional Transportation Plan, Transportation Improvement Program, and Unified Planning Work Program.
- Direct project programming, funding, scoring, amendments, and related transportation planning processes.
- Maintain technically defensible and transparent project-selection practices.
- Strengthen project readiness and support member jurisdictions in advancing projects toward implementation.
- Maximize available federal and state funding for the region.
- Coordinate regularly with FHWA, FTA, TxDOT, cities, counties, transit providers, regional agencies, and other partners.
- Develop and maintain relationships with state and federal decision-makers.
- Represent CAMPO at public meetings, transportation forums, legislative discussions, professional organizations, and regional events.
- Strengthen collaboration with neighboring MPOs and transportation partners where regional growth crosses jurisdictional boundaries.
- Advocate effectively for Central Texas transportation priorities.
- Lead and support CAMPO employees in the successful execution of the work program.
- Maintain a collaborative, supportive, professional, and accountable work environment.
- Establish clear roles, responsibilities, expectations, and decision-making authority.
- Recruit, develop, retain, and mentor high-performing employees.
- Evaluate organizational structure, staffing levels, consultant utilization, and succession needs.
- Strengthen policies, procedures, financial controls, contracting, documentation, and standard operating practices.
- Hold employees accountable for performance while providing them with the authority and support necessary to succeed.
- Strengthen CAMPO's use of demographic, transportation, and infrastructure data in regional decision-making.
- Continue developing CAMPO's Data and Operations capabilities.
- Evaluate emerging technologies and changing transportation patterns that may affect future infrastructure needs.
- Encourage new approaches while maintaining technical rigor, financial discipline, and alignment with CAMPO's responsibilities.
- Create a culture of continuous organizational improvement.
Required Qualifications
Candidates must possess:
- A bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university in planning, engineering, public administration, or a field directly related to the responsibilities of the Executive Director.
- At least nine years of progressively responsible experience, including senior-level leadership and management, in transportation planning, public-sector management, and interagency collaboration.
- Regional planning and programming experience with a metropolitan planning organization or an equivalent regional, state, or federal transportation agency.
- Demonstrated technical understanding of federal MPO requirements, including the TIP, RTP, and UPWP framework and federal transportation funding programs such as FHWA Planning funds, FTA programs, and STBG.
- Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively with transportation providers, local, state and federal government officials and staff, elected officials, stakeholders, and the public.
- Established executive leadership and management skills necessary to manage the agency's day-to-day operations.
Preference may be given to candidates possessing:
- A master's degree in planning, engineering, public administration, or a closely related field.
- Twelve or more years of progressively responsible experience, including executive-level leadership and management.
- Demonstrated experience successfully managing an organization of similar staff size and complexity.
- Established relationships with transportation providers, local, state, and federal government officials, elected officials, and other regional stakeholders.
- Familiarity with the Texas transportation system and experience coordinating with TxDOT is strongly preferred.
Compensation and Benefits
The starting salary range for the Executive Director is $180,000 to $280,000 annually, depending on qualifications and experience and at the discretion of the Transportation Policy Board.
CAMPO employees receive benefits through Williamson County, CAMPO's fiscal agent. The current package includes paid vacation and sick leave, regular and floating holidays, health, dental and vision coverage, life and disability insurance, employee assistance benefits, and healthcare and dependent-care flexible spending accounts.
Employees participate in the Texas County & District Retirement System (TCDRS) pension program and may also participate in a deferred compensation retirement savings program.
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