RTD’s board of directors on Tuesday night selected from within and named Phillip Washington the transit agency’s new general manager and chief executive officer.
The choice capped a six-month search for a successor to Cal Marsella, who left the Regional Transportation District in July after 14 years as its top executive.
Washington has served as RTD’s interim general manager since last summer.
Washington, 51, joined RTD in 2000 and was assistant general manager for administration for nine years, with responsibility for the agency’s finance, procurement, information technology and human resources departments.
The other finalists were Sean Donohue, 48, who spent 24 years with United Airlines, and Douglas Kelsey, 50, president and chief executive of British Columbia Rapid Transit Co. in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The RTD board now will negotiate a contract with Washington, who is not expected to received as rich a compensation package as that enjoyed by Marsella.
Marsella’s employment contract with RTD included a salary of about $300,000 a year, an annual performance bonus that typically added the equivalent of 12.5 percent of base pay to his cash compensation, and a retirement plan that gave him 2-1/2 years of pension credit for each year served at RTD.
Washington spent 24 years in the Army and achieved the rank of command sergeant major.
In an earlier interview, he drew on his military experience when he described the success he has had at RTD and his plans for the agency should he be tapped as its permanent chief.
“It starts with leadership,” he said. “For more than 25 years, I’ve been leading people from diverse backgrounds and motivating people from all walks of life.”
Washington said that as GM he will look for alternate sources of financing for FasTracks, including new job-creation money that might flow as more federal stimulus.
Calling FasTracks “an economic investment program,” he said that it is all about “jobs, jobs, jobs.”
Washington said he would bring “the ability to confront the brutal truths” about the FasTracks funding shortfall, “but never give up on the hope for completing the project.”
