Alumni Profiles
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Greg Walker '05 |
As the Policy and Planning Officer for Sound Transit, the regional transit provider in the greater Seattle area, Greg oversees a staff of twelve and an annual budget of more than $18 million dollars. The mission of the Policy & Planning Office is to develop the transit vision of the region and provide the pathway for achievement of that vision. This includes a ballot initiative to ask voters for authorization to invest several billion dollars into the development of light rail, commuter rail, and regional express bus service across the Puget Sound area.
Greg decided to attend Fels 15 years into his professional career, when he recognized that his technical background in urban and regional planning would get him only so far in being able to make a real difference in how we as society make public transportation investment choices. He believed that if he took the opportunity to broaden his experience beyond transportation planning and gain a better understanding of how public decisions and investments are made, he would become a more effective leader in the field and really help fix gridlock – traffic gridlock and public decision-making gridlock.
To Greg, Fels was the only choice to offer that opportunity. The number of outstanding public servants that have graduated from Fels throughout its 70 years; small class sizes combined with an award-winning and highly respected faculty; the talent and utilization of real-world educators who bring their practical experience to the program; the availability of Penn’s academic resources (for example, Greg supplemented his Fels experience with classes from the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Wharton School); and most of all, the personal attention he received are some of the reasons Greg decided to attend Fels.
Because Greg came to the program as a full-time student with several years of experience, he was able to easily move between peers in both the full-time and executive classes. The one thing that stood out for him was the quality of both student groups – quality in terms of the diversity of backgrounds, the commitment to advancing the practice of government administration, and the commitment to each other and the unspoken understanding that each individual improved as the group improved.
Before joining Sound Transit in 2007, Greg worked in the private sector as a transportation consultant and as a planner in other transit agencies. Most recently, he was Associate Vice President for Transit Planning with a national planning and engineering firm and the Senior Associate Director of Planning and Business Practices for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Throughout his career, Greg has been focused on advancing decision-making in major transit system development projects across the country – from bus systems, to light rail lines, to subways and commuter rail investments. Of his Fels education, Greg says "it provided the experience I needed to complete the three principle legs of project development – planning and public decision support, engineering, and public finance. Armed with my Fels degree in Government Administration and professional certificate in Public Finance, I was able to successfully compete for my current position with Sound Transit where I am able to sit at the regional table and help make sound investments in public transportation that will benefit all generations to come."