The California High-Speed Rail Authority Board of Directors announced Tuesday, May 29, that it will hire Jeff Morales as its new CEO.
Morales has experience managing major transportation projects, including projects with the California Department of Transportation and the Chicago Transit Authority. He has also worked at the federal level on such projects as President Obama’s transportation transition team and Vice President Al Gore’s National Performance Review. He currently works as the senior vice president of Parsons Brinckerhoff Americas and is serving as its director of strategic initiatives and government relations.
Board Chairman Dan Richard said he and the rest of the board were impressed with Morales’ experience with and dedication to transportation issues on a large scale.
“Jeff Morales is exactly the right person to take the helm at this pivotal time and capitalize on the positive momentum that has built up over the last several months,” Richard stated in a press release.
By Lauren Sliter
By Lauren Sliter
By Lauren Sliter
Prediction: This man will NOT be leading this organization in two years…because it will still be a quagmire in 2014.
Boondoggle. How much money will Jeff Morales suck out of our taxes, and what benefit will we gain from him? Boondoggles make me cranky.
If he is qualified as described, he will recommend killing the project. If he doesn’t, he is as bad as the rest of them.
It makes no difference who is running the store. We had some real charlatans get this passed, and they are gone. Once the onion started getting peeled, in became apparent that this is not a good use of public funds. No person or management team can alter that fact.
Jeff Morales “currently works as the senior vice president of Parsons Brinckerhoff Americas…”
THAT’S OUTRAGEOUS!!!!! This appointment is the embodiment of a CONFLICT OF INTEREST! Why? Because Parsons Brinckerhoff is one of the organizations that stands to gain the most money by going ahead with this ill-conceived, grossly unaffordable, socially harmful, publicly misrepresented-from-Day-1 albatross being foisted on us by a long list of pols, from Diridon and Kopp to Schwarzenegger and Brown, and their puppets and others waiting their turn at the public trough. Morales will probably return to Parsons Brinckerhoff shortly after he finishes serving their private interests as CEO of CHSRA.
These people have no shame.
If you build it they will come.
This is a real disgrace, period. The CA High Speed Rail project has always been a fraud wrapped in rails, nothing more. The bloated ridership claims, uneconomic fares, ‘millions’ of jobs, and general incompetence and arrogance at every turn are the foundations of the CA High Speed Rail project. Their new CEO, a veteran of Parsons Brinckerhoff is such a blatant conflict of interest it’s truly astonishing. Recall that Parsons Brinckerhoff essentially has been the backbone of the CA High Speed Authority for many years now. That our senile governor approves, shows where his priorities are; trains good, everything else bad. Brown is desperate for his train project to succeed, so the states cash keeps flowing into the coffers of Parsons Brinckerhoff, and then back to Sacramento as campaign contributions.
Not one vote for any Democrats in the coming elections. They are destroying the state with their foolish spending.
Lets not forget that Parsons Brinckerhoff was the driving force behind the fraud and waste of the Big Dig project in Boston a few years back. They are very skilled at robbing taxpayers under the flag of public benefit.