Carolyn Flowers joined Infrastrategies LLC in February 2019 as Managing Principal and partner for strategic advisory consulting in transit and rail. Prior to that she worked at AECOM, the largest global engineering firm, for two years as Senior Vice President leading client and industry relations, business development and marketing strategy for the public transit business line in United States and Canada.
She spent two years at the Federal Transit Administration as Senior Advisor and in the last nine months of the Obama Administration she served as the Acting Administrator.
From 2010 to 2015 she served as Chief Executive Officer/Director of Public Transit for Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS), with responsibiility for bus and rail transit planning and operations.
Prior to joining the City of Charlotte, Flowers was Chief Operations Officer for Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), responsible for managing bus operations and Freeway Service Patrol. In all, she spent nineteen years at MTA in a number of positions in budget/finance and operations.
Flowers recently served as a member of the American Public Transportation Association’s (APTA) Board of Directors. She was a member of the Mobility and Leadership committees. She previously served as Co-Chair of the New Mobility Paradigm, Co-Chair of Reauthorization Task Force and was member of APTA’s Publication Advisory Board, Legislative, and Awards committees. She also served on the Board of Directors for the North American Transit Services Association (NATSA), the profit services arm of the APTA association.
She also served a term on the Executive Committee of the Transit Cooperative Research Board and is currently serving on several other industry and association boards; MPact, Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Oversight and Project Selection, Eno Center for Transportation and was previously on the Women’s Transportation Seminar International Board (WTS)
She is currently an independent director for Mobico (National Express) as a member of the Audit, Nominations and Governance Committee and Chair of the Sustainability Committee and she serves on board of Neology Corp. She previously served on the board of directors at MV Transportation, Cubic Corporation (member of Executive Compensation and Strategy/Technology Committees) and on the board of Circlepoint.
In 2007, she was recognized as the Tom Bradley Alumnus of the Year by the UCLA Black Alumni Association, an award named for the first African-American Mayor of Los Angeles who was a champion of public transportation. In 2008, she was named Woman of the Year by the Los Angeles Chapter of the Women’s Transportation Seminar. She also received the Ambassador award for volunteer work with the American Stroke Association and was given a special recognition award for public service by the Greater Los Angeles African- American Chamber of Commerce as well as National Women’s History Month award by the Black Business Association of Los Angeles. She was named by UCLA Anderson School of Business as one of 75 most Inspirational graduates in their first 100 years and is the 2018 recipient of the Friends of Eno Award for her volunteer service to workforce development programs from the Eno Foundation.
Flowers is a graduate of the 2003 APTA Transportation Leadership Program. She participated on the 2005 international study project for the National Association of Sciences, sponsored by the Eno Foundation for Transportation Studies, and graduated from the executive development program sponsored by the Eno Center for Transit Leadership.
She previously served on Johnson C. Smith University Board of Visitors, the Foundation for the Carolinas Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fund Board of Directors, the Institute for Transportation Research and Education (ITRE) Board and the advisory Board for the Women’s Intercultural Exchange (WIE).
She received a bachelor’s degree in History and Political Science and a master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Major Accomplishments:
At FTA, as the largest grantor agency at USDOT managed and approved $10B annual appropriations in grant disbursements of formula, discretionary and including the $2B capital investment grant to construct and expand transit infrastructure projects.
Member of senior leadership team at USDOT that reviewed and approved significant infrastructure grant programs including the $50M Smart Cities Grant, and two rounds of Tiger Grant programs at $500M each
Member of USDOT Credit Committee that reviewed and approved transportation loans (TIFIA and RRIF)
Led the first ever effort of the FTA to assume direct daily safety oversight responsibility of a transit agency (WMATA)
As Deputy Executive Officer of Finance at LA Metro, was responsible for developing and managing the process for $3B operating and capital budget