After a national search, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) is  pleased to introduce Claudia Preciado as our new Director of Engagement. Claudia brings years of experience in the transportation sector, leveraging relationships and process improvements to help transit agencies deliver better service to their riders. Throughout her career, she has bridged the gap between the technical and interpersonal in pursuit of a wider goal: improving sustainability, livability, and mobility in cities. Claudia will carry this forward at NACTO, leading capacity-building programs for staff in our 92 members, as well as the wider city transportation field.

NACTO’s mission is to build cities as places for people. Through advocating for human-centered street design and progressive transportation policy, we push the conversation on how streets should work–and who they should work for. NACTO’s capacity-building and engagement program takes this conversation to city transportation professionals across North America. From design and policy trainings, to leadership development programs, to our hallmark event, the Designing Cities Conference (returning in-person this Fall!), we build expertise and capacity among city and agency staff to help them build safer, more equitable cities.

As Director of Engagement, Claudia will expand on and enrich this work, fostering NACTO’s network of change-minded city transportation officials. She will join our senior leadership team, overseeing in-person and online programs for practitioners to connect, exchange ideas, and work together to challenge the status quo. And to ensure we are intentionally creating a movement of people in public service, she will improve on our member engagement strategy, making sure practitioners in our network have the skills, inspiration, and resources to make lasting change in their own communities.

Claudia comes to NACTO with deep experience in the city transportation field, largely working at the intersection of technology, policy, and partnerships to improve transit service and operations. Most recently, she worked as the Director of Partnerships at Via, formerly Remix, helping transit agencies in North America, Australia, and New Zealand design better networks and streets. Claudia also worked for Nelson\Nygaard, supporting multimodal and land use planning with counties, cities, and transit agencies in the Bay Area, and for LA Metro, coordinating across jurisdictions on high-capacity transit infrastructure projects in Los Angeles County.

A childhood in El Monte, CA showed Claudia firsthand the impact reliable and convenient transportation access can have on upward mobility, public health, and access to opportunities. Growing up in a place without sidewalks, bike lanes, or local bus routes (but where you could find an ostrich and plenty of horses) fostered a passion to support a transformation to people-centric streets and places. “I’m excited to join NACTO and push forward progressive, sustainable transportation policy and design while centering people, equity, and systemic change through the work we do.”

The time is now to set the stage for deep and lasting change in cities and transit agencies. Claudia’s work will make sure staff have what they need to get through expected and unexpected challenges (like, say, a global pandemic), so they can continue working to improve mobility and access to opportunity in their communities. The actions we take today represent the legacy we’ll leave behind tomorrow – and we can’t wait to work with Claudia to build a legacy of more livable communities.

Claudia holds a Master of Urban Planning from the University of Southern California, and a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University. Her favorite traffic calming treatment is a woonerf, a residential shared street concept first developed in the Netherlands.