Gary Thomas is the Transit and Rail Market Director for Lochner Engineering and leverages his rich industry experience to assist clients in developing and advancing thought leading transit and mobility programs in communities throughout North America.
Thomas brings to Lochner over four decades of engineering experience and transit leadership including recently serving as the President and Executive Director for Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) for the last almost 20 years. Under his leadership, DART doubled its light rail system twice to become the nation’s longest, at over 93 miles. The agency has been recognized for innovative solutions regarding clean fuels programs for their buses, advancing new transportation service models for suburban, rural and unserved areas, customer specific choices for paratransit service and award-winning customer facing communication technology and services. Under Thomas’s leadership DART was also a recognized leader in the global advancement of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) with its use of multi-modal targeted demand response service matched with new customer tools for fare payment and trip planning.
Thomas holds Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and Bachelor of Architecture degrees from Texas Tech University, where he was honored as a Distinguished Alumni. He served as the past chair of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), Rail~Volution, and the SouthWest Transit Association (SWTA) and served on the Transportation Research Board Executive Committee. He is in the APTA Hall of Fame and the State of Texas Transportation Hall of Honor.