Who is Nat Ford, DART's next CEO? What to know about the longtime transit executive

By Lilly Kersh | Dallas Morning News (TNS)

Dallas Area Rapid Transit's next CEO, Nathaniel Ford Sr., will take the helm in October and bring with him 26 years of experience leading transportation agencies.

His hiring was contentious, dividing board members who questioned the current CEO of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority's past spending controversies and his late re-entry into the candidate pool.

DART officials said Ford will not speak with reporters for the time being.

DART Board Chair Randall Bryant said his agency had secured "one of the most talented, sought-out transit executives" in hiring Ford, pointing to his decades of experience serving as CEO of transportation agencies in Atlanta, San Francisco and Jacksonville.

Related: DART names JTA's Nathaniel Ford as new CEO after divided board vote

Here's what to know about Ford.

Long tenure

Ford started his career at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York, according to his bio. DART officials said he started out as a train operator before climbing the ranks.

His next agency, according to his LinkedIn, was the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, where he worked as an assistant chief transportation officer in 1992. In 2001, he became CEO of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority in Georgia.

Ford moved on to become CEO of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency in 2006, then CEO at the JTA in 2012. He announced in early July he would step down from the job, effective in January.

DART board member Gary Slagel said this announcement prompted DART to approach Ford, who had dropped out of consideration earlier in the hiring process, to reconsider his candidacy for the top job in Dallas.

Ford has an MBA from Jacksonville University's Davis School of Business, according to a statement from DART, and a bachelor's degree from Mercer University in Georgia. He also has education from Emory University and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Ford is married to Jannet Walker-Ford, an executive and former national transit and rail leader at WSP, an engineering and professional services consulting firm.

WSP was involved in the Silver Line rail project and has contracted with DART. According to reporting in the Florida Times-Union, the JTA also worked with WSP and had policies for how contracts were handled to avoid conflicts of interest.

Previous questions

Ford's background also includes high pay and questions surrounding his spending and travel.

In San Francisco and Jacksonville, local outlets reported he was one of the highest-paid city employees.

DART officials would not reveal Tuesday how much Ford will make in Dallas, but said it will be similar to past CEO pay and Ford will take a pay cut. Former CEO Nadine Lee, who stepped down in March, earned $412,000 in base pay annually in 2025.

Jacksonville station WJAX-TV reported Ford spent tens of thousands of dollars on travel while serving as the JTA's CEO, including international trips, mostly for conferences or transit-related events.

Bryant said travel at Ford's past agency had been approved and his expenses were audited.

According to 2006 reporting in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on audits of his spending, Ford and his secretaries charged nearly $150,000 over his five years at MARTA to agency credit cards that its board did not know about.

The costs were primarily business-related but should have been curtailed, officials said at the time, and the audit also found personal spending, according to the Chronicle.

High praise

Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan said Dallas is scoring a great leader. She called Ford "a visionary" and said she was disappointed he is leaving Florida but not surprised DART hired him.

"He is constantly trying to look to the next innovation and what can make us a leader," she told The Dallas Morning News. "Many of the projects we've been able to fund here have been because of the relationships he's established and the vision that he's had."

One of Ford's "crowning achievements" in Jacksonville, according to his bio, is the city's autonomous vehicle program. Some city leaders have questioned the success and future of the program, but Deegan said the JTA is looking at the future, not for immediate results — "people are very slow to adapt to new things," she said.

Transit advocate Hexel Colorado questioned the autonomous vehicle program's cost and effectiveness. He also raised concerns over JTA's budget to the DART board. The Jacksonville Daily Record reported in May the JTA faces a projected $17.5 million budget deficit and is set to cut routes and raise fares.

"All of this money that he is known for raising, where does it go?" Colorado asked. "If he's so skilled at raising money, how come he cannot prevent a deficit."

Director Michele Wong Krause said Ford has experience working "in a very conservative environment" and can understand the politics around transportation in Texas. He will bring innovation, she said.

"Nat Ford is one of the stellar CEOs that we have in the country," she said before voting to approve his contract. "He brings experience. He brings vision."

Bryant touted Ford's experience in the Sun Belt region and working with state and federal governments, experience that DART's next leader will need to work toward goals in the Texas Legislature and for new funding strategies for DART, he said.

Ford's term starts Oct. 26 and his contract will last for three years. David Leininger serves as the agency's interim CEO.

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