Katharine Eagan Kelleman, who officially begins her work as the new Port Authority CEO this week, comes with high expectations and a high salary.
Ms. Kelleman, 44, was announced as the authority’s new leader Nov. 8 after nearly four years as head of the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority in Tampa, Fla. Authority board members and Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald say they expect Ms. Kelleman to use her planning background to take the agency in a new direction of innovation after previous CEO Ellen McLean — with help from more funding through a state transportation bill — stabilized the agency’s finances.
“Port Authority and transit in general are such a vital part of the economic growth that we are seeing in this region,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “I think there’s a great potential for that to be even better given that the region is such a hotbed for technology and innovation such as Uber and the universities.
“I’m looking for somebody who can tie into all of those things and bring them together into a system that works for everyone. Katharine clearly fits that bill.”
It took a significant financial commitment from the authority to bring Ms. Kelleman here.
Her base salary, announced when she was hired, is $230,000, plus the same defined benefit pension package and matching 3 percent 401(k) benefit as other nonunion employees. A month later, the board formally approved an additional contribution of 15 percent of her salary every year to her 401(k), which was agreed to when she was hired and amounts to $34,500 this year.
She earned $183,248 in Tampa, plus the same 15 percent contribution to her IRA.
Ms. McLean, who was promoted to CEO from chief financial officer, was paid $224,771 and had no additional contribution to her 401(k).
Authority chairman Jeffrey Letwin said Krauthamer & Associates of Maryland, the executive search firm that the authority hired, told the agency it probably would have to increase the CEO’s salary to get the kind of candidate it wanted.
“Most of the candidates would have required salaries at least that high [as Ms. Kelleman] or higher,” he said. “We realized we had to step up to get the person we needed.”
In Tampa, Ms. Kelleman headed a financially strapped system that had a shortfall of $6 million when she took over. Despite a strict limit on revenue, she revamped the system using her transportation planning background and left it with a $3 million surplus.
To supplement the bus system, Ms. Kelleman worked with Uber to introduce a ride-share system to get commuters to bus routes and set up the first autonomous transit vehicle in North America on a 0.6-mile restricted transit route.
“Those are the type of creative ideas we expect Katharine to bring forward,” said Jennifer Liptak, Mr. Fitzgerald’s chief of staff and Port Authority board member who headed the search committee. “She figured out a way through planning to make things work. She’s trained and her thought process is in planning.”
The Port Authority is a big step up from the system Ms. Kelleman headed in Tampa. Hillsborough has a budget of $99.9 million, 776 employees and about 14 million riders annually, compared with the Port Authority’s $419.8 million budget, about 2,600 employees and 200,000 daily riders.
At the Port Authority, she’s taking over an agency that already has a plate full of issues. The agency is waiting for federal funding on the proposed $195 million Bus Rapid Transit system between Downtown and Oakland; working with a vendor to revise software on its ConnectCard system to allow cashless fares on the light-rail system; and reviewing whether to revise a proposal to use armed officers to enforce payment of cashless fares after sharp opposition from a coalition of groups concerned about safety.
“I don’t think that’s going to hold her back,” Ms. Liptak said. “She thrives on being busy.”
Mr. Letwin said he expects the new CEO to “spend a significant amount of time learning the community.” But that process already has started as Ms. Kelleman attended the Kingsley House Spirit of King event Thursday and is expected at Ebenezer Baptist Church on Monday for a Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration.
“It’s a heavy lift,” Mr. Letwin said. “But she’s dynamic. She’s gung-ho.
“She also has that personality to be engaging. She’ll be a great spokesperson for the system.”
Ed Blazina: eblazina@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1470 or on Twitter @EdBlazina.
CORRECTION, posted Jan. 15, 2018: In an earlier version of this story, the number of riders in Tampa was misstated.
First Published: January 14, 2018, 6:24 p.m.
