DRPT Welcomes New Chief of Rail

Michael McLaughlin has joined the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation as the chief of rail transportation. In this role, McLaughlin will provide executive management and strategic direction in the development and execution of all DRPT freight and passenger rail initiatives. McLaughlin comes to Virginia after 20 years of service with the Chicago Transit Authority and the United States Congress.

As the Deputy Chief of Staff at CTA, McLaughlin helped the CTA President oversee the infrastructure, planning, finance, government relations, and communications departments and served as the point person on projects such as the $2 billion Red-Purple Modernization Project, which recently received a $1 billion grant from the US DOT. Before moving to the CTA president’s office in the summer of 2015, McLaughlin spent 4 years as the vice president of planning and Federal Affairs at the CTA, where he managed the planning  efforts for the CTA’s long range mega projects and doubled as the CTA’s liaison to Capitol Hill and the US DOT in Washington.

Prior to the CTA, McLaughlin worked on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC for 12 years as a senior House and Senate transportation aide to three different Members of Congress and as the Transportation Director at the Metropolitan Planning Council in Chicago.

McLaughlin earned an undergraduate degree in History and Political Science from the University of Iowa and a Masters’ Degree in Public Affairs from Indiana University.