CIRTA names John Seber as new executive director

John Seber has been named by the Central Indiana Regional Transportation Authority (CIRTA) Board of Directors to be the agency’s new executive director.

With 28 years of transit experience in both public and private sectors, Seber has worked with transit authorities throughout the country while based in Indianapolis. CIRTA Board Chair Bill Ehret says Seber is an ideal fit to lead the organization, which encompasses 10 Central Indiana counties. He replaces Ehren Bingaman, who has served as interim executive director since 2019.

Seber moved to Indianapolis in 1993 to work for IndyGo as director of vehicle and facility maintenance. Eight years later, he left to begin a 12-year career with MV Transportation. Based in Indianapolis, he worked with such transit agencies as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority  in New York City; Pace, the suburban bus and regional paratransit division of the Regional Transportation Authority in Chicago; Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority  in Washington, D.C.; and Dallas Area Rapid Transit .

“For the last 20 years, I’ve been in regional roles serving as a director and vice president and have been engaged in helping other cities develop and improve their transit service,” said Seber. “I’m excited to utilize what I’ve learned through that process to help my own community’s transit services grow and improve.”

Seber joins an organization dedicated to providing the mobility resources necessary to help Central Indiana grow and to ensure that all its residents have access to the opportunities, amenities and services the community provides. A key aspect of this mission is helping to connect workers with worksites.

CIRTA’s five-year plan points out that over the past 20 years, job growth in Central Indiana has decentralized, thus increasing demand for regional transportation to job centers in suburban counties. CIRTA says it plans to address that need through efficiency and collaboration.

“We want to close the job-access mobility gap that exists in the region,” said Ehret.

To this end, the CIRTA Board recently prioritized four key areas of success:

• Increasing taxpayer value—reduce overhead and direct dollars to service.
• Increasing community value—generate performance that justifies investments in transportation.
• Improving mobility outcomes—focus on solutions that address local mobility needs.
• Improving customer experience—develop accountability to ensure customers are provided a great service for their investment.

Key factors in the CIRTA search committee’s choice were Seber’s experience with identifying and securing funding sources, using technology to increase efficiency, and collaborating with other service providers to put money into services rather than overhead.

“We considered 72 candidates from Indianapolis and beyond, and John rose to the top,” said Mark Richards, search committee chair and a governor’s appointee to the CIRTA board. “We were impressed with his combination of high-level and in-the-weeds knowledge of transit, as well as his ability to build partnerships and his close familiarity with the Federal Transit Administration.”

Seber has held various positions with National Express, the Dayton Area Transit Authority and Transportation Concepts. He is a certified Six Sigma green belt and holds a patent for mobility device securement design. He earned a technical degree from Lincoln Tech and an associate degree from Indiana Business College. His hobbies include repairing and piloting private planes.