Effective immediately, Capital Metro vice-president and chief development officer Doug Allen has resigned.
“Doug resigned on Tuesday,” Cap Metro spokesperson Misty Whited tells KUT News. “It’s been something that he and [Cap Metro president and CEO] Linda Watson had been talking about for some time.”
Allen came aboard Cap Metro in 2008, and served as interim president a year later, before a national search installed Watson as the transit authority’s leader. In a blog from the time, the Austin Chronicle wrote that Allen was “the point man on recent efforts to get MetroRail up and running.”
Since then, Whited says Allen has “also had a major part in the new Project Connect study that we’ve been doing as well, in term of planning and regional partnerships.”
Whited says Allen “left so that he could focus on pursing other career opportunities.” Todd Hemingson, vice president of Cap Metro’s strategic planning and development, will be filling Allen’s position while a national search is conducted.
Allen's departure comes as Cap Metro prepares for the rollout of rapid bus service, and postponement of a funding vote for an urban rail system – which Cap Metro may or may not play a role in operating.
