All about the community of model railroading and rail enthusiasm
August 18, 2026
A divided Board of Directors announced in July that veteran transportation leader Nathaniel P. Ford, Sr., was named Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s president and CEO and will take the helm in October.
Ford will finish his contract with the Jacksonville Transportation Authority and take over at DART on Oct. 26 in a three-year deal. Terms of his contract were not released.
David Leininger continues as interim president and CEO until Ford arrives. Leininger was appointed in early May after DART terminated president and CEO Nadine S. Lee about two weeks after she announced in March that she would not pursue an extension to her contract.
Ford was among three finalists named in July. Dee Leggett, a former vice president and chief development officer at the agency and director of business operations for Herzog Transit Services, Inc., was considered along with Central Ohio Transit Authority president and CEO Monica Tellez-Fowler.
Ford’s selection was approved 9-4 after he faced scrutiny over personal spending on travel while serving at other public transportation agencies in the Southeast. Some board members who voted against him did not attend the three-hour discussion July 21 when he was hired.
Other board members who voted in favor said Ford’s spending did not merit disqualification and that he will bring funding innovation and experience at a time when DART needs to heal.
Earlier this year, some DART member cities voted to leave the agency over concerns they were not getting a satisfactory return on their sales tax contributions.
Dallas Area Transit Alliance, a grassroots organization that supports advancing public transit in DART’s service areas, endorsed Leggett but agreed that Ford possessed a strong résumé, plus “his ability to obtain funding at the federal and local levels is incredibly impressive,” the organization said in a statement preceding the vote.
With over four decades of public service, Leininger is fulfilling the same transitional role he met from 2020 to 2021. He also served the agency for nine years as its CFO.
From train conductor to CEO, incoming CEO Ford’s transit career includes working at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York and previous CEO roles at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency in California and the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority in Georgia. Since 2012 he has led the Jacksonville Transportation Authority.
He has been celebrated as an innovator in the industry and recognized with numerous honors and appointments, including being named the American Public Transportation Association’s (APTA) outstanding public transportation manager in 2020. He also has chaired APTA and the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
“Mr. Ford brings decades of executive leadership in public transportation, a proven record of organizational transformation, and a deep understanding that transit is about much more than buses and trains,” DART board chair Randall Bryant said. “Today we are turning the page. The board has made its decision and now it’s time to get back to what matters most, serving the people of North Texas.” Ford holds an MBA from Jacksonville University’s Davis School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in applied science in organizational leadership from Mercer University, and he is a certified Master Executive Coach. He graduated from the Executive Development Consortium program at Emory University and has completed executive training at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
