SACRAMENTO — The CEO of California’s high speed rail project has tendered his resignation, but will stay on while the agency finds a successor.
The Fresno Bee reports Brian Kelly, head of the California High-Speed Rail Authority since 2018, announced his departure on Thursday, submitting his resignation to the board’s chairperson, Fresno developer Tom Richards.
Kelly took over a project that was well behind schedule and over budget, the Bee reports, and focused it on building the initial segment in the San Joaquin Valley while seeking funds and completing engineering to reach San Francisco and Los Angeles.
“I took this job with the intent to stabilize the organization, to have it perform better, and to try to get reinvestment of public funds in the project, and I feel good about it. I feel like I’ve achieved much of that,” Kelly told The Bee. “This project is on an uptick and it’s time for it to transition to the next generation of leader for its next phase.”
The project received approval from the state legislature in 2022 to spend the last $4.2 billion from the original bond measure for the high speed project, and received a federal grant in December to fund engineering and construction work in the central valley, as well as the purchase of the system’s first trainsets [see “California high speed project to receive $3.1 billion …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 6, 2023].
Kelly said his move was in part to spend more time with his family after a lengthy public service career, and in part to see the agency prepare for the start of rail service: “It’s the right time now to bring in somebody specifically with passenger rail operations experience at a high level, at a chief executive level.”
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