CATA General Manager Receives Transit Industry’s Highest Honor

The Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA) is pleased to announce that, at an awards ceremony in San Antonio last week, Hugh Mose, the Authority’s General Manager, was named this year’s recipient of the prestigious American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Outstanding Public Transportation Manager Award.

Mr. Mose began his public transportation career in 1977 as the Transit Manager in Iowa City, Iowa. Since that time, he’s held leadership positions in transit systems in Fresno, California and Olympia, Washington, coming to CATA in 1995. Under Hugh’s leadership, CATA’s fleet has grown to nearly 100 vehicles, the workforce is now approaching 150 employees, and over 7,000,000 riders are carried annually, making State College the most transit-intensive small urban area in the nation. During his tenure as General Manager, CATA has become a recognized leader in many areas, such as the use of compressed natural gas as a vehicle fuel, initiatives to pre-sell transit service to institutional customers, and the deployment of GPS technology. CATA is also the first transit system in Pennsylvania to offer carpool matching and vanpools to long-distance commuters. In addition to his work within the Authority, Mr. Mose has also been a long-time leader in transit industry affairs, including serving three years as APTA’s Vice Chair for Small Operations.

John C. Spychalski, Chairman of the Centre Area Transportation Authority, offered this comment about General Manager Mose. “The proven quality of Hugh’s vision, leadership, and administrative initiative in serving both the Centre Area Transportation Authority and the transit industry makes him a role model for the performance of a chief executive officer of any transit system, small, medium, or large.”

The Outstanding Public Transportation Manager Award, the highest honor currently awarded to a transit manager in North America, is presented annually to the transit executive who is judged to have made the greatest contribution to their local transit system and the industry in general. In 2009 the award went to the manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority; the year before it was given to the manager of the transit system in Cleveland. Additionally, in the nearly 30 years that the award has been granted, it’s only gone to the manager of a small transit system three times. However, awards of this magnitude are not entirely new to CATA; in 2001 the Authority was selected as the APTA Outstanding Transit System in North America in its size category.

For additional information, please contact Jacqueline Sheader, CATA Marketing Manager, at (814) 238-2282 ext. 141 or jsheader@catabus.com.

2010 APTA Awards and winners