William Vincent
Bill Vincent serves as the Director of BTI's bus rapid transit program and fills a variety of management roles for BTI, including General Counsel. Bill has over 13 years experience in public policy and law, with substantial expertise in transportation, health care, and telecommunications.
Bill started his career as Associate Counsel for the Washington law firm of Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson, and Hand, where he specialized in legislative and public policy advocacy, as well as general commercial law and litigation. In 1994, he was appointed by the President to serve in the U.S. Department of Transportation, where he focused upon pipeline and hazardous materials safety issues, emergency preparedness and response, and transportation research and technology issues. Among other things, Bill was responsible for several titles in the reauthorization of ISTEA, the nation's transportation legislation. While with DOT, Bill received a number of awards, including the Administrator's Award for Excellence and the Secretary's Team Award for his role in the reauthorization of ISTEA.
Bill joined BTI in 2002 after running the Washington office of a major health care company. He is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Connecticut, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa, and an honors graduate of the George Washington University School of Law, where he served as an associate editor of the Law Review. Bill is active in various community activities and is an active, instrument-rated private pilot.
Karen Peabody O'Brien, Ph.D.
Karen is Principle Advisor to the Bus Rapid Transit Policy Center at Breakthrough Technologies Institute. She brings to the Center extensive experience working to promote BRT in the Unites States and abroad.
As Program Officer for New Ventures at the W. Alton Jones Foundation, Karen initiated and developed the foundation's Megacities and Sustainable Transportation initiative; she also made grants on a broad range of urban issues including smart growth, clean technologies, environmental health and inner city school reform.
Karen held primary responsibility for one of WAJF's most successful initiatives - advocating Bus Rapid Transit as a sustainable transportation solution for 21st century cities. Karen initiated grants that directly aided the launch of BRT projects in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Boulder, CO., as well as cities in Latin America and China. By organizing study tours and public education efforts, she successfully introduced BRT to private funders, the environmental community, and decision makers. The foundation's efforts to promote BRT resulted in the widespread adoption of the concept by scores of US cities, and its embrace by the U.S. Federal Transportation Administration and international financial institutions such as the World Bank.
Karen's background is in political and economic development; her dissertation research took her to the former Soviet Union where she researched links between urbanization, socio-economic development, and political change. She holds a B.A. in Development Studies from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.A. in Government and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.
In addition to advising the BRT Policy Center, Karen is in residence at the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia, where she is consultant to the Program on Business Innovation and Natural Systems.
