ABOUT FAST

FAST Board is a consortium of prominent Los Angeles businesspeople, educators, analysts, and lawmakers. Our board includes Mayor Emeritus Richard Riordan, Metro CEO Roger Snoble, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, and a host of other long standing public figures committed to the transit improvements our city requires.

Our goal is to create a forum in which all of these decision makers can truly take the pulse of the city on transit issues.  This is where we need your help.  Let us know what you are thinking, and how you feel about the findings of the RAND report.  Channels for your feedback can be found in the “FAST Feedback” section of this site.

 

JAMES A. THOMAS

Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer James A. Thomas serves as Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of Thomas Properties Group, Inc. Mr. Thomas has served on the Board of Directors since the Company was organized in March 2004. Mr. Thomas founded TPG, our predecessor company and served as the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of TPG from 1996 to the closing of our initial public offering in October 2004. Thomas Properties Group, Inc. is publicly traded on the NASDAQ.

Prior to founding TPG, Mr. Thomas served as a co-managing partner of Maguire Thomas Partners, a national full service real estate operating company from 1983 to 1996. In 1996, Maguire Thomas Partners was divided into two companies with Mr. Thomas forming TPG with other key members of the former executive management at Maguire Thomas Partners. Mr. Thomas also served as Chief Executive Officer and principal owner of the Sacramento Kings NBA Basketball team and the ARCO Arena from 1992 to 1999. Prior to that, he was a partner in two prominent Los Angeles law firms and served in the Regional Counsel’s Office of the Internal Revenue Service.

Born in Pembroke, North Carolina, Mr. Thomas attended High School in Cleveland, Ohio and received his B.A. degree in economics with honors from Baldwin-Wallace College in 1959. He graduated magna cum laude from Cleveland State Law School with a Juris Doctor degree in 1963 and was editor in-chief of the Cleveland Marshall Law Review in 1962-1963. Mr. Thomas has received honorary doctorate degrees from Baldwin-Wallace College and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

Mr. Thomas’ commitment to the community can be seen in his devotion to the arts and his efforts to improve the quality of life in metropolitan Los Angeles. Mr. Thomas is Chairman of the Board at Town Hall Los Angeles. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the SOS Coral Trees, Center Theatre Group and Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles, California; and the National Advisory Council of the Cleveland Marshall School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio. In addition, he serves on the Board of Trustees of the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation and I Have a Dream Foundation in Los Angeles, Baldwin Wallace College in Cleveland, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and St. John’s Health Center Foundation in Santa Monica, California. Mr. Thomas also serves on the Board of Governors of the Music Center of Los Angeles County and is a member of the Rand Advisory Board. He served as Chairman of the Los Angeles
2000 Partnership, a diverse committee devoted to addressing regional urban issues in Southern California and is a member of the Chairman Council of the Weingart Center Association, and the Colonial Williamsburg National Council.
 

HILARY NORTON

Ms. Norton’s public service career began immediately upon her graduation from Wellesley College in 1990.  Beginning with an internship for Mayor Tom Bradley, Ms. Norton went on to work for City Councilmember (now State Senator) Mark Ridley-Thomas and State Senator Gil Cedillo.  In 1992, she earned a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Entering the private sector in 2001, Ms. Norton worked for the Central City Association (CCA) and then Fleishman-Hillard before serving as Executive Vice President to Palmer Investments.  As Project Manager for Las Lomas, a mixed-use, sustainable, transit-oriented community, she helped to propose $150 million in new transit investments.

In 2007, Thomas Properties Group Chairman Jim Thomas created the non-profit FAST, a public-private partnership with a mission to relieve traffic congestion in Los Angeles, and appointed Ms. Norton Executive Director.

FAST, Metro and the Music Center collectively sponsored a study by the RAND Corporation seeking to identify internationally recognized ‘best practice’ solutions for the short-term relief of traffic congestion.   The RAND study proposed 13 separate-but-integrated recommendations that could apply to traffic issues in the city of Los Angeles.

Utilizing one-to-one, interactive communications tools, Ms Norton and FAST aim to create an inclusive coalition of business associations, labor unions, civic groups, neighborhood councils, educational institutions, elected officials, transit organizations, and residents of Los Angeles County for the purpose of implementing the findings of the RAND study, and moving the city’s more long term transit initiatives forward.