Nat Ford, CEO of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority, is under consideration to become the president and CEO of Dallas Area Rapid Transit.
DART, the transportation authority of Dallas, is set to select a new CEO from three candidates during a July 14 board meeting.
Ford, who is set to leave the JTA in January 2027 after providing notice of his resignation on July 3, will compete with Monica Téllez-Fowler, CEO of the Central Ohio Transit Authority, and Dee Leggett, former executive vice president and chief development officer at DART, according to NBC DFW, the Dallas-Fort Worth television affiliate station of NBC.
The DART board voted July 10 to select the three finalists, who appeared for a public meet-and-greet July 11 at DART headquarters. At its July 14 meeting, it is expected to choose a CEO and authorize contract negotiations with that person.
Ford has been JTA’s CEO for 13 years, and JTA’s board is set to take up discussion about its next CEO at its July 29 meeting.
Téllez-Fowler began working for the Columbus, Ohio-area transportation agency in 2023, according to COTA’s website, and formerly worked as deputy CEO of a transportation authority in Vancouver, Washington.
Leggett was named DART’s executive vice president of growth and regional development in 2022. She left DART in February 2026 for a role with Herzog Transit Services, a private rail operations and maintenance provider, where she serves as director of business operations.
According to news reports in Dallas, former DART CEO Nadine Lee left the authority after suburban cities served by DART challenged the authority’s spending and governance.
Six member cities called elections on whether to remain in the organization, with three canceling their balloting after DART and regional leaders made revenue-sharing and governance concessions. Highland Park voters chose to leave the system, while the other two suburbs voted to remain.
The Dallas Express reported that Lee’s departure also came after it published reports on executive compensation, service cuts and funding disparities.
Among other details, the Express reported that DART paid more than $2.4 million in executive bonuses from 2020 through 2024 while its executive ranks grew from 47 to 74, a 57.5% increase. Base salaries for those executives rose from $8.1 million to $14.6 million during the same period.
DART also carried out its largest service reduction in 40 years amid a projected budget shortfall of about $42 million, the Express reported.
“Whoever ultimately takes the job will lead DART with the agency’s finances, service levels and relationships with its member cities under continued public scrutiny,” the Express reported.
Lee announced in March 2026 that she would not seek an extension of her contract beyond September. DART ended her contract in April after the board and Lee failed to agree on transition and separation terms, the Express reported.
In an interview with Fox 4 news of Dallas-Fort Worth, Lee said the regional conflict was a distraction from DART’s transportation mission.
“But at the broader level, we’ve encountered a lot of political hurdles, and that’s one of the things that has distracted us from our mission, distracted us from moving faster at improving the quality of our services and things like that,” Lee told the news station.
Ford will leave JTA as the organization works to build out its Ultimate Urban Circulator system, known as U2C, a planned network of autonomous vehicles around Jacksonville’s Downtown and urban core.
The first phase of that build-out was the debut of the $65 million Neighborhood Autonomous Vehicle Innovation system Downtown. JTA plans to continue that project with future phases that would include the rehabilitation of Downtown’s Skyway monorail and the expansion of NAVI vehicles into Brooklyn, Riverside, San Marco and Springfield.
The U2C, if fully developed, would cost more than $400 million and has been a controversial issue in City Hall since NAVI debuted in June 2025. It received opposition and support from both political parties, with support coming from Mayor Donna Deegan and opposition from such Council members as Jimmy Peluso, a Democrat, and Rory Diamond, a Republican who is the newly appointed Council JTA liaison for the 2026-27 term.