Patrick Warren, Senior Executive, USDOT
“KellyAnne Gallagher is one of the rail industry’s most forward thinking, strategic leaders. Repeatedly she provided ideas, guidance and leadership that aided in identifying and securing industry and government support for programs vital to the continued growth of the passenger rail industry. She is an experienced transportation sector leader whose advocacy for rail programs is well recognized.”
August 2018
Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, Director-General, International Union of Railways (UIC), Paris
“I can certainly recommend KellyAnne as I have worked with her on a number of specific projects. In particular, we developed together, between UIC and APTA a whole series of workshops in America. These practicums were very successful and KellyAnne was instrumental to developing them with us. I also appreciated her contributions when (together) we organized the High Speed Rail World Congress in Philadelphia.
KellyAnne’s contribution to our work was always constructive and dominating a positive vision of mobility.”
August 2018
Prof Andrew McNaughton, FREng - London
“I have known Ms KellyAnne Gallagher professionally since 2010 in my capacity as Chief Designer and Technical Director of HS2, the £56bn British high speed rail programme. She has been instrumental in ensuring those developing high speed rail in North America benefit from global best practice including through organising major conferences and events which brought international experts together with their North American counterparts. A self-starter, KellyAnne has also ably represented the USA in forums run by the international Railway Union (UIC). These have included the World HSR Congresses in Beijing, Tokyo and Philadelphia - the latter she delivered as the lead USA representative. As a fellow committee member, and latterly Chair, I can vouch her influencing and representational skills in these multinational multicultural environments are very strong indeed, delivering quality outcomes against tight timescales.”
September 2018
Joe Giulietti, former president, Metro-North Railroad; former Executive Director, South Florida Regional Transportation Authority
“KellyAnne Gallagher is a dedicated transit advocate, subject matter expert and an invaluable resource for the industry.
I’ve known KellyAnne for close to 15 years, first while she was with the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) advancing the interests of the Commuter Railroads, among others. KellyAnne not only supported the railroads collectively, but made it her mission to visit with agency CEOs and their management teams in order to better understand local challenges. With this knowledge she was able to bring to bear the strength of the collective to support individual systems – a singular trait unique among the association’s staff.
Moreover, she established a dialogue with the FRA and its administrator, putting into in place a calendar of regularly occurring meetings and organizing industry fly-ins to ensure our interests and needs were communicated. It was KellyAnne's guidance that helped steer the commuter railroads toward the advocacy messages that secured a legislative extension to PTC implementation in 2015. She began serving on the FRA’s Rail Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC) in 2006.
KellyAnne used her international connections to establish a quadrilateral dialogue on industry standards, bringing together the European regulator (ERA) and industry association (UNIFE) with the US Federal Railroad Administration and APTA to share regional best practices in order to streamline standards development on both sides of the Atlantic. She also called upon her international relationships when MPOs around the US were competing for federal high speed rail grants: she launched a series of training seminars featuring practitioners from around the world, and later hosted the International Union of Railways’ 8th World Congress on High Speed Rail.
In 2016 KellyAnne joined the NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority to represent the authority before the USDOT (and to oversee benchmarking as well as international and association relationships). While I was president of the MTA’s Metro-North Railroad I relied on KellyAnne not just on regulatory matters, but also for her comprehensive knowledge of the state of the industry and current players – both domestic and internationally. Beyond the USDOT, KellyAnne’s insights and instincts – and her ability to boil technical railroading jargon into simple sound bites - were invaluable to my meetings on Capitol Hill. KellyAnne’s knowledge and passion for the success of commuter railroads is unparalleled in Washington.”
September 2018
KellyAnne Gallagher - Vice Chair, UIC World Congress on High Speed Rail, Tokyo 2015
With former UIC colleagues Naoto Yanase and Takumi Ishii, Tokyo 2017
Presenting to Transit CEOs, January 2014