Maggie O’Mara
Senior Transportation Engineer
Division of Design, MS 28
California Department of Transportation
Maggie O’Mara is a civil engineer specializing in bicycle and pedestrian transportation. She grew up in Chicago in a family without an automobile and got her first driver’s license at the age of 25. Her reliance on walking, transit and bicycling for daily travel has inspired her to advocate for convenient, pleasant, and safer pedestrian travel conditions as a community volunteer and in her professional work. As a transportation engineer, she specializes in bicycle and pedestrian design, policy development, staff training and research. As a community volunteer, she has served on several advisory committees to governmental agencies, including the Transportation Programming Guide Advisory Committee, the 65th Street Redevelopment Area Committee, and the City/County Bicycle Advisory Committee.
Chris Morfas
Legislative Liason
Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District
Chris Morfas has been a leading California policy advocate for walking, bicycling and transportation safety since the 1990s. In 2000 he was a co-winner of the first-ever national pedestrian safety award from America Walks. As Executive Director of the California Bicycle Coalition from 1997-2003, he was a key leader in creating the state’s Safe Routes to School program and reinventing the Bicycle Transportation Account; Since 1999, those two programs have funded over 1,100 separate bicycling and walking projects in hundreds of cities and counties across California totaling over $300,000,000 in active transportation investments.
Since 2006, as Legislative Liaison for the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, Chris has played a central role in the emergence of Sacramento as a complete streets leader, including the introduction of Congresswoman Doris Matsui’s federal complete streets legislation, Caltrans’ adoption and implementation of its internal complete streets policy and the Governor’s complete streets guidance for localities. Chris has served on several national boards but takes great pride in having helped numerous local advocacy efforts take root.
A former math teacher and steelworker and currently a resident of Sacramento, Chris is the parent of two free-range kids who have walked, biked or bused to school nearly every day for nine years. He received his B.A. in mathematics from Indiana University, completed significant graduate work in the UCLA graduate business management program and soon expects to complete his master’s program in transportation management at San Jose State University’s Mineta Transportation Institute.
Lauren Michele
Principal/Founder of Policy in Motion,
Lauren recently completed her Master’s of Science degree in Transportation Technology and Policy from the University of California, Davis after working as a transportation planning professional in Sacramento at Fehr & Peers for several years, a climate change policy analyst in Washington D.C. at the Center for Clean Air Policy, and an air quality program assistant at the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District.
During her time at UC Davis, Lauren Michele built strategic relationships at the state and federal level which aided her work as a transportation and climate change policy analyst at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies’ Urban Land Use and Transportation Center (ULTRANS) – focusing on the links between California’s Senate Bill 375 and developing federal climate/energy legislation and the transportation reauthorization.
Lauren’s firm, Policy in Motion, focuses exclusively on federal and state climate policy analysis, education and implementation as it pertains to transportation and land use plans and projects which improve network management and decrease vehicle-miles-traveled. Lauren believes that being part of the change toward a more environmentally sound, socially just, and cost-effective future is the only way to see such change.
Jennifer Donlon Wyant
Associate Planner
Alta Planning + Design
Jennifer Donlon Wyant is a pedestrian, bicycle and Safe Roues to School planner at Alta Planning + Design, a consulting firm that specializes in non-motorized transportation planning. Through her work, Jennifer provides communities with technical and planning assistance to help create places where walking and biking are safer, healthy, enjoyable, and part of every day life. She has worked with communities all over Northern California on traffic calming projects, Safe Route to School projects and pedestrian plans.
Jennifer’s passion lies in creating more active communities, improving health, and ensuring every community is a walkable community by making conditions safer and enjoyable.
Jennifer lives in East Sacramento and can often be found walking to neighborhood parks.
