General Manager and CEO
RTD's General Manager and Chief Executive Officer
Debra A. Johnson serves as the General Manager and CEO of the Regional Transportation District (RTD), the multi-modal transit agency serving the Denver metro region.
She joined RTD in 2020, having previously served as Deputy CEO of Long Beach Transit from May 2014 to October 2020. Prior to that, Johnson served as the Chief Operations Officer at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro), as well as other C-Suite positions at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). She began her career in the public transportation space at an engineering consulting firm, performing work on various capital improvement projects, and transitioned to roles in the public transit for Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and later the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA).
She serves on the American Public Transportation Association’s Executive Committee as well as many other association committees and serves as the Chair of the Public Transportation CEOs Coordinating Council and the Chair of the Commuter Rail CEOs Committee. Additionally, she serves in leadership roles on the boards of WTS International, the American Public Transportation Foundation; the International Association of Public Transport; and the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO) and on the COMTO Colorado Chapter Advisory Board. Johnson was recently elected as Chair of the Joint Service Executive Oversight Committee, which is engaged in a collaborative effort among several agencies to bring passenger rail service to Denver’s Northwest Metro region.
Within the Denver metro area, she serves on the Front Range Passenger Rail District Board of Directors, the Visit Denver Community Board, the Metropolitan State University of Denver Community Cabinet, the International Women’s Forum of Colorado, and the Denver Civic Ventures Board.
Johnson holds a master of arts degree in public administration from California State University, Hayward (now CSU East Bay) and a bachelor of arts degree in international relations from the University of California, Davis and is an alumna of Leadership San Francisco, the Eno Center for Transportation Senior Executive program, as well as Leadership Long Beach’s Executive program.
Contact Us
If you have a question or comment about your experience using RTD services please contact Customer Care by completing our customer comment form. To speak with a Customer Care Representative immediately Monday-Friday from 6 a.m.-8 p.m., or weekends/holidays from 9 a.m.-6 p.m., please call 303-299-6000.
Your voice is important to me and I welcome your ideas on how RTD can continuously improve our service at [email protected]. Due to the volume of messages I receive, it’s unlikely I can respond personally to all of them. Comments are often shared with my leadership team so a response can be provided to most messages.
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