About the Author
Lynn Peterson’s career has led her on a journey from building projects to building communities that work for everyone.
Lynn’s 30-year-plus transportation career has covered an impressive range of experience. From building and designing roads to serving as an elected and appointed official in both Oregon and Washington, respectively, she has worked on policy and implementation of transportation projects and trained State DOTs on forward-thinking transportation planning processes.
Nationally recognized as a transportation and land use integration expert, she understands the pitfalls of being a White urban woman working with communities that are culturally and racially different from her own. She also recognizes that in order to do her best work, she must always strive to keep an open heart and mind in order to understand the perspectives of individuals in her communities.
Relevant Leadership Experience
Lynn Peterson is a national leader in transportation.
Lynn Peterson is recognized as a national leader in transportation. She has fought relentlessly to integrate a more inclusive approach to transportation planning and engineering. She is a systems thinker who provides steady, confident leadership and works proactively with community members and business leaders to guide project development through inclusive solutions. In the face of small and large challenges, she keeps staff and citizens moving forward with practical solutions with a focus on the impacts to people and communities.
Oregon Metro Council President
January 2019-Present
As the leader of the nation's only elected regional government and metropolitan planning organization in the United States, Lynn oversees the management of the Metro Council agenda and oversight of the Chief Operating Officer and Attorney. She helped steward successful passage and implementation of three ballot measures in her first 18 months in office: an Affordable Housing Bond Measure ($682.5M), Regional Parks Measure ($475M) and Regional Homeless Service Measure. She led an inclusive coalition to develop a far-reaching transportation ballot measure meant to serve predominantly communities of color that went to the November 2020 ballot. And she continues to lead the Council with a climate change and racial equity lens on all policy development and our campaigns for the bond measures.
Senior Policy Advisor, Smart Growth America
2016-2018
Lynn created and led multi-day workshops on Practical Design and Solutions for State Department of Transportation agency employees around the U.S. including Hawaii, California, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Iowa and for the Clackamas County Department of Community and Economic Development. On behalf of Smart Growth America, she served as Interim Executive Director of 1000 Friends of Oregon helping to manage a difficult transition by creating a financial plan, a strategy to ensure financial solvency, manage organization staff, and hire a new Executive Director.
Washington State Secretary of Transportation
2013-2016
Appointed by Governor Inslee, Lynn was tasked with implementing LEAN, Practical Solutions (a methodology for project development that values people and communities as well as climate change but seeks low-cost, quickly implementable solutions) and create a culture change that values all modes of transportation. She oversaw a budget of $10B and 6,800 employees, successfully stewarded the organization through the I5 Skagit Bridge collapse, the Oso Slide natural disaster, and the Seattle Tunnel Project delay, and worked to successfully pass a $16B transportation package by the legislature that included the first statewide investment in maintenance and transit in recent history. Lynn also successfully moved the department to meet Disadvantaged Business Enterprise goals for the agency and the Seattle Tunnel Project (STP).
