James P. RePass - President & CEO
Phone:  617-269-5478

The Hon. John Robert Smith - Chairman

MA Office: 59 Gates Street, Boston, MA. 02127
CT Office, 8 Riverbend Drive, Mystic, CT, 06355
RI Office, 35 Terminal Road, Suite 210, Providence, RI. 02905

Fax (CT): 860-536-5482

• James P. Repass, President & CEO
  
• Molly McKay, Newsletter Editor
  
• David Beale, Foreign Correspondent
  
• Dennis Kirkpatrick, Webmaster
  
• Leo King, Past Editor

Primarily engaged in operating the non-profit National Corridors Initiative since its founding in 1989. He has a private-sector background and broad private-sector experience. In the private sector, the firm RePass & Lyons specialized in the design and execution of business development programs, marketing plans, and sales plans and strategies, particularly with technology-based, energy and transportation companies, for clients such as Raytheon Co., or those seeking to use innovative transportation technologies in development projects. These activities have included management-buyout, licensing, and fund-raising work.

In both the public and private sector, RePass works directly with senior elected and appointed officials, top management, and senior staff, assisting in creating new business and/or policy strategies.

The National Corridors Initiative has become Mr. RePass' principal activity. Initial work involved the Boston-New York High Speed Rail project, including direct negotiation with the White House Office of Management and Budget regarding funding for the program, which has been successfully completed. NCI's efforts now involve assisting and advising Corridor-paradigm development projects throughout the United States.

NCI and its forerunner, the Northeast Corridor Initiative, Inc., advocate for increased federal and private investment in ground transportation, both freight and passenger, as well as transit, regional and intercity rail, as an economic development and environmental tool.

RePass has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives' Railroads Subcommittee (April 2002). He has also appeared before the U.S. Senate, and has advised the White House, the U.S. Department of Transportation, state DOTs and governors on legislation and policy.

A frequent speaker at national transportation conferences, he has met with and addressed business, environmental, academic and political leaders throughout the United States, and keynoted or was a featured speaker at conferences in Washington, DC, and in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Texas, New York State, Missouri, Colorado, Virginia, Connecticut, Washington State, Oregon, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, and elsewhere. He was a principal advisor in the creation of Connecticut's innovative new Transportation Strategy Board. M

RePass has organized many high-level national conferences on the subject of transportation and rail.

RePass has also been a member of the Board of Directors of the Boston Rental Housing Association, serving as a committee and subcommittee chairman, and was as a leading proponent for and member of a board-level Affordable Housing Task Force. The adopted son of a teacher and former college professor who went into business, RePass believes both in education and in self-help, as well as in helping those who can not help themselves.

She is also founder of Stop Stealth Highways, a new grass-roots organization geared to preventing needless highway construction by highway oriented state ‘transportation’ departments. She has been a Director since 2001 of the National Corridors Initiative. She is also Assistant Administrator of the Transportation Choices Coalition of Connecticut.

A contributing columnist to the Hartford Courant’s weekly column “PLACE,” she graduated from Connecticut College with a major in French and received her teaching degree from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.

After several years of teaching high school French and then a year abroad teaching English to foreigners, Molly joined an organization that was setting up a year-round wilderness program for teen-agers, based on the principles of the Outward Bound programs. It was this experience that cemented her interest in the environment and led to her activism with the Sierra Club.

In 1998 he moved to Hannover, Germany to work for MTU, a company which repairs and overhauls gas turbine engines where he handles customer support and service. The position requires that David travel globally where he gets to experience rail travel in many countries.

While living in Phoenix, AZ he was a member of the Arizona Rail Passenger Association (ARPA) to contribute to the effort to improve the traffic and air pollution problems found in that region. He remained a member of ARPA for several years after relocating to Germany, but decided to volunteer his spare time instead to NCI due to its more nationwide aspect.

He was with the high-tech industry until 1991 but retired early due to medical issues. He is a life-long resident of Boston, Massachusetts.

After retirement, he turned his attentions to the growing phenomenon of the internet and now writes and maintains web sites for small businesses, service groups, and community organizations. He has also consulted to small business and individuals regarding computers and telecommunications, and is known to tinker with computer systems at home and for friends and relatives.

Dennis is versed in Windows and Macintosh computers and maintains web content hosted on both Unix and Windows server systems.

He is married 32 years to his wife Mary, has a grown daughter and a son.

Contributor to Railfan & Railroad, the former RailNews and Passenger Train Journal and other publications. He is currently editor of the weekly online e-zine and newsletter, Destination: Freedom, published by the National Corridors Initiative, at http://nationalcorridors.org.

Leo is also a former broadcast anchor and reporter for various Rhode Island radio stations.

Now retired from the NCI editor’s desk, Leo continues to write for various rail-oriented publications and local newspapers in Florida.