MTA’s Deputy Chief Quits After Less Than a Year

Sharon Landers, the top ranking woman executive at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has resigned after less than a year at the county transit agency.

Landers, a deputy chief executive officer, will receive a year’s salary of $140,000 plus health benefits and relocation expenses to leave the agency by Dec. 31.

MTA chief executive Julian Burke said he accepted Landers’ resignation. “While I regret that we will be losing the considerable talent and energy that Sharon brought to the MTA, her experience was invaluable to me during the time she has been here,” Burke said in a memo to MTA board members.

Landers said she was leaving voluntarily. “It’s a personal decision based on a number of things,” she said. “The time is right to pursue other opportunities.”

Neither Burke nor Landers would discuss why the severance package is double the six months worth of pay and health benefits called for in her employment agreement. “Based on the overall picture,” Landers said, “this is a fair agreement.”

At the MTA, Landers was involved in overseeing the MTA’s transportation planning, communications, marketing, and lobbying efforts. She was a high-ranking state transportation official in New Jersey prior to her arrival at the MTA last January.

Burke also said he is restructuring the MTA’s top level management to give deputy chief executive officer Allan Lipsky the added responsibility of chief operating officer.

In addition, Burke said Richard D. Brumbaugh, a former executive at the Santa Anita Operating Co. in Arcadia will become the MTA’s chief financial officer beginning next week.