Jennifer Mayer

Jen Mayer is currently an Equity and Social Justice Capital Implementation Program Manager for King County Metro in the greater Seattle area. This role combines her long-term interest in transportation and sustainability with a focus on achieving King County’s nationally-recognized equity and social justice goals. Jen works with planners, project managers, engineers, and others at Metro to identify ways to leverage capital investments to reduce or eliminate inequities.This includes engaging with community to identify needs and ways that projects may be able to address them; identifying ways to site, design, and construct projects that may reduce inequities; and helping ensure that public investments benefit underutilized businesses and people with the greatest needs. It also involves identifying ways that policies and processes can reinforce (or reverse) historical inequities.

Jen came to Metro after serving as the facilitator for Living Cities’ Third “City Accelerator” Cohort on Infrastructure Finance. As part of that work, she helped four cities develop innovative approaches to urban infrastructure finance, This project culminated in a book, “Resilience, Equity and Innovation: The City Accelerator’s Guide to Urban Infrastructure Finance,” which is available online at the following site: Resilience, Equity and Innovation – The City Accelerator Guide to Urban Infrastructure Finance.

Prior to consulting for Living Cities, Jen was a Senior Vice President at Ernst and Young Infrastructure Advisors, helping state and local governments and other clients develop innovative ways to deliver transportation projects. In her former Federal Highway Administration role, Jennifer conducted policy research and education on funding and financing of transportation projects, and provided technical assistance nationwide on public private partnerships and project finance. She was part of a new office established by the Federal Highway Administration to encourage innovative thinking and cultural change in the transportation infrastructure industry.

Jennifer uses systems thinking to develop a vision for a sustainable and equitable national transportation system, which delivers mobility, not just capital facilities. She draws on her experiences as a Fellow to improve skills that will help her implement that vision, including how to make it simple and compelling, and how to bring about culture change both internally and externally.