Joint Board Members

Chris O’Claire is pleased to serve King County Metro as Director of the Mobility Division, which ensures that customers can easily access and use Metro’s transportation services, pay their fares, and utilize the region’s system of public transit options. Her Division Director role is to oversee the planning for the fixed-route system and the integration of all modes of transportation, ridership growth, and development of new mobility markets. She also oversees the customer services for Metro’s full suite of mobility solutions, and the delivery of all contracted transportation services including the Access paratransit service and the nation’s largest vanpool program. Chris is uniquely positioned to lead the agency’s mobility transformation – advancing social equity, universal accessibility, and enabling people to travel farther, faster, and more easily throughout King County.

As Chair of the ORCA Joint Board, Chris facilitates the efforts of our seven regional transit partners who work together to develop and maintain a fare payment system that is easy to use and responsive to diverse customer needs.

Mary Cummings joined Sound Transit in December 2019 and brought more than 30 years of experience in process improvement, technology implementation and customer service. Cummings leads the administrative operations of Sound Transit.

Before joining Sound Transit, Mary held leadership roles in telecommunications and higher education. She supported the launch and operation of Verizon-affiliated cell phone companies in Mexico, Italy, Greece, Indonesia, Czechia, and Slovakia. She later bridged that experience in a role at Carnegie Mellon University in the area of leadership education for global executives. She also implemented process improvements involving new technologies at Waynesburg University.

With over 15 years in the industry, Melinda Adams currently serves as Everett Transit’s Transportation Services Manager. She is Everett Transit’s Public Information Officer and is responsible for the transit administration team. Specializing in government relations, her role also includes the oversight of capital planning and construction, grants and compliance, finance, ORCA, customer service, community engagement, and marketing & design.

Melinda’s focus as a Title VI Specialist includes her work in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the City of Everett as well as being a long standing member of the City’s Compensation Committee. Her special interests include leading and supporting the transit team to reach their goals and to continually seek to put our customers first. Melinda has been involved in ORCA since it was introduced in the Customer Service Center in 2009. She led the customer service team during the conversion to ORCA and has served in several capacities on the regional ORCA teams.

John Clauson has spent 39 years with Kitsap Transit, mostly as Service Development Director, and now Executive Director. For the last 10 years, he has served as Executive Director and continues to lead Kitsap Transit with a focus on communication, both internal and community-wide, and keeping KT involved in innovative transportation projects such as the fast ferry service between Kitsap and Seattle.

John has been involved in the ORCA project since its inception in 2000, serving as alternate at the General Managers meetings and on the Joint Board. When he was promoted to Executive Director in 2012, he stepped into the lead roles for Kitsap Transit, where he continues to promote and encourage pioneering transportation and fare collection developments.

Mike Griffus is the CEO of Pierce Transit, where he oversees an agency of 960 employees with a $154 million budget. Pierce Transit provides rides on buses, paratransit vehicles and vanpools across 292 square miles throughout Tacoma and Pierce County. The agency also contracts with Sound Transit to operate ST Express bus service between Pierce and King counties.

Mike was named Pierce Transit CEO in August 2021. He accepted the position after serving as the agency’s Chief Operating Officer since 2016, where he directly managed daily operations and about 80 percent of the agency’s employees, including its 500 bus drivers. Mike’s transportation career spans more than 30 years, including serving as CEO of Keolis America, and President/COO of Veolia Transportation, both large national public transportation providers. He also served as Senior Vice President of Laidlaw, the nation’s largest school bus transportation provider.

In March 2024, Steve was appointed to the position of Assistant Secretary / Executive Director of Washington State Ferries, marking a pivotal milestone in his maritime career. For Steve, leading the men and women of the iconic Washington State Ferries, the largest ferry system in the United States, is an honor of a lifetime. Embracing this role with fervor and dedication, he remains steadfast in his commitment to steering WSF towards continued excellence and innovation in maritime transportation. Before his appointment to Assistant Secretary, Steve was involved with ORCA in his previous role as Operations Director.

Chas Stearns joined Community Transit in 2023 as Chief Information Officer, bringing more than 25 years of experience in leadership, consulting, and technology management.

In leading Community Transit’s Information Technology Department, he oversees an array of programs and systems supporting transit operations and agency administrative functions with applications, infrastructure, IT operations management, and project and program management. Key capabilities include communications, onboard and wayside intelligent transit systems, ORCA regional technologies, and the agency’s Zero Emissions program.

Chas joined the Joint Board in 2024 and is dedicated to working with the Puget Sound Region’s transportation partners to utilize technology and strong cross-organizational collaboration to give residents easy and seamless public transportation options that support their mobility, economic opportunities and environmental sustainability.

Chris McKnight is the Director of Fare Systems for the Seattle/Puget Sound Region. He oversees both the delivery and operation of the ORCA fare system, leads the Regional ORCA Operations Team, and reports to the ORCA Joint Board.

Chris has been with ORCA since 2020 and prior to being appointed Director, served as Deputy Director of Customer Experience. He has over 20 years of experience in product innovation, customer experience and communications across a wide range of industries including software development, payments, financial services, telecom, and energy. He earned an MBA in Innovation and Entrepreneurship from New York University and a Bachelor of Arts in Applied Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh.