People news from OmniTRAX, RTD-Denver and the Short Line Safety Institute

OmniTRAX has named Ryan Dreier executive vice president of sales and economic development. Dreier joins OmniTRAX following an extensive career at BNSF Railway Co., most recently as VP of industrial products marketing. In this newly created role, Dreier will lead the company's customer and community-facing sales and economic teams that are responsible for freight and transloading across OmniTRAX's 31 rail properties, OmniTRAX officials said in a press release. He also will be responsible for the development of new rail-served facilities. OmniTRAX has grown more than 50% in the past five years, prompting the expansion of its sales structure and the creation of Dreier's new role, OmniTRAX officials said.

The Regional Transportation District-Denver has appointed Patrick Preusser chief operations officer, effective Sept. 2. He has more than 28 years of transit industry experience, most recently as COO of the Utah Transit Authority, and has held senior leadership roles with the Honolulu Department of Transportation Services, the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. He has managed national passenger-rail programs for the Federal Railroad Administration. Preusser is a member of the American Pubic Transportation Association's rail transit operating practices working group and bus operations committee, and serves on the transit advisory committee for safety, which provides guidance to the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Transit Administration.

The Short Line Safety Institute (SLSI) has promoted Julia Leone to assistant director of research and organization development. In her role, Leone will lead efforts to improve outreach and outcomes for all SLSI programs, in addition to leading ongoing research efforts. In her five years with the SLSI, she developed a systematic approach to evaluating outcomes of safety culture assessments, leading to program expansions and improved training outcomes, SLSI officials said in a press release. "Our program expansion has come as a direct result of research led by Julia Leone. Improvements to processes leading to improved training outcomes have also been identified and implemented through her analysis and in-person observations," said Tom Murta, SLSI executive director.