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Hilary Norton

Executive Director, FAST
Speaker
HilaryNorton

Ms. Norton’s public service career began immediately upon her graduation from Wellesley College in 1990. Beginning with an internship for Mayor Tom Bradley, Ms. Norton went on to work for City Councilmember (now State Senator) Mark Ridley-Thomas and State Senator Gil Cedillo. In 1992, she earned a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Entering the private sector in 2001, Ms. Norton worked for the Central City Association (CCA) and then Fleishman-Hillard before serving as Executive Vice President to Palmer Investments. As Project Manager for Las Lomas, a mixed-use, sustainable, transit-oriented community, she helped to propose $150 million in new transit investments. In 2007, Thomas Properties Group Chairman Jim Thomas created the non-profit FAST, a public-private partnership with a mission to relieve traffic congestion in Los Angeles, and appointed Ms. Norton Executive Director. FAST, Metro and the Music Center collectively sponsored a study by the RAND Corporation seeking to identify internationally recognized ‘best practice’ solutions for the short-term relief of traffic congestion. The RAND study proposed 13 separate-but-integrated recommendations that could apply to traffic issues in the city of Los Angeles. Utilizing one-to-one, interactive communications tools, Ms Norton and FAST aim to create an inclusive coalition of business associations, labor unions, civic groups, neighborhood councils, educational institutions, elected officials, transit organizations, and residents of Los Angeles County for the purpose of implementing the findings of the RAND study, and moving the city’s more long term transit initiatives forward.