Sharon Gookin, LA Metro - Woman of the Year
For more than 30 years, Sharon Gookin has innovated, collaborated, and led the transportation industry. She has demonstrated outstanding expertise in driving major infrastructure projects around the US, using alternative delivery methods. And wherever she goes, she fosters inclusive environments where projects get built on time and on budget, while she creates opportunity for women and minorities to meaningfully participate and advance. Her experience has touched all aspects of project development and execution from environmental clearance through all phases of construction.
Today, Metro is embarking on an $80 billion capital program with $24.5 billion in construction now and $30 billion in planning. Sharon oversees the construction with responsibility for internal cost control, project readiness, and alternative delivery. She also leads an agency-wide Early Intervention Team that brings together staff from a variety of subject matter areas to intervene at different stages of project development. Under her inclusive, steady, calm leadership, that group is tasked with identifying early strategies for greater efficiencies. She is its very active leader, consistently modeling exemplary collaboration and inclusion. Her work here has garnered both her and Metro national attention and interest.
A consummate professional leading high-profile projects and programs, Sharon integrates her belief in equity into each and every one of them. For example, she led the $4.9 billion LAX Automated People Mover P3 Project, the single largest contract ever awarded by the City of Los Angeles and the centerpiece of LAWA’s multi-billion dollar Landside Access Modernization Program. More than 1/3 of her team was composed of women, with most of them in leadership positions.
Throughout her work at Metro, she has avidly and actively supported women and minority subcontractors for Metro’s megaprojects. And when she meets with large contractors, she impresses upon them how effective, efficient, and vital disadvantaged and small businesses—beyond stated goals— are to the success of Metro’s efforts.