Karen Kitsis joins us most recently from Seattle, Washington. There she served as the Deputy Executive Director for the Office of Capital Project Development at Sound Transit in Seattle, Washington. During her eleven years at the agency, her previous positions at Sound Transit included serving as South Corridor Development Director, and as Senior Planning and Project Development Manager. While at Sound Transit, she was responsible for overseeing the preliminary engineering and project development of commuter rail, light rail, bus, and bus rapid transit projects totaling over $10 billion across four of Sound Transit’s subareas. She managed the system-wide planning process known as ST3, which resulted in a successful $54 billion ballot measure. She also led the long-range planning division with staff conducting alternatives development, multi-modal corridor-level planning studies, environmental analysis, capital project development, and ridership forecasting.

Karen brings almost two decades of transportation planning and management experience to CTDOT. Prior to moving to Washington to work at Sound Transit, Karen worked as Transit Development Officer at Hampton Roads Transit, was a planner at Kimley-Horn in Tallahassee, FL, and started her career at as a Project Manager at Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission in Woodbridge, Virginia. Karen has a Masters Degree in Urban Planning from UCLA.

Originally from Virginia, she is excited to be back on the East Coast. This marks her fourth cross-country move. Karen is joined in Connecticut by her husband and middle-school age daughter, both from Washington State. They are very excited to explore Connecticut and New England. She is a Seahawks fan by marriage but would rather go to a baseball game, enjoy a great meal with friends, travel, watch Grand Slam tennis, or go kayaking.