A highly experienced project manager, Marla Gayle brings more than three decades of leadership dedicated to transformative, complex transportation projects. From the outset of her career, Marla has been captivated by the importance of transportation, seeing rail stations, airports, and other transit terminals as key to creating a sustainable, livable future. She thinks of each transit hub as a statement about the values and cultures of a place and a gateway for connecting people to each other, as well as to new places, experiences, and ideas.
Marla has extensive expertise in leading and coordinating large, multidisciplinary teams for fast-track planning, design, and construction programs. She is experienced with alternative project delivery methods including design-build and public-private partnerships. Her management approach is informed by her extensive technical expertise as well as her background in transportation programming, planning, and navigating the complex permitting and approvals processes required of large-scale infrastructure programs.
Improving transit systems helps to create more sustainable cities. I find it tremendously exciting to be involved in public works projects that can improve the way people live and work, connecting to places around the world and to each other.
At SOM, Marla has been responsible for the management and coordination of multiple airport redevelopments as well as intermodal transit hub programs across the globe. She recently served as the project manager for the $1.6 billion transformation of New York City’s James Farley Post Office into the new Moynihan Train Hall. Prior to joining SOM, Marla led more than 20 airport master planning, redevelopment, and expansion programs, including projects at each of New York’s metropolitan airports, as well as light rail systems in North America and abroad.
