John Catoe Jr. has accepted the offer by Metro’s Board of Directors to the be seventh general manager for the system.

Catoe, 59, has 26 years of transportation service and is a District native. He will begin his term in January, leaving behind his post as the deputy chief executive officer of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the third-largest public transportation system in the country.

Since he began at the MTA in 2001, Catoe has negotiated labor contracts, incorporated several environmentally friendly bus systems and revamped the entire bus system.

Catoe ran the transit side of the L.A. MTA, while Roger Snoble, his boss, headed the roads system. Snoble said they took a system that “had gone downhill, took it by the horns” and turned it around to an award-winning property.

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The politics surrounding L.A.’s authority are slightly different from D.C.’s Metro, but Catoe was able to work well with the board and public, Snoble said.

“I’m not worried he can’t handle the politics. I think we trained him well,” he said.

“It is good to have someone who can say the right things and catch the right attention. But when the day was done, I was looking for someone with a proven record of delivering change and John has that. We are an important region who knows what we want and want it now,” said Dana Kauffman, a Virginia representative on the Metro board.

Prior to the Los Angeles position, Catoe spent about six years at Santa Barbara’s Big Blue Bus system.

“He was able there to get not only the people who have to ride buses, but even the well-to-do people to ride buses, and frankly, I think that is a challenge for us in the city,” said Ray Briscuso, a Maryland representative on the board. He said Catoe could handle the business, politics and operations of the job, but would put the customer first.

William Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association, said he “has no qualms” about Catoe returning to his old stomping grounds. Millar first met Catoe during his 17-year tenure at Orange County, Calif.’s public transportation system, “and was impressed with him immediately.”

Catoe “understands transit operations from the bottom up, both as a customer and as an operations guy. ... I think he’ll do just fine here,” Millar said.

cgoodman@dcexaminer.com