In Memoriam: John H. Drew, Jr.

John H. Drew, Jr., former general manager of the Portage Area Regional Transportation Authority (PARTA), OH, died Jan. 22. He was 82.

Drew, a champion of public transit in Portage County, OH, took a job as controller at PARTA as a favor to his friend RP Flynn, the president of the board of trustees, in 1998, working out of two construction trailers. He was named to serve as general manager in 2002, a role he filled until he retired in 2014.

Drew began by rebuilding the financial data for the agency, and over the next decade built a self-sustaining public transit system. This included expanding service countywide and securing a five-year dedicated sales tax in 2000, which was made permanent in 2005. He built a permanent facility for PARTA in 2003. PARTA assumed operation of the Kent State Campus Bus Service in 2004, which is still in operation to this day.

In 2009, Drew secured the very first Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant for $20 million to build the Kent Central Gateway in downtown Kent, OH. This transformative project brought an additional $100 million in improvements to Kent, forever changing the city’s downtown.

Drew was an unwavering mentor to his young staff members, encouraging and supporting them through their own careers. For APTA, he had been a member of the Small Operations Committee.