Welcome to COMTO Southern California
COMTO was created to provide a forum for senior minority professionals in the transportation industry.
Connect with Us!
PO Box 811637
Los Angelos, CA 90081
United States
The voice for Equity.
COMTO’s mission is to provide full access to employment, career and contract opportunities for minorities and women within the transportation industry. Over the past thirty years, our mandate has evolved to include not only public transportation industry executives, but also professionals at every level of industry encompassing a variety of fields and disciplines. Now, as was then, members are encouraged to share information, opportunities and personal expertise. With 35 chapters throughout the United States, our mission is as relevant today as we strive to provide full access to employment, career and contract opportunities for minorities within the transportation industry.
Leadership
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Demauris Terry
Council of Presidents Representative, Southern California President
Demauris Terry serves as the Executive Vice President/COO for BA, Inc., a certified minority-owned civil engineering firm, and brings more than 20 years of business operations experience with a deep understanding of agency policies and requirements. He has strong leadership skills to catalyze, implement, and lead the company’s strategic agenda. For the past 10 years, he has successfully run and operated the day-to-day activities of one of the top minority-owned, small business civil engineering & construction firms in the greater Los Angeles and Phoenix metropolitan areas.
Having worked in both large and small corporations, he is familiar with the unique characteristics and challenges that define each type. Demauris is actively engaged in and committed to helping drive the success of small businesses within the engineering and construction industry, in and around Southern California.
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Edna Stanley
1st Vice President
Edna Stanley is the Vice President of Light Rail Operations at Sacramento Regional Transit District. She oversees day-to-day transportation responsibilities, and critical business and support functions, including training. Edna also directs the development of service delivery plans to efficiently manage SacRT's light rail services including daily operations, maintenance, and the Operations Control Center.
Edna has 20 years of transportation experience and has been promoted through increasingly responsible technical and supervisory positions based on expertise, demonstrated initiative, and contributions to operational safety and efficiency. She’s held almost every Bus and Rail operations position including Bus Operator, Station Manager, Train Operator, Dispatch Supervisor, Rail Operations Supervisor, Central Control Supervisor, Roadway Worker Protection Instructor, and Chief Operations Supervisor. Prior to SacRT, Edna was a Service Operations Superintendent LA Metro, the Manager of Station Operations at the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART), and a Superintendent at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).
Edna is a is a mentor for Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS), and a member of the League of Railway Women and the APTA Rail Safety and International Rail Rodeo Committees. She previously served on the Southern California Cohort of the Government Alliance on Race & Equity (GARE); a federal initiative focused on systematically advancing racial equity across jurisdictions nation-wide.
Edna graduated cum laude from Mary Baldwin University with BA in Business. In her spare time, she loves to bake cakes and travel around the world.
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Shannon Lawrence
2nd Vice President
Prior to joining Rohadfox Construction Control Services, Shannon was the Inclusion and Diversity Manager at Balfour Beatty. He played an integral role in securing contracts and ensuring small businesses were included in major construction projects in the Los Angeles market. This included the Automated People Mover at the Los Angeles International Airport. Although relatively new to the industry, Shannon quickly made a name for himself and earned a reputation as a trusted advocate for small businesses, and minority and women-owned firms.
He has been a panelist on several industry forums sharing his experience to help small businesses to become competitive in the marketplace. His prior experience as a staff member of a Los Angeles Mayor, and other executive-level elected officials, along with years of community and labor-organizing experience, has shaped Shannon’s unique perspective in managing and leveraging the intersections of business, government and community collaboration for success. Shannon’s community involvement includes serving as the Secretary of the Southern California Chapter of the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO), Second Vice President of the Alabama State University National Alumni Association, Past-Chair of the City of Gardena Planning Commission, Past-Board Member of the American Heart Association in Los Angeles, and a host of other advisory roles to political and community leaders throughout the nation.
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Vayakone Terry
Secretary
Vayakone Terry is the Director of Corporate Development & Strategy for Morgner Construction Management who is responsible for developing and implementing programs that support the personal and professional growth of each employee and overall company goals and mission. She also manages Morgner’s global branding, which includes identifying strategic partners and initiatives that align with the company’s values to support, invest, and grow its construction/engineering community and the people it serves.
Vayakone manages Morgner’s Professional Development Program, Internship Program, and Business Operations including Marketing, Human Resources, and Field Operations. She currently volunteers to help provide strategy and programming for Los Angeles-based Women’s March Foundation, which in 2016, made a historical movement when it held the 2nd largest Women’s March in the world, attracting close to 1.5 million women and men to downtown Los Angeles.
Vayakone’s prior work in the industry includes serving as Project Information Manager/ Proposal Coordinator for Douglas E. Barnhart Inc. (now Balfour Beatty); Marketing Manager for Seville Construction Services Inc.; Senior Creative Director for the Sax Agency, and Director of Business Operations for SGI Construction Management Inc. She earned a B.A. in Arts/Interior Design from San Diego State University.
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Stepfone Montgomery
Immediate Past President
Stepfone Montgomery is the Founder and CEO of BZ Connects Inc, is a business relationship firm, helping small businesses and large corporations to collaborate on architectural engineering, construction projects.
Stepfone is an accomplished leader, mentor, and entrepreneur. He possesses over 35 years of experience in both the private and public sector and is considered a results-oriented, innovative thought leader. He is known as a “master connector” and is very active networking throughout many industries and the nation.
Stepfone is a resident in Orange County, California but started his professional career working for New York's major transportation agencies including the Long Island Railroad, New York City Transit, before retiring as the Chief Officer and Vice President of the Staten Island Railway.
Stepfone has a professional commitment to "leaving things in a better place than how he found them" by instituting sustainable and systemic enhancements and efficiencies. He has a special talent for shifting organizational cultures from reactionary to becoming more proactive and strategic. He takes pride in his proclivity for talent identification and human capital development.
He is personally committed to "giving back" and cultivating the leaders of tomorrow through his words and actions. Mr. Montgomery serves as a guest lecturer with Career Excellence Academy and LA Trade Tech here in Southern California. He is also an avid community leader with a strong personal commitment to civic volunteerism and mentoring.
Mr. Montgomery is a graduate of Capella University with a BS in Business, Management and Leadership.
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