The JTA Board of Directors unanimously approved the selection of Cleveland Ferguson III as interim CEO. The temporary appointment advances the effort to replace Nat Ford<\/a>, who formally announced in July that he\u2019ll be stepping down from the job.<\/p>\n Ferguson is a veteran of JTA who has held several leadership roles in his time with the agency. He\u2019s been with JTA since 2015 and was the Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer for three years.<\/p>\n Ford is moving on<\/a> to the CEO post at the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system in Texas. He will formally leave the First Coast for Dallas in October.<\/p>\n JTA Board Chair Aundra Wallace said Ferguson is a good fit to hold the position until the agency can move on to a permanent replacement for Ford.<\/p>\n \u201cCleveland is an experienced leader with a clear understanding of the organization and a plan to guide the JTA through an important budget cycle,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cHe also has strong relationships with employees throughout the organization and with our community partners. That experience and continuity will serve the JTA well during this transition.\u201d<\/p>\n Ferguson is expected to hold the CEO seat through the rest of the year or into early 2027, depending on when the Board of Directors selects a permanent replacement for Ford. The JTA Board of Directors also announced Thursday that they selected KL2 Connects to serve as the executive search firm to oversee the national search for the next CEO.<\/p>\n Ford at times had a tumultuous tenure at the JTA. He was criticized for promoting an expensive autonomous vehicle program. A Jacksonville City Council liaison has already indicated the city may want to\u00a0scrap that initiative<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the JTA this week unveiled a plan that includes estimated costs for a new effort that would involve $294 million for a revamp<\/a> of the city\u2019s people mover called the Skyway<\/a>,\u00a0which is an elevated transportation vehicle system that courses through much of downtown. That plan would involve conversion of the Skyway carriers to autonomous vehicles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cleveland Ferguson III will keep the CEO seat warm until JTA Board members can find a permanent candidate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[16612,32579,153694,153695,116,118,117,17707,799,153696,153697,18519,153698,153699],"class_list":["post-383305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-aundra-wallace","tag-autonomous-vehicles","tag-cleveland-ferguson-iii","tag-interim-ceo","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jacksonville-transportation-authority","tag-jta","tag-jta-board-of-directors","tag-kl2-connects","tag-nat-ford","tag-people-mover","tag-skyway-express"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/florida-campaign-florida-politics-display-ad-728x90px.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n