Director of Planning, Southern California Association of Governments
Kome Ajise is the Director of Planning at the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), the nation’s largest Metropolitan Planning Organization. His responsibilities include developing and updating the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) which is the long-range blueprint that identifies projects and strategies to address the region’s transportation challenges as well as improve system performance, and the Federal Transportation Improvement Program (FTIP) which is the short-term programming document that identifies specific funding sources and amounts needed to implement the projects in the RTP. He is also responsible for long-range transportation planning specific to goods movement, aviation, transit and passenger rail, transportation demand management/transportation systems management, intelligent transportation systems, and transportation finance among others. At SCAG, Kome also oversees a comprehensive program of environmental issues analysis with emphasis on land use, housing, active transportation, air quality, and environmental justice.
Prior to SCAG, Kome was the Chief Deputy Director at the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), where he was responsible for the internal operations of the Department with 18,000 plus employees and a budget that exceeds $1.1 billion.
Kome has a Bachelor of Science degree in Geography and Regional Planning from the University of Benin, Nigeria and a Master of City and Regional Planning degree from California State University, Fresno.