LANSING - Communicative, transparent and organized. Those are just a few of the qualities local residents use to describe an ideal leader, which in this case could be their future CATA CEO. CATA - the Capital Area Transportation Authority - is looking to find a new CEO for their company. The current CEO, Sandy Draggoo, will be stepping down next February and has helped create a team of board members to search for the future CEO.

CATA held a public meeting, Monday, July 31st, at the East Lansing Hannah Community Center for residents to speak and share their comments and concerns on this process.

"I'm looking for someone who is open to wanting to know about their community. My biggest thing is come into the community, and get to know about it. If it happens to be a hire that's not from the area, they need to understand the unique qualities that the community has and know what our riders need," said Lansing resident Rachel Lewis. Lewis works at a non-profit and has many clients that have to use the public transportation system, so she realizes how important CATA is to the community.

Audience members mentioned that they would like to see more involvement from the CEO on the buses themselves. By doing so, the CEO can take a look at problems first-hand and get to know CATA riders.

From here, the CATA CEO Search Committee will take input from the public and develop a leadership profile. They are going to list out all of the attributes and will use those to go on a national and possible international search for resumes.