Dale J. Marsico
Senior Fellow
Dale J. Marsico has been active in the transportation, mobility, health and economic development fields for over four decades. In discussing his work he often describes it as similar to a three-act play.
Dale’s Act 1 included twenty years in transit management, healthcare and economic development activities in Texas. In that time, he helped create one of the state’s first rural public transit districts in East Texas that included providing both fixed route service and demand transit services in 20 counties. Under Dale’s leadership the transportation district expanded operations in urbanized areas including developing operating urban transit systems in Bryan, College Station, the Woodlands and Galveston Texas. He also developed express bus services into the Houston area known as the Woodlands Express that covered 80 percent of its operating costs through its passengers. While working on transportation Dale also founded a community health clinic in East Texas known as Healthpoint providing care to thousands of families that lacked primary care access. This effort combined the important synergy between health care delivery and public transit.
Dale’s Act 2 began in 1996 when he left Texas and went to Washington spending twenty years as the CEO of the Community Transportation Association of America, (CTAA.) CTAA is a national member organization supporting the development, investment, and innovation in community and public transit. During his time at the association many successful efforts to expand investment in small urban and rural transit in major federal transportation reauthorizations through 2015. In addition to these efforts he helped develop innovative public private partnerships with national organizations and businesses to assist local transit systems develop alternative financial support. Another of his efforts included helping to improve the quality of transportation training for community and public transit systems and their frontline workers. Additionally, Dale provided leadership in legislative efforts to support expanding collaborative medical transportation services and resources in Medicaid, Medicare, Veterans Services and in the Affordable Care Act.
ACT 3 began for Dale when he retired from CTAA in 2016 and began working for UnitedHealthcare one of the nation’s largest healthcare and insurance companies. As a Senior Business Analyst at UnitedHealthcare Dale has continued his efforts on developing innovative and collaborative access services linking transportation and patient centered healthcare. He remains working at UnitedHealthcare giving priority to strengthening access for harder to serve patients with special needs and barriers and challenges.
Throughout his career Dale been a board member of many organizations at the state, regional and national level that share his hopes for increased access an investment that improves health, employment, and educational opportunities.
