Mike Welch began his career with Continental Airlines twenty years ago as a Operations Agent in Boston, Massachusetts and has held various positions within the organization leading Managing Director - Operations for Continental's hub in Newark, New Jersey. After a spell as General Manager, Toronto Hub for Air Canada, he moved to a similar position with Jet Blue at their New York JFK hub and subsequently to manage Delta's hub at Boston Logan Airport.

During his twenty year career with Continental, Mike has been the General Manager for Continental at New York's LaGuardia Airport; General Manager for Continental at Nantucket, Massachusetts; Manager of Airport Services Training; Manager of Training for Europe and the eastern part of the United States as well as System Director of Airport Operations. Mike was part of the primary design team that brought Amtrak and New Jersey Transit to Newark Liberty International Airport. Prior to his election as Chairman of IARO, he served as Vice Chairman and a member of the Board.

Mike obtained his Bachelor's degree in Mathematics Education from North Adams State College in Massachusetts and continued his graduate studies at Fordham University in New York City obtaining a Master's degree in Secondary School Administration where he also did his doctoral work in the field of Private School Administration. Presently, Mike resides in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey with his wife Christina and his three children; Moira, Macklin and Mackenzie.

Karen is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor. She has had 20 years experience both in practice and with FTSE companies and is delighted to now be working with IARO.

Richard Brown has substantial experience in the air rail industry. He was Railtrack's Implementation Manager of the Heathrow Express service, one of the first airport expresses globally and the first new mainline railway in the UK for over 100 years and then joined Heathrow Express in 1999 as the head of service delivery and was promoted to head of operations in June 2003. Richard led the operation of Heathrow Express from the start-up phase to one that is globally recognised as an award winning train service, acknowledged in 2006 by the National Customer Service as the Customer Service Team of the Year. That year the National Passenger Survey also revealed Heathrow Express as the nation's favourite train company scoring a 96% overall satisfaction rating.

In 2007 Richard founded North Star consultancy which is now the leading air rail consultancy in the world with over 100, 000 hours experience working on air rail projects across the globe. North Star has been employed by major blue chip companies such Balfour Beatty, Hitachi and Siemens on customer service and operations projects outside the specific air rail sector and is recognised as one of the leading consultancies for providing disruption management advice in transportation environments. Now in 2009, Richard is in demand all over the globe to speak at air rail conferences.

Mr. Coogan is currently serving as Director of the New England Transportation Institute, and also continues his practice as a consultant in transportation specializing in the application of intermodal and multimodal planning techniques. Most recently, Mr. Coogan has been appointed as an International Advisor to a new EU project entitled "A Knowledge Base for Intermodal Passenger Travel in Europe".

Over the past decade he has focused on the deployment of integrated multimodal mobility strategies, and the use of new information technologies in the implementation of those procedures. He graduated from Harvard College in 1969, and later served as a Loeb Fellow in Advanced Environmental Studies at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. Between 1970 and 1972 he helped establish and served on the Boston Transportation Planning Review, the first major multimodal transportation study in the United States.

Between 1983 and 1991, Mr. Coogan served as Undersecretary of Transportation for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and as Project Director of the Central Artery Tunnel Project. He was appointed by the National Academy of Science to both the Committee on High Speed Ground Transportation and the Committee to Critique the National Maglev Initiative. He has lectured on transportation issues throughout the United States, and in Europe and Asia. He has been featured in Engineering News Record, Architectural Record, The New York Times, Bloomberg News Service, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, and has appeared on The Today Show, CBS News and National Public Radio.

In November of 2006, Mr. Coogan was invited by the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission to testify at its Field Hearing, held in New York City on November 16, 2006.

Peter Gertler is Senior Vice President of the HNTB Companies in Oakland, California. Until recently he was an Assistant Vice President, Senior Project Manager and Senior Professional Associate with Parsons Brinckerhoff, a recognized leader in consulting, planning, engineering, program and construction management, operations and maintenance for transportation projects world-wide.

Peter is based in San Francisco, California USA and is the Manager of Railroad services for Parsons Brinckerhoff's U.S. Western District. He has over 18 years experience in transportation projects, particularly in the development, planning and implementation of rail and airport projects, and is a recognized industry leader in the area of rail links to airports.

Peter has lead or supported air-rail link projects in the US and abroad, including South Africa, Spain, United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Between 1999 and 2002, he was in London, England with Parsons Brinckerhoff's program management team on the $10 billion West Coast Route Modernization Program for Network Rail (formerly Railtrack).

Peter is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and the Transportation Research Board Committee on InterCity Rail and has a BA in Political Economy from the University of California, Berkeley, and a MS in Transportation and MA in City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. He has published and presented papers both in the United States and abroad.

Peter is a native of San Francisco and currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and twin 12 year olds, and is an avid runner.

Sverre is currently the Commercial Director of the Airport Express Train in Norway. He has a Masters degree in marketing and a BA in Finance. He has held a range of different roles mainly within the hospitality industry in Norway.

He has a young family.

Paul Le Blond, is an independent consultant with over 30 years experience in the air and rail transport industries.

Working with BAA from 1970 to 2001, Paul was involved with many public inquires into airport development, and latterly with Heathrow Express as Rail Strategy Director.

From 2001 until February 2003 Paul was Eurostar's Director of Strategy. He is experienced in planning and developing transport projects, managing them through the approval stages and in their implementation and management. Since becoming an independent consultant he has undertaken commissions for the UK government, rail franchisees, airports and international airport rail operators.

Bob Longworth is Ground Transport Manager for Manchester Airport PLC. Bob is a Chartered Engineer and has been with Manchester Airport for 16 years where he has worked in engineering and terminal management before taking up his current position as Ground Transport Manager. His role is to promote and develop surface access links to Manchester Airport, in particular to develop public transport access where rail is the key public transport mode for air passengers.

As Ground Transport Manager, Bob is closely involved with developing rail, bus and coach services to Manchester Airport and managing relationships with transport operators, authorities and stakeholders. He is actively involved with development of the Manchester Airport Station into a multi modal transport interchange. This ground breaking project to combine all public transport modes at the Manchester Airport Rail Station completed its first phase in 2003 with the opening of a new bus and coach station alongside the rail station. Future phases include platforms light rail (Metrolink), additional rail platforms and a dedicated check-in area for Interchange users.

Paul is Head of Surface Transport for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), a position he has held since January 2006.

The ODA is responsible for the delivery of all permanent infrastructure required for the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. Paul's responsibilities include the development of transport solutions for spectators, athletes, media representatives and officials, including airport access.

Prior to joining the ODA Paul was a management consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton leading on all airport rail link strategy and related projects from both their London and New York offices. He has direct experience of a number of airport rail link schemes in both Europe and North America, and previously worked for BAA plc, where he was Operations and Customer Services Director for Heathrow Express (1994 - 1999), during its construction and first year of operation.

Paul also specialises in light rail operations, and was previously Operations Director for Greater Manchester Metro Limited, General Operations Manager for the Tyne and Wear Metro, and Traffic Manager for Docklands Light Railway.

Paul is married to Patti and lives in Islington, London. He is a keen runner, skier and football supporter and also holds a private pilot's license.

No biography available for Richard Robinson at this time.

Per Thorstensen is CEO of Arlanda Express in Stockholm. Previously he worked in various leading positions at major companies including IBM, DHL and Electrolux.

He tries to stay in shape by doing some sports: he describes his tennis fore-hand as rather good!

Mark Walbrun has been leading major North American transit planning, design and construction programs since 1971. He has successfully completed hundreds of planning studies, concept designs, detailed construction documents, and management of construction activities for public transportation and commercial clients across the country.

Mark was until recently a Principal and a Vice President of the Passenger Rail and Transit division of TranSystems. He began his career at Amtrak where he spent 24 years managing redevelopment projects such as the massive reconstruction of Chicago Union Station, the master plan for New York's Penn Station, design work on Washington Union Terminal, major track and yard facilities in Chicago, and high speed rail studies in Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Mark joined TranSystems in 1996 where he has since completed program planning and design work for commuter and InterCity passenger facilities at Denver and Kansas City Union Station, managed track and signal improvements for commuter rail facilities in Chicago, completed planning for improvements to the CTA Blue Line rapid transit and a proposed Airport Express service, produced a GIS rail plan for the City of Chicago, supervised reconstruction of the Cleveland Blue/Green Line Light Rail connection, completed value engineering for the PATH World Trade Center replacement station, and designed eight freight intermodal yards for CSX, BNSF, and NS.

He is now with CH2M HILL in Denver, Colorado.

Mark Walbrun is a key participant in industry forums for the advancement of knowledge in passenger rail transportation. He has been a major contributor to Transportation Research Board, the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance of Way Association's Manual for Railroad Engineering, and has taught seminars in Railroad Engineering for the University of Wisconsin, University of Illinois, the City Colleges of Chicago, and AREMA.