40th Anniversary Book 10.5x13.5 FINAL

Becoming Lea+Elliott The Founding

N.D. Lea & Associates After 12 years at NASA, Chuck Elms felt it was time to move on and devote himself to transportation technology. He put out his résumé and received a call from Norman Lea who had a company in Canada called N.D. Lea & Assoc., Ltd. They had come in contact before for a rapid transit project, so they knew of each other. Norman woke him early one Saturday to invite him up to Ottawa for an interview. On the spot, he offered Chuck a job. Not being prepared to relocate to Canada, however, Chuck declined; but Norm called him again in August 1973 and offered to start a business with him in the United States. This was a more intriguing proposition. Thus was born the non-profit N.D. Lea Transportation Research Corporation, which would publish a compendium of new technology in public transit. From Huntsville, Ala., they published the first compendium and sold 1,000 subscriptions. While everyone from the KGB to the CIA bought it, the income wasn’t enough to cover expenses. In addition, they couldn’t keep their non- profit status if they were going to do consulting work. So in 1973 they formed N.D. Lea & Assoc., Inc. as a subsidiary of the Canadian company N.D. Lea & Assoc., Ltd. Chuck quickly realized that, with the federal government as their major client, they would be wise to relocate to Washington, D.C. Having

subsisted for four years in Huntsville on a $20,000 line of credit and just enough work to keep afloat, the three proud controlling partners of N.D. Lea & Assoc., Inc., Chuck, Wolfgang Bamberg and Herbert Teumer, loaded up a U-Haul and headed off to the Bandit Beltway just outside Washington, D.C., eventually settling in Chantilly, Va. The credibility of the Compendium, coupled with their personal relationships with key officials in the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) led to successful bids on major contracts. N.D. Lea & Assoc., Inc. (NDL) was off and running. Dennis Elliott & Associates, Inc. Upon completion of the huge Airtrans project at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), Dennis Elliott was looking for new challenges. Having gained valuable experience working on one of the first airport APMs, he hoped to market his knowledge as a people mover consultant. The opportunity for this transition occurred courtesy of the Federal Transit Administration, then known as the Urban Mass Transportation

“We were ready at the forefront, at the infancy of APMs. We could jump in there and do it.” Chuck Elms | Founder

1