Moorhead Transit Manager celebrates 40 years with City

(Moorhead, MN) -- Moorhead's Transit Director is celebrating a major milestone with the city.

Lori Van Beek recently celebrated her 40th anniversary with the City of Moorhead. She joined the city in September 1982, originally working as an office specialist for the planning, community development, and mass transit departments. In 1987, she became the administrator of the Community Development Block Grant program. Lori took on the role of Transit Manager for Metro Area Transit in 1990 and has continued to grow public transit in that position ever since.

Metro Area Transit was founded in 1976, so she has been at the helm for 33 of its 47 years. In that time, she has presided over many milestones that helped the City of Moorhead coordinate resources with the City of Fargo, growing into one cooperative transit system now known as MATBUS.

Some of those projects include building the Metro Transit Garage (2005); coordinating the U-Pass Program to establish free rides with partnered Moorhead colleges/universities (2002); and expanding elderly and disability services into Fargo to become metro-wide systems (MAT Paratransit and Metro Senior Ride). Her next big goal is to improve and grow an accessible public transit system for all citizens.