TAMPA - Ed Turanchik, who spearheaded an advocacy effort to win federal funding of high-speed rail in Florida, has taken a job with the transportation consulting firm hired by the state to work on the project.

Turanchik, a former Hillsborough County commissioner, will be responsible for developing and implementing public outreach for Wilbur Smith Associates National High Speed Rail Practice, based in South Carolina.

As director of strategy and communications, Turanchik also will work on station development, marketing and strategies to provide connectivity between other forms of transportation and the high-speed rail line that will serve five stations along the line serving Tampa, Lakeland and Orlando.

Turanchik will continue to serve as an officer of Connect Us, the high-speed rail advocacy group that claimed more than 25,000 participants, including corporate members.

President Barack Obama in January approved $1.25 billion for Florida's $2.65 billion Tampa-to-Orlando high-speed rail route. Elected officials expect the Obama administration will approve subsequent funding for the Florida project from a pool of funds tagged for incremental high-speed rail project development. The project is expected to become the nation's first high-speed rail route by early 2015.

Plans call for extending the route from Orlando to Miami by 2018 if additional federal funding is allocated.

Turanchik was a county commissioner from 1990 to 1998 and served on the boards of the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority, the Tampa Bay Commuter Rail Authority and the Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization.

He also served on Gov. Lawton Chiles' Citizen Environmental and Advisory Committee for High Speed Rail in the 1990s.

Turanchik also served as president and chief executive of Florida 2012, the Tampa-based bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games that included Orlando, St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Lakeland.

The bid relied upon high-speed rail along the Interstate 4 corridor as its major transportation component, but Tampa fell short, in part because the area lacked local rail transit.

Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at 813-259-7817.