When Woods left home to head to Davidson College, the trip began in China, where his parents served as missionaries.

Decades later, John Woods, James Woods' son, asked his father just how he arrived in Davidson on the final leg of his journey.

"By train, of course," James Woods informed his son.

The days of stepping off a passenger train at a Davidson station have long passed but, if John Woods has his way, history will repeat itself — in a very big way.

As chairman of the Red Line Task Force, the regional panel working to sell more than a half-dozen local governments on the plan for a $452 million commuter rail line from Charlotte to Mooresville, Woods, Davidson's newly re-elected mayor, has been the conductor for a project that would transform a corridor 25 miles long and fuel development in Charlotte, Huntersville, Cornelius, Davidson and Mooresville.

After languishing for years as transit dollars dried up in a slumping economy, plans for the Red Line Regional Rail Project are moving at bullet-train speed. For his role in leading the political effort to put the Red Line back on track, John Woods is the Lake Norman Citizen's 2011 Citizen of the Year.

All in the family

John Woods ultimately would become a banker, but he still inherited his parents' obligation to serve others, most notably as a town commissioner and, for the last four years, as the fatherly mayor who coaxed his town through some of the most difficult economic times in its long history.

Those with deep ties to the Woods family aren't surprised at the mayor's nurturing style. It runs in the family.

His mother and father were both born in China to missionary parents. James Woods would graduate from Davidson in 1918 before earning his medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia in 1922 and studying at the London School of Tropical Medicine before returning to China, where he ran a hospital until 1940.

"He and my mom married in 1935 and came home on furlough in 1940 with three children," John Woods says.

As it had when a 16-year-old James Woods came to the U.S. from China nearly three decades earlier, the world stood at the brink of war. Dr. Woods decided to make Davidson home, then answered the U.S. military's plea for physicians.

At age 44, James Woods joined the Army and returned to the South Pacific, where he spent most of his service in the Philippines.

"He arrived home Christmas Eve, 1945," John Woods says. "My mom saved gas ration stamps and drove to Fort Bragg in a snowstorm to meet him."

Once back in Davidson, Dr. Woods put down roots.

"He practiced medicine in the Davidson area as college physician and community doc until he was 87," John Woods says. "He did everything — delivered babies, surgery, house calls, you name it."

While his work is considerably different from that of Dr. Woods, Mayor Woods has become versatile in his own right while embracing both the official and ceremonial duties of his office. His is a familiar — and usually smiling — face at Davidson's regular civic gatherings and at Davidson College basketball games.

But Woods also has embraced the delicate nature of behind-the-scenes politicking — whether it's leaning on Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities to remedy billing problems for customers in Davidson, or trying to coax MI-Connection (the cable company Davidson co-owns with Mooresville) toward profitability.

'Focus and intensity'

When it comes to Woods' work on the Red Line, his role mirrors the very public-private nature of the commuter rail project itself.

"John Woods has pursued the Red Line rail business model with focus and intensity in a difficult economic environment," says Carroll Gray, outgoing executive director of the Lake Norman Transportation Commission.

That stewardship, and an aggressive push from the N.C. Department of Transportation, Gray explains, have resulted in an effective funding model for the Red Line that protects the jurisdictions involved from financial liability.

"Without John's personal dedication to the concept of commuter rail over the past year, I doubt we'd have anything to consider," Gray suggests. "Now, John Woods and the other mayors and chairs of Mecklenburg and Iredell county commissions have the critical task of explaining to their constituents how rail can bring economic growth to the Lake Norman area."

It's in that task that Woods will be looked upon to balance a strategy of public cajoling and private arm twisting, as elected bodies are asked to approve their jurisdictions' involvement with the Red Line. Woods has echoed state leaders who insist the Red Line is an all-or-nothing proposition: Either every jurisdiction is in, or the Red Line itself is out.

"I really don't see the Red Line Regional Rail Project as anything political," Woods insists, "and we — each jurisdiction — must become comfortable with the financial feasibility of the project."

That could be a hard sell, for several reasons. But one of the biggest challenges could be simply getting elected leaders to view the Red Line as something unlike anything they've seen before. The funding model is designed so that private investors assume any financial obligations that revenue generated by the project won't cover. It's a notion that seems just too good to be true for those with a more traditional grasp of economics.

Iredell County Commission Chairman Steven Johnson has already voiced his opposition to the Red Line.

"The project financing is one very important issue being fully aired during the review period," says Woods, referring to the early months of 2012, when the affected elected bodies will be asked to study and approve the plan. "I see this project as the most important economic development opportunity — involving job creation and capital investment — in our region in the next three decades."

That opportunity — and the resurrection of the Red Line as an economically viable project — can be tied to the addition of freight-related development and revenue to the financial formula.

"One challenge each of us faces is understanding the big picture of how our little corner of the world figures into the global delivery of freight, the significance of the widening of the Panama Canal, expansion of Atlantic ports, and the movement of freight-goods by rail from the ports into the heartland of America," Woods says. "Clearly, (the Red Line's) success is much broader than the movement of commuters to and from Charlotte."

Moving forward, it will be Woods who not just paints that big picture, but tries to convince decision-makers that they, too, belong in the scene.

"I think we are right on schedule with expectations." Woods says. "At the beginning, the project scope seems pretty overwhelming and everyone has a lot of work to do, a lot of questions to ask and a lot of answers to be developed. We know this is a huge project and requires diligent inspection and analysis from all stakeholders. I am very hopeful that this diligent inspection and analysis will yield a very workable and unified plan to position us to create the economic and quality-of-life benefits we so badly need."

And, who knows? Someday, when someone asks John Woods how he delivered his most-lasting legacy, he might just answer, "by train, of course."

The Woods File

Government Service

• Davidson Land Plan Committee, 1994-1995

• Davidson Town Board, 1997-2007

• Davidson Mayor, 2007-present

Education

• Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration, Presbyterian College, Clinton, S.C.

• MBA, University of South Carolina

Military

• Two years active duty in the Army's Adjutant Generals Corps, mostly at Fort Meade, Md.

Professional

• Began his banking career in 1973 and has worked in the Davidson area as a regional executive and commercial lender since the mid 1980's.

• Currently Senior Vice President and Lake Norman Area Executive for Peoples Bank.

Family

• Wife, Diana, a fourth-grade teacher in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

• Daughter, Kristin, 35, public relations professional in Columbia, S.C.

• Son, James, 32, an architectural engineer in San Francisco.

Community Involvement

• Chair of the Board of Managers of the YMCA

• Board of Directors of the Davidson Housing Coalition, Davidson Community Players and the Health Services Committee of Ada Jenkins Center.

• Elder of Davidson College Presbyterian Church.