Just Don’t Make Expensive Mistakes and Other Lessons from Adam Barth, CEO of the Stanislaus Regional Transit Authority

Paul Comfort: 00:00:04

Welcome to Transit Unplugged.

Paul Comfort: 00:00:05

I'm Paul Comfort and on this episode of the world's leading transit executive

Paul Comfort: 00:00:09

podcast, we speak with Adam Barth.

Paul Comfort: 00:00:12

Adam is CEO of the Stanislaus Regional Transit Authority in Modesto, California.

Paul Comfort: 00:00:18

This is a newly formed transit agency where they took the county and

Paul Comfort: 00:00:22

the city transit systems that were running concurrently and merged them.

Paul Comfort: 00:00:27

At the time Adam was CEO of the City of Modesto's transit

Paul Comfort: 00:00:30

system, and he eventually became the CEO of the merged system.

Paul Comfort: 00:00:33

Running in the county there, and he came from Fairbanks, Alaska, and he

Paul Comfort: 00:00:37

tells us about his history, how he started as a bus driver in the tourism

Paul Comfort: 00:00:41

industry there, worked his way up to head up their transit system in

Paul Comfort: 00:00:44

Fairbanks, and then moved back home to Modesto, where he took over the system.

Paul Comfort: 00:00:48

What I really enjoyed about today's podcast is Adam's discussion, frankly,

Paul Comfort: 00:00:52

of mistakes he's made in his career, and lessons he learned when merging,

Paul Comfort: 00:00:56

the city and the county and making a lot of changes all at once, What they

Paul Comfort: 00:01:00

learned from that, what you might learn from that, and how we can all learn from

Paul Comfort: 00:01:03

mistakes, to grow for our own career.

Paul Comfort: 00:01:05

On this episode of Transit Unplugged, let's join the

Paul Comfort: 00:01:09

conversation with Adam Barth.

Paul Comfort: 00:01:13

Adam Barth, thanks for being with us today on Transit Unplugged.

Adam Barth: 00:01:16

Thanks for having me, Paul.

Paul Comfort: 00:01:17

We've been trying to get this together for a while,

Paul Comfort: 00:01:19

so I'm glad we finally were able to do so here in the new year.

Paul Comfort: 00:01:22

And, you've got a lot going on there.

Paul Comfort: 00:01:24

I think, today's going to be a very interesting conversation.

Paul Comfort: 00:01:27

First off, why don't you just kick us off and tell us about the system.

Paul Comfort: 00:01:30

You're CEO of Stanislaus Regional Transit Authority in Modesto, California.

Paul Comfort: 00:01:34

So tell us some about that and what you do there.

Adam Barth: 00:01:37

Okay, well, I'm the CEO here running a small system.

Adam Barth: 00:01:41

We have about 130 buses in the fleet, 23 routes that run around Modesto and around

Adam Barth: 00:01:46

the county as well, but also some commuter services that run over to the Bay Area.

Adam Barth: 00:01:50

we're in about 3 million trips a year, which is great.

Adam Barth: 00:01:53

We're seeing great, numbers on the system, since COVID, is ended now, we're

Adam Barth: 00:01:58

seeing actually more ridership on the system than pre COVID, which is great

Adam Barth: 00:02:02

to see, and I think it goes a lot to, on how great things we're doing here

Adam Barth: 00:02:06

in Modesto and throughout the county.

Adam Barth: 00:02:08

That's great.

Adam Barth: 00:02:09

I wouldn't call that a small system, by the way.

Adam Barth: 00:02:10

I'd call that a mid sized system.

Adam Barth: 00:02:12

Yeah, with over a hundred buses, I think you're a mid sized system.

Adam Barth: 00:02:16

and for those of us, as they say in Rio Linda or whatever they used to say, tell

Adam Barth: 00:02:20

us, situate Modesto for us geographically as where it's at in California.

Adam Barth: 00:02:25

Oh, sure.

Adam Barth: 00:02:26

so we're about 100 miles south of Sacramento and maybe about

Adam Barth: 00:02:29

the same east of San Francisco.

Adam Barth: 00:02:31

So right in the valley, central valley of California, central to agriculture and a

Adam Barth: 00:02:37

lot of great things here in the valley.

Adam Barth: 00:02:39

It's a great place to live.

Paul Comfort: 00:02:41

That's awesome.

Paul Comfort: 00:02:42

so how long have you been there and kind of walk us through

Paul Comfort: 00:02:45

your background a little bit.

Adam Barth: 00:02:46

so I've been here in Modesto for, about seven years now.

Adam Barth: 00:02:49

I came from, actually from here in the Modesto area, but I started my

Adam Barth: 00:02:54

transportation career up in Alaska.

Adam Barth: 00:02:56

I was a bus driver, up there, not for the public transit side, but for the

Adam Barth: 00:03:01

tour and chart charter side of Alaska tourism, and it was a bus driver up

Adam Barth: 00:03:06

there for well, for a couple of years and gradually moved into public transportation

Adam Barth: 00:03:13

and when the opportunity came to move back to Modesto, I jumped at the chance

Adam Barth: 00:03:17

and, I'm running the system here, so going from a small system in Alaska

Adam Barth: 00:03:21

to a much, well, bigger system here.

Paul Comfort: 00:03:23

Yeah, and you were in Fairbank, Alaska, right?

Adam Barth: 00:03:26

Fairbanks, Alaska, yes.

Adam Barth: 00:03:27

It's a very cold place to live, but it was a good place to, you know, learn

Adam Barth: 00:03:32

how to drive buses and to give tours.

Adam Barth: 00:03:36

But then I moved into the public transit side after about 10 years or so.

Adam Barth: 00:03:41

into the transit side, I had to learn how to, how different it was going from

Adam Barth: 00:03:45

the private side to the public side of transportation, which is, there's

Adam Barth: 00:03:49

some differences there, but, it was interesting to, to learn the differences

Adam Barth: 00:03:53

and how, and how to, you know, how to get more, how to get more information.

Adam Barth: 00:03:56

More people on the bus.

Paul Comfort: 00:03:58

Yeah.

Paul Comfort: 00:03:58

Well, as you know, I've been talking to Dave Johnson, who's the manager there now

Paul Comfort: 00:04:02

in Fairbanks and about possibly going up there and doing an episode of our Transit

Paul Comfort: 00:04:06

Unplugged TV show this summer when they open up a brand new facility there.

Paul Comfort: 00:04:10

Tell us about, some of the key points and key people, that helped you along your

Paul Comfort: 00:04:14

way from Fairbanks coming back to Modesto.

Adam Barth: 00:04:17

sure.

Adam Barth: 00:04:18

while I was part of the public, sorry, the private side of transportation

Adam Barth: 00:04:22

in, in Alaska, I remember there was one time where the VP of the cruise

Adam Barth: 00:04:26

line that I worked for, he, I was a brand new operations manager at the

Adam Barth: 00:04:30

time, and he was a key person that really led me to where I am today.

Adam Barth: 00:04:34

but a key thing that he told me, was that, hey, I'm going to make

Adam Barth: 00:04:38

mistakes, and that's okay, just try not to make them expensive mistakes.

Adam Barth: 00:04:43

And he went on then to tell me about how he made a really expensive mistake, and

Adam Barth: 00:04:47

how he, correct, corrected himself, and how he got better from that experience I

Adam Barth: 00:04:52

think I learned that same thing as well over time as I learned that I'm going to

Adam Barth: 00:04:56

make the, I'm going to make mistakes too.

Adam Barth: 00:04:59

And you learn from them and you make yourself a better person and

Adam Barth: 00:05:03

a better employee and be able to contribute more to your agency.

Paul Comfort: 00:05:06

Let's talk about that for a minute.

Paul Comfort: 00:05:07

I think that's an important lesson for people in the transit industry

Paul Comfort: 00:05:11

or any industry that want to, kind of move up the ladder of success.

Paul Comfort: 00:05:15

If you can have a mentor early on that maybe has a little bit of, grace

Paul Comfort: 00:05:18

for you, because I think when we're in our 20s especially, we're all,

Paul Comfort: 00:05:22

you know, rip roaring, ready to go, and we sometimes overlook things.

Paul Comfort: 00:05:26

I know I did.

Paul Comfort: 00:05:27

I remember a moment, early in my career when I was in business development, for

Paul Comfort: 00:05:31

a company, and I You know, it was a very complicated situation for somebody like

Paul Comfort: 00:05:36

in their late 20s to figure all this out.

Paul Comfort: 00:05:38

But I remember not knowing something.

Paul Comfort: 00:05:41

It just, I wasn't aware of it.

Paul Comfort: 00:05:43

And it came back to bite me in the rear end later, because when it

Paul Comfort: 00:05:47

came up for the bid to be done, I hadn't included some costs that

Paul Comfort: 00:05:50

needed to be included in the bid.

Paul Comfort: 00:05:52

And then we found out, we met with the customer and my boss at the time,

Paul Comfort: 00:05:56

John Monson, who was a mentor to me.

Paul Comfort: 00:05:58

He became, CEO of MV Transportation at the time.

Paul Comfort: 00:06:02

We were with another company that no longer exists, but he put his

Paul Comfort: 00:06:05

arm around me, we walked out and said, you know, walk me through it.

Paul Comfort: 00:06:08

You know, I was very upset with myself for not catching this mistake, which

Paul Comfort: 00:06:13

was in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Paul Comfort: 00:06:15

I don't think I ever made that mistake again or anything like it, because I

Paul Comfort: 00:06:18

was extra cautious, you know, Yeah, and so it sounds like to me, you had a boss

Paul Comfort: 00:06:23

like that as well, someone who earlier in your career was telling you try not

Paul Comfort: 00:06:27

to make it too expensive if you make a mistake and try to learn from it, right?

Paul Comfort: 00:06:31

I think sometimes, the issues are that, some people who make

Paul Comfort: 00:06:34

mistakes don't learn from them.

Paul Comfort: 00:06:36

What do you think of that, Adam?

Paul Comfort: 00:06:37

Have you seen that?

Adam Barth: 00:06:38

Yeah, I think, I think that's the case for sure, but I think,

Adam Barth: 00:06:40

you know, I think that's how, I think that's how you can progress too, is you

Adam Barth: 00:06:43

learn from the mistakes, you're going to learn from them, and that's what's

Adam Barth: 00:06:45

going to make you a great, person, not just in professional life, but in

Adam Barth: 00:06:49

anything you do, you're going to learn from it and your life is going to get

Adam Barth: 00:06:52

so much, so, so much better after that.

Adam Barth: 00:06:53

and, hopefully you learn from them.

Paul Comfort: 00:06:55

Yep.

Paul Comfort: 00:06:55

If you think you're right and you have a super high opinion of yourself and

Paul Comfort: 00:06:59

you're kind of what some people might call cocky, you may say, when a mistake

Paul Comfort: 00:07:03

happens, Oh, well, that's not my fault.

Paul Comfort: 00:07:05

that, that was issues that were outside of my control.

Paul Comfort: 00:07:08

Kind of like I just said, right?

Paul Comfort: 00:07:09

Yeah.

Paul Comfort: 00:07:09

Well, these are things that I wasn't aware of, but had I done enough research, Right.

Paul Comfort: 00:07:13

I might have found those numbers.

Paul Comfort: 00:07:14

And so I think too often people will try to push blame off of themselves because

Paul Comfort: 00:07:20

they don't want to be at the center of the blame circle, so to speak, and

Paul Comfort: 00:07:24

say, well, it was out of my control.

Paul Comfort: 00:07:25

It was the environment.

Paul Comfort: 00:07:26

It was another person.

Paul Comfort: 00:07:27

It was another situation.

Paul Comfort: 00:07:29

But, I think.

Paul Comfort: 00:07:30

I'm really happy you call attention to that right off the bat, because I

Paul Comfort: 00:07:33

think that's something, especially for young people, I always say, I just did

Paul Comfort: 00:07:37

a talk in Canada at the CUDA conference.

Paul Comfort: 00:07:39

I spoke to the young leaders, group there, and I pointed out, you know,

Paul Comfort: 00:07:43

draw a circle around yourself, and that's where improvement needs to begin.

Paul Comfort: 00:07:48

And so, if we continue to work on improving yourself, ourselves in

Paul Comfort: 00:07:53

general, like my dad taught me, always work to improve yourself.

Paul Comfort: 00:07:56

that's how you move ahead, right?

Paul Comfort: 00:07:58

And that's what happened to you.

Paul Comfort: 00:07:59

So keep telling us that story.

Adam Barth: 00:08:01

Okay, so I moved back to Modesto and was running the Modesto

Adam Barth: 00:08:06

Air Express bus system, which was run by the city of Modesto at the time.

Adam Barth: 00:08:10

And just 2 years ago now in 2020, 2021, officials in our area, so

Adam Barth: 00:08:17

elected officials, saw a logic of combining transit systems in our area.

Adam Barth: 00:08:22

So Modesto had run a system and the county had run a separate system, as it

Adam Barth: 00:08:26

happened, the staff from both systems worked on the same floor in the same

Adam Barth: 00:08:30

building, but we had different staff, we had a different brand, we had a

Adam Barth: 00:08:34

different technology on board the buses.

Adam Barth: 00:08:36

we were separate, although we were friends, right?

Adam Barth: 00:08:38

Yeah.

Adam Barth: 00:08:39

Yeah.

Adam Barth: 00:08:39

so, officials saw the logic in combining the systems.

Adam Barth: 00:08:42

And so in 2021, the city of Modesto and the county combined forces and joint

Adam Barth: 00:08:48

and, created a, what's called a joint powers agency where the two, government

Adam Barth: 00:08:53

agencies formed a new government agency called the Stanislaus Regional Transit

Adam Barth: 00:08:57

Authority, to combine the system.

Adam Barth: 00:09:00

And so we're a new system today, that, that works well.

Adam Barth: 00:09:05

we combined technologies, we created a new brand, we ran into all of the buses,

Adam Barth: 00:09:10

and, combined the whole fleet into one, one, under one maintenance shop, and

Adam Barth: 00:09:15

now it's run by a one operator as well.

Adam Barth: 00:09:17

All of our system is run by a third party operator.

Adam Barth: 00:09:20

So, that, the impetus of that was to really create, A system that was easy to

Adam Barth: 00:09:25

ride and make it easier for people to use the bus here and here in the area, both

Adam Barth: 00:09:29

in Modesto and throughout the county.

Adam Barth: 00:09:31

And we've seen that with the ridership over the last 6 to 12 months, we've

Adam Barth: 00:09:38

seen ridership really explode and exceed pre COVID, which is awesome to see.

Adam Barth: 00:09:43

Yeah.

Adam Barth: 00:09:45

We did a, a big planning effort to look at all of our routes to figure out which

Adam Barth: 00:09:50

routes were working well and which weren't and did a massive restructuring of all

Adam Barth: 00:09:54

of our routes just this past March.

Adam Barth: 00:09:56

Ah, that seemed to help.

Adam Barth: 00:09:58

That was awesome.

Adam Barth: 00:09:59

It really made transit a whole lot easier to use here in our area, not, and not just

Adam Barth: 00:10:04

with the brand and the tech, not, and the technology and the, and one fare structure

Adam Barth: 00:10:08

and one fare, one, one fare media, but made it really easy to ride the buses

Adam Barth: 00:10:12

as well, where the routes actually went.

Paul Comfort: 00:10:13

Gotcha.

Paul Comfort: 00:10:14

And why is it called Stanislaus?

Paul Comfort: 00:10:16

Is that the name of the county?

Paul Comfort: 00:10:18

That is the name of the county.

Paul Comfort: 00:10:19

Yes.

Paul Comfort: 00:10:19

Right.

Paul Comfort: 00:10:19

And prior to this, you were the head of the city one, right?

Paul Comfort: 00:10:22

The city of Modesto?

Paul Comfort: 00:10:24

Correct.

Paul Comfort: 00:10:24

Yeah.

Paul Comfort: 00:10:24

Yeah.

Paul Comfort: 00:10:25

And then you ended up being the head of the overall system?

Adam Barth: 00:10:28

Right.

Adam Barth: 00:10:29

there was an interim CEO that, that, helped form the authority.

Adam Barth: 00:10:33

Okay.

Adam Barth: 00:10:33

And, he, retired after about six months or so.

Adam Barth: 00:10:36

And, and, I applied and obviously I've been part of the system now for so long.

Adam Barth: 00:10:40

The Modesto system was the bigger one of the two systems that were merged.

Adam Barth: 00:10:44

so I, had the experience over several years in the Modesto

Adam Barth: 00:10:46

area and being, a local guy too.

Adam Barth: 00:10:49

I was born and raised here in the Modesto area.

Adam Barth: 00:10:50

So it was nice to leave Alaska and kind of just come back,

Paul Comfort: 00:10:54

come back home.

Paul Comfort: 00:10:54

Yeah.

Paul Comfort: 00:10:54

And who's your operator?

Paul Comfort: 00:10:55

You said you outsourced to a third party.

Paul Comfort: 00:10:58

transdev is our third party.

Paul Comfort: 00:10:59

Okay.

Paul Comfort: 00:11:00

Yep.

Paul Comfort: 00:11:00

so you've made some decisions along the way, right?

Paul Comfort: 00:11:03

So what they might say, the good, bad, and the ugly, since you're in California,

Paul Comfort: 00:11:07

we'll use the lines from a movie, right?

Paul Comfort: 00:11:08

A Clint Eastwood movie.

Paul Comfort: 00:11:09

so tell me about some of the decisions you've made and, you know, we've

Paul Comfort: 00:11:13

kind of broached this topic already, but what have you learned from them

Paul Comfort: 00:11:16

and what would you do differently?

Adam Barth: 00:11:17

I think as part of the consolidation of the two transit systems,

Adam Barth: 00:11:21

that was an area that we could have done things a little bit differently.

Adam Barth: 00:11:25

It was a little bumpy at first.

Adam Barth: 00:11:27

So we set a date.

Adam Barth: 00:11:29

It was January 1st of 2022 when we were really going to combine the systems

Adam Barth: 00:11:35

under one operator, but it also involved new vehicles and new technology at

Adam Barth: 00:11:40

the same time for different reasons.

Adam Barth: 00:11:44

and I think.

Adam Barth: 00:11:45

To start a new operator with a consolidated system with new vehicles and

Adam Barth: 00:11:49

new technology all on the same day was a decision that we probably should have,

Adam Barth: 00:11:54

you know, maybe taken a different look at and, with it, it was bumpy at first,

Adam Barth: 00:11:58

for sure it's definitely since, smoothed out and we're operating fine today, but

Adam Barth: 00:12:02

I think that was one of the, it was a decision that we could have made, made

Adam Barth: 00:12:05

differently to try to ease in the changes.

Paul Comfort: 00:12:08

Oh, too many things at one time, you mean?

Adam Barth: 00:12:10

too many things at one time, right?

Adam Barth: 00:12:11

And just do things incrementally, I think is the lesson learned from that.

Adam Barth: 00:12:15

Do things a little bit at a time, not everything all at once.

Adam Barth: 00:12:18

Right,

Paul Comfort: 00:12:18

right.

Paul Comfort: 00:12:18

And you're probably thinking you're all excited, right?

Paul Comfort: 00:12:21

We're going to get all this change and then you have one

Paul Comfort: 00:12:23

point of failure and it can ripple effect into other things, right?

Adam Barth: 00:12:27

Right, exactly.

Adam Barth: 00:12:28

Exactly.

Adam Barth: 00:12:28

If you know, you have new vehicles or maybe new technology, it takes time for

Adam Barth: 00:12:33

drivers or for dispatchers to learn that how it works and learn the kinks with

Adam Barth: 00:12:37

it and smooth out all those wrinkles.

Adam Barth: 00:12:39

It takes some time to make that happen.

Adam Barth: 00:12:41

And I think doing it, more, An incremental approach would be

Adam Barth: 00:12:44

done, would be a little bit better.

Paul Comfort: 00:12:45

so a big challenge, making transit easier in your region.

Paul Comfort: 00:12:49

And it sounds like you've done that.

Paul Comfort: 00:12:50

I mean, kudos, I guess, is what I want to say to the leaders of

Paul Comfort: 00:12:55

your county and city for seeing an opportunity for consolidation.

Paul Comfort: 00:12:59

Have they seen a reduction in overall cost as a result of the consolidation?

Adam Barth: 00:13:04

I think we've seen a little bit in the 1st year.

Adam Barth: 00:13:06

We did some analysis.

Adam Barth: 00:13:08

I think we did see a reduction in cost for administrative staff that, you

Adam Barth: 00:13:13

know, we had staff that came in over from Modesto and some from the county.

Adam Barth: 00:13:17

Not everyone came over as part of the consolidation, but there were some,

Adam Barth: 00:13:20

some savings there in staffing as.

Adam Barth: 00:13:23

You know, you would think that, you know, two agencies, you're going to have

Adam Barth: 00:13:25

some overlap in what some people do.

Adam Barth: 00:13:27

And so you have some overlap and obviously wouldn't need everybody

Adam Barth: 00:13:30

to do those same things twice.

Paul Comfort: 00:13:33

Any other changes you have planned that you'd like to talk

Paul Comfort: 00:13:35

about or improvements to your system?

Adam Barth: 00:13:37

You know, I think bus rapid transit is our next big thing as well

Adam Barth: 00:13:40

that we want to do here in Modesto area.

Adam Barth: 00:13:42

We have an idea for the route it should go on and we want to go down and we

Adam Barth: 00:13:46

want to go down that road as I think we've seen, you know, time and again

Adam Barth: 00:13:49

in other places how you implement a BRT system and more people are on the

Adam Barth: 00:13:53

bus are on the buses, which is great.

Adam Barth: 00:13:55

BRT has so many good things about it that we hope it could emulate

Adam Barth: 00:13:58

on any bus route to get more buses out there because frequency is.

Adam Barth: 00:14:03

The more buses you have on the route, the easier it is to ride, and that's

Adam Barth: 00:14:06

where I'd like to get to, and so getting BRT in some areas I think

Adam Barth: 00:14:10

would be awesome for Modesto, and so that's the next big thing as we work

Adam Barth: 00:14:14

forward with the new facility as well.

Paul Comfort: 00:14:17

I love that, Adam.

Paul Comfort: 00:14:17

I'm a big fan of BRT as well.

Paul Comfort: 00:14:20

I was in Latin America this year and saw in Brazil and other

Paul Comfort: 00:14:23

places how they are using it.

Paul Comfort: 00:14:26

in a big way, and you know, what they said, and what I've heard other people

Paul Comfort: 00:14:29

say is, you know, it's great to try to bring in a new light rail line or

Paul Comfort: 00:14:33

a new heavy rail line, but the cost is so high, and once you lay down the

Paul Comfort: 00:14:37

route, there's no changing it, and BRT, you know, is an answer to that, right?

Paul Comfort: 00:14:42

Because you lay it down, it's quicker, it's less costly, especially

Paul Comfort: 00:14:47

in this era of fiscal cliffs that everybody's talking about, while

Paul Comfort: 00:14:50

we still want to expand service.

Paul Comfort: 00:14:51

For it seems to me to be kind of like a golden solution in many ways.

Adam Barth: 00:14:55

Yeah, no, I agree.

Adam Barth: 00:14:56

I agree.

Adam Barth: 00:14:56

I think it's the right thing to do is get more, is you get more people

Adam Barth: 00:15:00

on the bus and have a nice, nice, nice frequent bus route to get

Adam Barth: 00:15:03

people going as fast as they can.

Paul Comfort: 00:15:05

Another kind of big, big ticket item that's happening now when

Paul Comfort: 00:15:08

you talk about, you know, a lot of changes coming to the industry all at

Paul Comfort: 00:15:10

once is the move, and I think California has taken the lead here in the U.

Paul Comfort: 00:15:14

S.

Paul Comfort: 00:15:14

on moving towards zero emission buses.

Paul Comfort: 00:15:17

Talk to us about that some.

Adam Barth: 00:15:18

Yeah, so we actually have five zero emission buses in the fleet

Adam Barth: 00:15:21

today, and they're working fine.

Adam Barth: 00:15:23

the, we do have some range issues as you, as I think that's a common, issue that you

Adam Barth: 00:15:26

find with battery electric buses in the.

Adam Barth: 00:15:28

In the industry today, some range issues with those buses.

Adam Barth: 00:15:31

We, Modesto bought them in 2018.

Adam Barth: 00:15:33

So we've had them for 5 years or so now, which is fine, but we know

Adam Barth: 00:15:36

that we need to move to a full fleet, zero emission bus fleet.

Adam Barth: 00:15:41

And so that's going to take a little bit more space for us.

Adam Barth: 00:15:45

Our current shop is at capacity.

Adam Barth: 00:15:46

We're at capacity.

Adam Barth: 00:15:47

We don't have any more room for additional bus chargers or hydrogen equipment.

Adam Barth: 00:15:52

And so right now we're in the very preliminary stages of going and

Adam Barth: 00:15:56

getting a new, bigger facility.

Adam Barth: 00:15:58

So, to be able to accommodate growth, because one thing we want to expand

Adam Barth: 00:16:01

our system, we have room to expand.

Adam Barth: 00:16:03

We want to expand our route system.

Adam Barth: 00:16:06

So that means more buses, more drivers, more staff, obviously,

Adam Barth: 00:16:09

but we need to more space too for the zero emission infrastructure.

Adam Barth: 00:16:13

So whether it be hydrogen or battery electric, We need more space for that.

Adam Barth: 00:16:17

And so we're in the process now to get a new facility to

Adam Barth: 00:16:20

accommodate both of those items.

Adam Barth: 00:16:22

And so we're, we have some funds now to start the land acquisition

Adam Barth: 00:16:25

and design of that facility.

Adam Barth: 00:16:27

And California has some other funds to help us to move forward with next steps.

Adam Barth: 00:16:31

So with the next stages of construction, after we get that done, so it's a

Adam Barth: 00:16:35

great time to be here and here in Stanislaus County as we're looking as

Adam Barth: 00:16:38

we're looking forward for expansion and improvement of the public transit system.

Adam Barth: 00:16:42

And it's super exciting to be a part of.

Paul Comfort: 00:16:43

Now, is the new facility going?

Paul Comfort: 00:16:45

Are you gonna move everything over there or are you just gonna open a facility?

Paul Comfort: 00:16:48

So you'll have two?

Adam Barth: 00:16:49

We'll move everything over.

Adam Barth: 00:16:50

so the admin, the administration staff is in an office ju just downtown.

Adam Barth: 00:16:54

So we're, we are removed from our downtown, transit center where the

Adam Barth: 00:16:57

main hub of activity is at, obviously.

Adam Barth: 00:16:59

And that's even re removed from where the shop is at.

Adam Barth: 00:17:01

So, getting us all under one roof will be great.

Adam Barth: 00:17:04

We'll have some more synergies with staff on both maintenance and

Adam Barth: 00:17:07

operations and bring everybody together.

Adam Barth: 00:17:08

To make us even better than we are today.

Paul Comfort: 00:17:11

You mentioned hydrogen, just in passing, let's unpack that a

Paul Comfort: 00:17:14

little bit where you're at on that.

Paul Comfort: 00:17:15

As I mentioned, I was just in Edmonton, where they and Strathcona, which

Paul Comfort: 00:17:19

is right next to it, they have the first two hydrogen powered buses

Paul Comfort: 00:17:22

in Canada in regular route service.

Paul Comfort: 00:17:25

Tell us about what your experience has been and where you're at on that

Paul Comfort: 00:17:27

right now when it comes to hydrogen.

Adam Barth: 00:17:29

we're pretty sure that hydrogen is the way,

Adam Barth: 00:17:30

hydrogen is the way we want to go, with our zero mission fleet.

Adam Barth: 00:17:33

we don't have any fleet yet, but we know that we'd like to go down

Adam Barth: 00:17:36

that road for the same reason that you just mentioned the range.

Adam Barth: 00:17:39

as you can get three, 300 miles on a tank of hydrogen, right?

Adam Barth: 00:17:42

And we have some routes that are, you know, go out into the

Adam Barth: 00:17:44

county where they're going.

Adam Barth: 00:17:45

300 miles on a day.

Adam Barth: 00:17:47

Okay.

Adam Barth: 00:17:47

And so it's important for us to have that range as well.

Adam Barth: 00:17:49

Obviously we have other routes in Modesto that don't go, that don't need that type

Adam Barth: 00:17:52

of range, but, having a nice fleet that's consistent throughout the whole fleet

Adam Barth: 00:17:55

that's why we're going with hydrogen.

Adam Barth: 00:17:57

And, but we still are in the process of figuring out how to move forward

Adam Barth: 00:18:00

with the infrastructure for fueling.

Adam Barth: 00:18:02

There's no commercial sites here in the Modesto area that we could tap into.

Adam Barth: 00:18:06

So it'd be creating our own fueling.

Adam Barth: 00:18:09

In infrastructure at our new shop that we're going to build

Adam Barth: 00:18:12

and then start down that road of purchasing the hydrogen buses.

Paul Comfort: 00:18:16

Well, you all have some great examples there, right?

Paul Comfort: 00:18:18

Like down where Lauren Skiver used to head up in Sunline Transit, where she built

Paul Comfort: 00:18:23

her own hydrogen plant and has this has a zero emission center of excellence.

Paul Comfort: 00:18:26

And then you've got, you know, just south of L.

Paul Comfort: 00:18:29

A.

Paul Comfort: 00:18:29

right Foothills moving toward hydrogen fuel.

Paul Comfort: 00:18:32

So you've got good, I guess, partners you could talk to about how to make it work.

Adam Barth: 00:18:37

Right.

Adam Barth: 00:18:37

Yeah, exactly.

Adam Barth: 00:18:38

I know every transit system in the state is under that same

Adam Barth: 00:18:40

mandate to go to zero emission.

Adam Barth: 00:18:43

And so we are all in good company here and we're all going to learn from each

Adam Barth: 00:18:47

other on how to best move forward.

Paul Comfort: 00:18:49

Yeah, we're actually going to do, I think as a time we're recording

Paul Comfort: 00:18:52

this, we're planning to do it the week after your show is an episode of Transit

Paul Comfort: 00:18:56

Unplugged, the podcast on bus shortages and what in the world is happening in our

Paul Comfort: 00:19:02

industry right now where we have billions of dollars coming out of Washington to

Paul Comfort: 00:19:05

purchase zero emission buses and two of the manufacturers just had major issues.

Paul Comfort: 00:19:10

One pulled completely out of the market.

Paul Comfort: 00:19:12

we just did a show at the end of the year with Paul Skoutelas the CEO

Paul Comfort: 00:19:15

of APTA, where he talks about that.

Paul Comfort: 00:19:16

And now APTA has a committee now focused just on that.

Paul Comfort: 00:19:19

And then, of course, Proterra going bankrupt and them now being,

Paul Comfort: 00:19:23

an acquisition sale from another company, but there's big concerns

Paul Comfort: 00:19:26

about the backlog of buses.

Paul Comfort: 00:19:29

and what are you hearing on the hydrogen side?

Paul Comfort: 00:19:30

I know there's a hydrogen council.

Paul Comfort: 00:19:32

We're going to have them back on for a 2nd show coming soon.

Paul Comfort: 00:19:35

Any thoughts on that?

Adam Barth: 00:19:36

Yeah, no, it's a concern for sure.

Adam Barth: 00:19:38

I think with either way you go with the battery electric or hydrogen, I think,

Adam Barth: 00:19:41

you know, if you were to make an order today, they're a couple of years out.

Adam Barth: 00:19:44

And so you have some time to figure out the.

Adam Barth: 00:19:45

Yeah.

Adam Barth: 00:19:46

fueling piece because that's a key piece and that's something that I was,

Adam Barth: 00:19:49

I mean, intentional with as well that we don't want to order our buses until

Adam Barth: 00:19:52

we know how we're going to fuel them.

Adam Barth: 00:19:54

And, we, and you want to be sure you go, you go down the road, make sure you take

Adam Barth: 00:19:57

it slow and you do it the right way.

Adam Barth: 00:19:59

So you don't have buses here without any way to fuel them or

Adam Barth: 00:20:02

the fuel infrastructure without any buses to, you know, to fuel them.

Adam Barth: 00:20:04

So, so definitely you want to take it slow and do it the right way.

Paul Comfort: 00:20:08

Well, Adam Barth thank you so much for being our guest today.

Paul Comfort: 00:20:10

Any final thoughts you want to share with us on anything else?

Adam Barth: 00:20:13

You know one last thing if I could just a quick story about

Adam Barth: 00:20:16

the, about all the new routes that we, I implemented about, nine months ago.

Adam Barth: 00:20:20

I, the routes were implemented for about a month or so, and I'm like, I

Adam Barth: 00:20:23

really wanna go ride this one route.

Adam Barth: 00:20:25

'cause it was a big, it was a big change to it.

Adam Barth: 00:20:27

And so I went out there.

Adam Barth: 00:20:28

I didn't know the driver, I didn't introduce myself.

Adam Barth: 00:20:30

I just got on the bus to see how it was going.

Adam Barth: 00:20:31

I wanted to check the timing, see how many people were on the

Adam Barth: 00:20:33

bus and I was on the route and.

Adam Barth: 00:20:36

I was in the back and I heard some folks behind me talk about,

Adam Barth: 00:20:39

they didn't know who I was.

Adam Barth: 00:20:40

Hey, this route is so much better now because it goes bi directionally.

Adam Barth: 00:20:43

I can get to and from to and from my son's school really quickly.

Adam Barth: 00:20:47

I can get to the store.

Adam Barth: 00:20:48

I'm like, oh, and this is great.

Adam Barth: 00:20:49

I'm like, oh, we got this route right.

Adam Barth: 00:20:50

And it's so nice to hear those good stories about how we can get

Adam Barth: 00:20:53

it right sometimes and really make a difference in people's lives.

Paul Comfort: 00:20:56

It's a great story, Adam, and it just speaks to the fact

Paul Comfort: 00:20:59

that we really don't know what the customers think unless they tell us,

Paul Comfort: 00:21:03

and we can't hear them unless we're with them, and we're not with them

Paul Comfort: 00:21:07

unless we're riding the freaking bus!

Paul Comfort: 00:21:09

That's right.

Paul Comfort: 00:21:10

You've got to get on the bus if you're a leader in your transit system.

Paul Comfort: 00:21:13

You can't manage from behind your desk or by an email screen, right?

Adam Barth: 00:21:17

You got that right, yep.

Adam Barth: 00:21:18

Yeah, 100 percent right there.

Paul Comfort: 00:21:20

Yeah, and people look to, leaders of transit systems to

Paul Comfort: 00:21:24

be consumers of that service, right?

Paul Comfort: 00:21:25

They want to see them, I know my friend, who leads the

Paul Comfort: 00:21:28

system here in Washington, D.

Paul Comfort: 00:21:29

C., Randy Clarke, who came from Austin, Texas, and now

Paul Comfort: 00:21:33

has been here for over a year.

Paul Comfort: 00:21:34

I had him on the show, the podcast again recently, and he rides every day.

Paul Comfort: 00:21:38

And so many transit leaders are saying, you know, that they are, giving up

Paul Comfort: 00:21:41

their car or at least not using their car to get to work, and they're riding

Paul Comfort: 00:21:45

whenever possible and they're a face.

Paul Comfort: 00:21:48

So your job as a CEO of a transit system isn't just to be the chief executive

Paul Comfort: 00:21:53

officer, it might also be, you know, to be the chief customer officer in

Paul Comfort: 00:21:56

a sense, and to be out there with the customers, like Andy Biford taught us,

Paul Comfort: 00:22:01

why he got his name of Train Daddy in New York, because people love seeing him,

Paul Comfort: 00:22:05

he wore his badge, he wasn't embarrassed to be out there, you know, proudly

Paul Comfort: 00:22:08

standing for his system and receiving the input directly from the passengers.

Paul Comfort: 00:22:12

What do you think about that as, you know, as an important part

Paul Comfort: 00:22:15

of your job as a chief executive?

Adam Barth: 00:22:17

Yeah, I think all CEOs and I think other members of the team should

Adam Barth: 00:22:20

all be on the buses to know what know what the product is and know what's out there

Adam Barth: 00:22:24

and use it yourself personally as well.

Adam Barth: 00:22:26

I, on occasion, do ride the bus into work as well.

Adam Barth: 00:22:29

not every day, but that definitely is there.

Adam Barth: 00:22:30

And definitely, I appreciate that access that I have to get in

Adam Barth: 00:22:33

to get into work and to see it.

Adam Barth: 00:22:34

But definitely, it's definitely the way to go.

Adam Barth: 00:22:36

And that CEO and everybody, I think, in the transit industry

Adam Barth: 00:22:39

needs to be right riding the system.

Paul Comfort: 00:22:41

I would agree, you know, it's one of the things, this is my last

Paul Comfort: 00:22:43

comment on it, but one of the things I implemented when I was in Baltimore,

Paul Comfort: 00:22:46

the CEO was, we had a new employee orientation, you know, for a couple

Paul Comfort: 00:22:50

weeks that employees would, any new employee that would join the agency,

Paul Comfort: 00:22:53

whether they were in HR, finance, IT, procurement, legal, you know,

Paul Comfort: 00:22:57

operations, maintenance, whatever, they would go through this week long

Paul Comfort: 00:23:00

class, and then it was longer for some.

Paul Comfort: 00:23:01

And I was shocked to see that it did not include a ride on the system.

Paul Comfort: 00:23:06

And, And because so many people that work in large transit agencies, especially

Paul Comfort: 00:23:10

even midsize agencies, I think can go for years and never ride the system.

Paul Comfort: 00:23:15

And so I made changes.

Paul Comfort: 00:23:16

I directed them to, add a full day on Friday at the end of the week, a fun day.

Paul Comfort: 00:23:21

To go out and visit some of the garages, so we visited a bus garage, a light rail

Paul Comfort: 00:23:25

garage, and the subway system garage, and we rode a bus to do it, and so they could

Paul Comfort: 00:23:30

see what it's like, they could go see the facilities, and it was so heartwarming

Paul Comfort: 00:23:34

to me to hear comments back from people that went through it and said, it was

Paul Comfort: 00:23:37

such an enjoyable day, I might never have

Paul Comfort: 00:23:39

Even gotten out of my administrative office, like you mentioned a minute ago,

Paul Comfort: 00:23:42

your offices are in the city offices, downtown, not like at the operations,

Paul Comfort: 00:23:46

a lot of places are like that, and they never get an opportunity because

Paul Comfort: 00:23:49

you get, you know, overwhelmed, right?

Paul Comfort: 00:23:51

You're up to your neck in alligators, so to speak, once you

Paul Comfort: 00:23:53

get in the job and you're doing, and you never get out to see.

Paul Comfort: 00:23:56

So at least once for heaven's sake, that's our message for today, right?

Paul Comfort: 00:24:01

And more often, hopefully..

Adam Barth: 00:24:03

Yes, definitely.

Adam Barth: 00:24:04

I agree with you there, Paul.

Paul Comfort: 00:24:05

Yep.

Paul Comfort: 00:24:05

Adam Barth, CEO of Stanislaus Regional Transit Authority.

Paul Comfort: 00:24:08

Sounds like you're doing great things and you've shared with us some great lessons

Paul Comfort: 00:24:12

for people in the industry that we can continue to, even if we make mistakes,

Paul Comfort: 00:24:15

to learn from them and grow from them.

Paul Comfort: 00:24:17

and you know, take ownership for our mistakes and then, learn and grow

Paul Comfort: 00:24:21

and put into place practices that, so that one isn't too expensive and

Paul Comfort: 00:24:24

so you learn from it for the future.

Paul Comfort: 00:24:26

We hope to, see you again at a conference upcoming, Adam.

Adam Barth: 00:24:29

Thank you, Paul.

Adam Barth: 00:24:29

Appreciate it.

Paul Comfort: 00:24:32

Hey, are you a member of the C suite or a senior executive manager of

Paul Comfort: 00:24:36

a public transit agency in North America?

Paul Comfort: 00:24:38

Well, for you, I'm excited to announce the return of the Think

Paul Comfort: 00:24:41

Transit Conference Executive Summit.

Paul Comfort: 00:24:43

This is an all day event that I helped curate with our team, just for the

Paul Comfort: 00:24:46

C suite of public transit agencies.

Paul Comfort: 00:24:48

Here, top leaders share best practices and solve challenges affecting our industry.

Paul Comfort: 00:24:53

This year's event will be held on Monday, March 25th 2024.

Paul Comfort: 00:25:05

In Tucson, AZ at the JW Marriott Starpass on the first day of

Paul Comfort: 00:25:06

the ThinkTransit Conference sponsored by Trapeze and Vontas.

Paul Comfort: 00:25:07

This year's exclusive summit offers multiple presentations from

Paul Comfort: 00:25:10

your fellow transit executives with two exciting panels.

Paul Comfort: 00:25:13

We'll have one panel with chief innovation officers of public transit agencies

Paul Comfort: 00:25:18

and another panel with chief operating officers of leading transit systems

Paul Comfort: 00:25:22

addressing the latest transit innovations and operations challenges and solutions.

Paul Comfort: 00:25:26

We'll also host two roundtable discussions workshopping very real

Paul Comfort: 00:25:30

and relevant transit industry hot topics, like increasing ridership

Paul Comfort: 00:25:33

and revenue, and addressing crime and the unhoused on transit.

Paul Comfort: 00:25:37

Then stick around for a very special dinner excursion on Monday

Paul Comfort: 00:25:40

night for summit participants.

Paul Comfort: 00:25:42

All this for only $149 plus you have access to the entire

Paul Comfort: 00:25:46

Think Transit conference.

Paul Comfort: 00:25:47

To find out more, visit www.

Paul Comfort: 00:25:49

trapezegroup.

Paul Comfort: 00:25:51

com forward slash Think Transit forward slash Executive Summit.

Paul Comfort: 00:25:55

More details are available there and you can register or send me

Paul Comfort: 00:25:59

a note if you have any questions.

Paul Comfort: 00:26:00

I consider this a highlight of the year and hope you can join me there.

Tris Hussey: 00:26:07

Hi, this is Tris Hussey editor of the transit unplugged podcast.

Tris Hussey: 00:26:10

And thank you for listening to this week's episode with our special guest Adam Barth.

Tris Hussey: 00:26:14

Now coming up next week on the show, we have a special, hot

Tris Hussey: 00:26:17

topic panel on bus shortages.

Tris Hussey: 00:26:20

We just can't get enough buses built fast enough to meet the

Tris Hussey: 00:26:23

needs of the transit industry.

Tris Hussey: 00:26:25

Paul talks with Ed Redfern and Joel Rubin of the bus coalition.

Tris Hussey: 00:26:29

And Julia Castillo and Brooke Ramsay of HIRTA and we get an industry

Tris Hussey: 00:26:33

perspective from Patrick Scully.

Tris Hussey: 00:26:35

Hope you join us for this very special episode.

Tris Hussey: 00:26:38

And we hope to have more of these hot topic panels throughout the year.

Tris Hussey: 00:26:41

Did you know, transit unplugged has a brand new newsletter.

Tris Hussey: 00:26:45

We do.

Tris Hussey: 00:26:46

And it's looking great.

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Head over to Transit Unplugged.com to sign up.

Tris Hussey: 00:26:51

So you always know what's going on with the podcast, the TV show.

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And get a chance to catch up on episodes.

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You might've missed.

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If you have a question comment, or like to be a guest on the show, feel free to email

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So until next week, ride safe and ride happy.