Episode 17
A Lifetime in the Business of Moving People with Tom Drozt
After decades at transit agencies across the U.S., Tom Drozt decided at 56 to retire, spend time with his family, work on his yard, and find some new passions to put his energy into. Turns out transit is his passion, so before long he was out of retirement and at MARTA in Atlanta running bus operations. Now the CEO of Ben Franklin Transit in Southern Washington State, Tom is leading the agency with his people-first leadership style and helping people choose transit over cars.
Coming up next week we have Stephen Gardner, CEO of Amtrak, talking with Paul about the historic investments Amtrak is making to bring rail travel to the fore in the U.S.
And don’t forget to have your say in our Transit Unplugged listener survey. Just visit https://transitunplugged.com/survey/ to complete the short survey.
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:05 Interview with Tom Drozt, CEO of Ben Franklin Transit
00:23 Tom's Background and Early Career
03:13 Career Challenges and Transitions
07:50 Joining Ben Franklin Transit
17:20 Current Initiatives and Projects
21:43 Leadership Philosophy and Future Vision
24:52 Conclusion and thank you
25:07 Coming up next week on Transit Unplugged
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the guests, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Modaxo Inc., its affiliates or subsidiaries, or any entities they represent (“Modaxo”). This production belongs to Modaxo, and may contain information that may be subject to trademark, copyright, or other intellectual property rights and restrictions. This production provides general information, and should not be relied on as legal advice or opinion. Modaxo specifically disclaims all warranties, express or implied, and will not be liable for any losses, claims, or damages arising from the use of this presentation, from any material contained in it, or from any action or decision taken in response to it.
Transcript
Great to have my good friend Tom Drozt on the show with us today.
Speaker:Tom, thanks for being a part of the program.
Speaker:Hey, good afternoon, Paul, and thanks for having me.
Speaker:I really appreciate it.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Tom, you are, you are on my LinkedIn profile.
Speaker:You're the, you're the preeminent, comment when you commented
Speaker:about us working together.
Speaker:Tell people about our background together.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:So, Paul, I first met you back in Baltimore when there was that big
Speaker:changeover from Democrats and Republicans, and Hogan came in, and we got a new CEO,
Speaker:and what I remember the most, I mean, outside of the Jonas Snowstorm, we can
Speaker:get into that, but was that, hey, you know what, we're going to make some
Speaker:changes around here, this is a public agency, and we're going to do things a
Speaker:little bit different, and you know what, anybody who has a position of authority
Speaker:needs to start making some decisions and we need to start making some change.
Speaker:We're going to make it now.
Speaker:That's what I felt.
Speaker:I could feel the difference.
Speaker:Yeah, that's great.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:That's the way I am.
Speaker:And Tom, I'm so happy for you now as CEO of Ben Franklin Transit.
Speaker:They're the storied transit system in Washington State, southern Washington.
Speaker:your background, you've had, my, let's, let's circle around this memory.
Speaker:My recollection of you, Tom, is that, you were committed to excellence at the MTA.
Speaker:I mean, you were living still, I think, out West somewhere and, you know, going
Speaker:home once a, once a month, maybe for a long weekend and being my director
Speaker:of bus operations, we had one of the largest bus operations in America.
Speaker:It's 750 buses.
Speaker:We actually rebooted the entire network and you and I went
Speaker:through some big storms together.
Speaker:and, you were, you know, Mr. 24/7, always there.
Speaker:And I always told you, I don't know if you remember this, but I
Speaker:always said, Tom, you're bigger, you've, your mind is a CEO mind.
Speaker:You think bigger than just day to day operations.
Speaker:You think the whole thing.
Speaker:And so, you've been around the country in several bus
Speaker:operations, running them directly.
Speaker:So I'm so happy you finally got to the CEO seat.
Speaker:Yeah, no thanks Paul.
Speaker:And you know what?
Speaker:I actually do remember that . And so we were in the Washington, facility,
Speaker:or they call it the Washington Yard.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we were walking down the corridor when we were having that, discussion.
Speaker:And I know it was just, it was a little bit after you got there and everything.
Speaker:And I, and I could tell that you took everything in real fast and, I mean, you,
Speaker:you, I mean, you hit a lot of the staff.
Speaker:Got the information and then you were able to go ahead and diagnose it and,
Speaker:you know, give your comments back.
Speaker:And, and that's when I knew, that's when I knew that we were going
Speaker:to make some big changes and, you know, for Baltimore MTA and such.
Speaker:And we did, you know, I mean, it's the proof's in the pudding and also that,
Speaker:you know, you know, in your career, Paul, there's just different things that happen,
Speaker:you know, just, you know, out of the blue that are turning points in your career
Speaker:and just kind of open up your mind as such, and definitely for me, that was one
Speaker:of them, without a doubt, and that was probably the start of really taking that
Speaker:transit private model and intertwining it with the, you know, public agency,
Speaker:you know, government model of transit.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then, after I left, what did you do?
Speaker:Tell us about your career path and how you ended up there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, so, so after, after I left Baltimore, I went back
Speaker:to, I took a job in San Joaquin.
Speaker:I wanted to get back to the West Coast, for, you know, lessen the
Speaker:travel And I went to San Joaquin to be the Chief Operating Officer.
Speaker:It was definitely a smaller agency And I was only there for a short time, before,
Speaker:you know, I learned that, my, my wife developed cancer And so, in order to,
Speaker:you know, once we found out, I ended up leaving my job in San Joaquin and
Speaker:stayed home in Phoenix and took care of my family matters and, and so forth.
Speaker:And, and after that, what happened was, when I was ready to get back in
Speaker:the saddle I ended up taking a job with First Transit as the Assistant
Speaker:General Manager there in Tempe, Arizona.
Speaker:My home is Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker:And, and again, pretty decent sized agency, 600 bus
Speaker:operators, you know, 350 buses
Speaker:And, you know, just, you know, trying to work the magic there and, you
Speaker:know, conquer all the challenges that any transit agency has.
Speaker:And, uh, from there First Transit had a contract in, in L. A. that, we were
Speaker:kind of struggling at, and they asked me to go out to LA and see if we can't,
Speaker:you know, get some, you know, just take that contract and, you know, bring
Speaker:it alive and get it back, you know, rolling and, you know, on the right foot
Speaker:So I was out there for about a year.
Speaker:We did end up losing the contract to MV.
Speaker:but what MV did was they said, Hey, Tom, can you stay on and be the
Speaker:General Manager here and, and so forth.
Speaker:And, and I, and I did.
Speaker:And I was, out at the Carson location, working for MV, one
Speaker:of the LA Metro properties.
Speaker:We ended up turning the division around.
Speaker:Related to finances and KPIs, our performance went from, you know,
Speaker:it was rough to we're hitting, you know, eight of nine KPIs every
Speaker:month and did really well there.
Speaker:And then after, after my Carson stint, I got it to the point where
Speaker:it was all turnkey and everything.
Speaker:And I always had this dream of, 55 and out, you know, right?
Speaker:Hey, let's, let's retire.
Speaker:So at that point, I was actually 56, you know, when that happened, I said,
Speaker:you know, I think I'm going to retire.
Speaker:And family's okay and everything and kind of went back home and, kind
Speaker:of, just kind of did all the house stuff and everything like that.
Speaker:My wife's still working and, what happened there about a year went by,
Speaker:you know, I get the best yard and the neighborhood and all one thing I
Speaker:didn't think through was that at that age, Everybody's still going to work.
Speaker:So I was kind of home alone, and so it kind of got a little boring all
Speaker:my, all my friends, they're still working So, you know, so there was a
Speaker:little disconnect for myself there.
Speaker:And, but, but it gave me a chance to just reevaluate myself, my life, where am I
Speaker:going, what should I do with my career?
Speaker:Of course, I've always kept up with all the transit publications So I kind of
Speaker:read what's going on and everything.
Speaker:And out of the blue, a recruiter called me and said, Hey, I got this one client and
Speaker:they're looking for somebody, you know, to, head up their operations division.
Speaker:And you have a lot of skills and experience related to it.
Speaker:Would you be interested?
Speaker:And of course I said, I'll always be interested in listening and, you know,
Speaker:and so I did and everything like that.
Speaker:And she didn't quite tell me who it was.
Speaker:And she said they were kind of far along in the process
Speaker:and the recruitment process.
Speaker:And, but she, she thought that would be a really good fit.
Speaker:she went back to the client, which happened to be MARTA.
Speaker:And
Speaker:In Atlanta, the transit system in Atlanta.
Speaker:Yep, exactly.
Speaker:she, she went back to them and said, hey, I got this one guy,
Speaker:Tom Drozt think he'd really fit well with you all and everything.
Speaker:And, and so they, they agreed to, uh, you know, give me a,
Speaker:give me, give me an interview
Speaker:And so, so we did and went there and, went through that process.
Speaker:And next thing you know, it's, I'm in Atlanta, right?
Speaker:And Atlanta is a huge, huge animal.
Speaker:I felt like I was back in Baltimore but, but there was definitely a difference.
Speaker:I felt Atlanta had, great bones and, uh, just need the right different
Speaker:players, but had a lot of things going on
Speaker:And so I hung out in Atlanta for a little bit, before, you know,
Speaker:this opportunity had Ben Franklin came up to be the, the CEO.
Speaker:So at MARTA, I was a deputy, deputy chief of bus operations there.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And so
Speaker:I remember we had
Speaker:multiple conversations.
Speaker:You were filling me in and it was a big operation.
Speaker:And, I think you were making some real progress there.
Speaker:Yep, yep, we certainly, I mean, a lot of projects going on.
Speaker:A lot of movement, without a doubt, and, uh, I think even if I, I read today,
Speaker:they hit a couple of milestones with
Speaker:Yeah, congratulations to Collie and the team there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Absolutely, and, and they got their, their Rapid is gonna be,
Speaker:starting up here shortly and we were working on those plans.
Speaker:you know, just like everywhere, you know, manpower's somewhat of an issue, so that,
Speaker:takes a little bit of a draw on, you know, when you, when you're trying to
Speaker:progress but, yeah, so when I saw the Ben Franklin opportunity, you know, I just saw
Speaker:as, you know, another opportunity to go ahead and, you know, jump up a step and
Speaker:run an entire organization my, by myself on the, on the, on the government side.
Speaker:Yeah, I've
Speaker:done it on the private side.
Speaker:And so I jumped at the opportunity and here I'm at in Washington.
Speaker:And how long have you been there in this job?
Speaker:So I've been here seven months now.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:That's a great story, Tom.
Speaker:I mean, it's a great story of a yeoman's kind of career.
Speaker:And a lot of people in the, in our industry have a similar career of yours,
Speaker:where you have to move around in order to get these jobs, the bigger jobs.
Speaker:You can't always just stay in the same location, right?
Speaker:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:If you're eager and you want to move up and you also want to experience transit,
Speaker:as I'll say, as a whole, and you want to say as a whole, you know, on the
Speaker:private side of the agency side, from small operation to larger operation and
Speaker:everything in between, I have to say, there are things here, now that I'm at
Speaker:Ben Franklin, that I'm learning that one would think that, you would know
Speaker:already because, Tom you've been in transit 26 years and you've been, you
Speaker:know, kind of around the country, but transit here is a little bit different.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:it's that old saying, right?
Speaker:If you've seen one transit system, you've seen one transit system
Speaker:because they're all so different.
Speaker:thanks for sharing with us.
Speaker:I love, I love a great story like that of a career.
Speaker:Tell us some about your agency now, you know, kind of give
Speaker:us, scope it out for us.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:So, Ben Franklin is made up of approximately 420 employees.
Speaker:We have, three modes of transit.
Speaker:We have our fixed route, and our fleet size there is about 75, vehicles.
Speaker:We have our paratransit, and that fleet size is at 81 vehicles.
Speaker:And then we have our rideshare slash vanpool.
Speaker:And that fleet size is 200 vehicles.
Speaker:So, actually, rideshare is our largest mode.
Speaker:Oh, yeah,
Speaker:of transportation.
Speaker:We also have a microtransit, which we contract out, to help out with
Speaker:our first and last mile, challenges our budget is, close to 100 million
Speaker:dollars between operating and capital.
Speaker:Our, uh, ridership, overall ridership is, uh, just north of, uh, annually
Speaker:it's north of, uh, 3 million a year.
Speaker:And I, and I have to say that the, The lay of the land here in Tri Cities is you can
Speaker:get anywhere in a vehicle in 20 minutes.
Speaker:So in transit that's our biggest enemy.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:and why I say that Paul is because, well, because our competition is the cars.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:We want riders, but if we can't get you there, if it's taking, you know, what's an
Speaker:hour and 20 minutes to get you there on a route, but you can do it in 20 minutes in
Speaker:a car, you're going to opt for the car.
Speaker:So that's one of our biggest challenges here at Ben Franklin Transit.
Speaker:And you're located, just over the Oregon border, kind of in the central
Speaker:part of Washington State, right?
Speaker:Yep, absolutely.
Speaker:We're approximately 31 miles north of the Oregon border and
Speaker:we're three hours east of Seattle.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And what's your governing structure there?
Speaker:Do you work for a city government, do you have your own
Speaker:board, or how does that work?
Speaker:So we're our own authority.
Speaker:Yeah, I report out to a board of nine and that would consist of, you
Speaker:know, the different commissioners in Franklin County and Benton County
Speaker:and then the City of Pasco, City of Kennewick, and, City of Richland.
Speaker:A couple of those areas have, uh, two, two members as opposed to one.
Speaker:Okay, so you've got multiple jurisdictions which are funding the agency.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And how's, how's ridership, is it, you know, versus, I don't even want to say
Speaker:the word pre pandemic, but you know, how's ridership doing and how's finances doing?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know what, let me start off with finances.
Speaker:We just had an initiative, 21 17, a month ago or so, maybe it's been two
Speaker:months now, that they were trying to repeal one of the taxes but the
Speaker:voters overwhelmingly voted it down, so we didn't lose any funding there.
Speaker:Overall, from a funding standpoint, we're in pretty decent shape.
Speaker:I'll leave it at that.
Speaker:There's no hard challenges And from the ridership standpoint, I'll speak of,
Speaker:you know, COVID, post pandemic, right?
Speaker:And we've been on the growth pattern every single month, well,
Speaker:every single year, then every single month of that year as well.
Speaker:last year we, you know, hit the scales of that 3 million, and
Speaker:this year we're looking to hit 3.
Speaker:3, million.
Speaker:Our population overall in the Tri Cities is 300, 000 individuals.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:So, every month we're doing about, we're just doing about 300,000 a month
Speaker:in, in, in, in ridership, you know, to give some kind of perspective.
Speaker:And you operate all those services except for the microtransit
Speaker:with your own employees?
Speaker:Ye
Speaker:s, absolutely.
Speaker:Okay,
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:I love your vision, Tom.
Speaker:You know, when I was at MTA, I came up with the four cornerstones of safe,
Speaker:efficient, reliable, with world class customer service, and your vision
Speaker:is to build a transit system that's reliable, accessible, and future focused.
Speaker:Tell us about that.
Speaker:when we talk about the reliability, we're talking about two things here.
Speaker:two immediate things, right?
Speaker:The bus hall is showing up on time.
Speaker:And the bus, you know, the schedule that you put out, you match it, and that's
Speaker:the reliability piece, and that right there alone, right, is going to help us
Speaker:kind of, go ahead and, I'll call it, you know, defeat our enemy of the vehicles
Speaker:I keep bringing that up because that is truly the challenge that we have, and so
Speaker:we're looking at all of our routes to go ahead, and any of those routes that are in
Speaker:that hour, an hour and 10 minute window.
Speaker:how do we reduce that to about 40 to 45 minutes,
Speaker:The headways?
Speaker:Absolutely, you know, so, so that's huge in itself.
Speaker:And then the future I'll tell you, Paul, most of my career has been on
Speaker:the warm weather area and it definitely was a little chilly in Baltimore.
Speaker:Don't get me wrong.
Speaker:I do remember that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But our, our, our, our different amenities here, I'm focusing on our bus stops.
Speaker:We need four season bus stops here.
Speaker:You know, these people, here in Tri Cities, you know, they're
Speaker:very used to taking the bus and, you know, the bus stop is there.
Speaker:We don't have any heat lamps and we have certain, certain shelters, You
Speaker:know, aimed at certain ways just for the wind we need to put more
Speaker:heat lamps in our, bus shelters.
Speaker:I'm looking to really improve the passenger amenities here because that's
Speaker:where it really starts for the passenger.
Speaker:Yeah, including for the bus.
Speaker:So if you can make it, if you can put in amenities that, can go
Speaker:ahead and, you know, I'll say make it comfortable and comfortable in
Speaker:every way for the passenger, that's their first impression of transit.
Speaker:Once they get on the bus.
Speaker:You know, everybody's on their phone and get their 12 minutes on the bus, get to
Speaker:their place, and it all happens, you know.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:you know what else I love, Tom, is I've always loved your
Speaker:leadership philosophy and approach.
Speaker:Tell us about that some.
Speaker:I mean, you're, you're, when I remember us working together, for those
Speaker:few years, you were collaborative, transparent, you were forward thinking.
Speaker:Tell us about your approach to leadership.
Speaker:Yeah, so what I've learned over all the years of watching everybody watching, you
Speaker:know, good leaders, watching, challenged, leaders to me the first thing that comes
Speaker:to mind is the, the listening, you know, understanding the needs of employees,
Speaker:your riders, your stakeholders, before making any decision, I mean, absent
Speaker:of listening, you know, you're just flying by the seat of your pants making
Speaker:decisions that might not, you know, be in sync, with the area that you're in.
Speaker:And then another thing that it took me a little while to learn was, you know,
Speaker:empowering, empowering my team, lot of times I felt like, you know, I had to be
Speaker:the one to do it, you know, in order for it to get done and done the right way.
Speaker:but, you know, as a leader, you know, trusting your employees,
Speaker:to take the ownership, and to drive the solutions is key.
Speaker:If you try to do it alone, you're going to bottleneck, right?
Speaker:And slow down the entire, entire process.
Speaker:And then also, you know, being data driven, but being people focused as well.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:Yep, in combination is what you need, you know, using those metrics as only
Speaker:as a guide, you know, but without losing sight, you know, of your, of your
Speaker:passenger and not always your passenger, but your internal customers as well,
Speaker:you know, so that's very important as well, so, and then as we, as we all know,
Speaker:the only thing constant in transit is change, right, so adapting to change,
Speaker:whatever it may be, and whether it's the technology, whether it's a pandemic,
Speaker:whatever You know, whether it's, you know, you know, the different resources
Speaker:and assets that you have, being able to go ahead and take each one of those
Speaker:things and how to, how do you create a scenario, you know, to, you know, to your
Speaker:advantage, just overall in your system.
Speaker:So, you know, so ultimately, leadership is about, right, building a strong,
Speaker:motivated team, you know, that shares that same commitment to service excellence.
Speaker:Great philosophy.
Speaker:I think putting people first, and I know you guys are very focused on community
Speaker:engagement and workforce development, and you've, you're really focused on
Speaker:expanding transit access, leveraging technology and strengthening partnerships.
Speaker:But I wanna focus for a few minutes on your current initiatives and projects.
Speaker:you're working, you mentioned you're doing some bus stop upgrades.
Speaker:Tell us about, some of the other current key initiatives that you're
Speaker:working on with improving service enhancing infrastructure, getting
Speaker:things ready for the future there.
Speaker:Yes, without a doubt.
Speaker:So, we have a Director of Facilities, and as mentioned to Shane, I
Speaker:said, Shane, we need to put a brick in the ground this year.
Speaker:And what I'm referring to is a new Facilities Building for
Speaker:our Facilities Department.
Speaker:We have a phenomenal Facilities team, just like a lot of other agencies,
Speaker:and it's not just, you know, the, the, the administration building and
Speaker:the ops building, but it's all the transit centers, you know, it's all
Speaker:the, It's all the bus stops and being a four season, transit, agency, those
Speaker:individuals are, are key, you know, just to, you know, keeping everything
Speaker:up to snuff and things like that.
Speaker:So we're looking to build a new, facilities for them right now.
Speaker:They co share with Maintenance.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Trying to get that off.
Speaker:as you mentioned, our bus stop upgrades, which are huge.
Speaker:August of 2025, we will be getting our first express routes, you know,
Speaker:and so what's so important about that, of course, is while we'll still have
Speaker:the Route One, and the Route one is one of our heavier ridership, routes.
Speaker:it does take, you know, an hour and 15 minutes to go from end to end.
Speaker:So we'll have a one x. You know, with limited stops from end to end, so those
Speaker:individuals, you know, have that choice, to go ahead and jump on Express and, we
Speaker:can compete with the local traffic and get to your, get to your destination.
Speaker:I don't want to even say in 40 minutes, because 40 minutes is end to end, but
Speaker:now you might be able to get, if you're the third stop in, you might actually
Speaker:get to your destination in 30 minutes, you know, and, and that's where the
Speaker:real value is getting that time back.
Speaker:to the passenger, so they can go on about their business as opposed
Speaker:to spending that time on the bus.
Speaker:So that's going to be huge for us.
Speaker:We'll have a big kickoff with that express route.
Speaker:The organizational restructuring, you know, just Taking the organization as a
Speaker:whole and looking at, overall, seeing if we have all the right pieces in place, we
Speaker:put together our PMO office, our project management office, and it consists of
Speaker:three project managers, as we have a lot of different projects going on here.
Speaker:I told this team here, we have all this money.
Speaker:If we don't spend the money, somebody else will, and I know that folks that give us
Speaker:the grants they don't want the money back.
Speaker:Everybody allocated and giving it out so we need to do our part, and not only
Speaker:that, if we're not, you know, using that resource, then we're not enhancing
Speaker:our transit system for our community.
Speaker:So that's huge in itself.
Speaker:So we created that PMO office.
Speaker:Our fleet modernization, we're introducing, four electric,
Speaker:buses and exploring the hydrogen fuel tech, technology.
Speaker:so it seems like hydrogen is, at least in this area here, is coming more alive.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Especially with the weather and the things that are going on with battery electric.
Speaker:We don't want to, we don't want to have one fleet, one fuel source.
Speaker:We want it to diversified.
Speaker:You know, so we're probably going to end up with, you know, we'll, the clean.
Speaker:Clean burning diesel, some electric, and tap into the
Speaker:hydrogen aspect of it as well.
Speaker:And being that our fleets are, like I said, a ride share of 200, we definitely
Speaker:do something with that fleet to go ahead and that might become half hydrogen,
Speaker:half electric, where I know a lot of the other agencies or bigger agencies, you
Speaker:know, the big fleet is bus, you know, in our case, it's, It's the ride share.
Speaker:And then also our fare structure.
Speaker:So that'll be another one of our initiatives that we
Speaker:have going on this year.
Speaker:Our fares are very reasonable.
Speaker:It's 1.
Speaker:50 with a transfer, so probably, that's probably unheard of in some places.
Speaker:what we're, and what we're trying to do there.
Speaker:Still got a lot of work with it.
Speaker:We're trying to, do away with the transfer.
Speaker:So we'll say, Hey, how about a $2, all day, you know?
Speaker:And, it's kind of, if you're spending a dollar 50 to go one way, you're probably
Speaker:spending a dollar 50 to come back.
Speaker:So it's $3, how about $2?
Speaker:And you can ride as many times as you want all day, you know?
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:So I'm looking at some adoption there, you know?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's great, Tom.
Speaker:Very good.
Speaker:Well, it sounds like you all have a lot going on.
Speaker:I, I want to close this out with some of your personal
Speaker:reflections and closing thoughts.
Speaker:I guess, what has been your proudest moment so far as,
Speaker:you're just under a year?
Speaker:What's been your proudest moment as CEO?
Speaker:I'd have to say it's the dedication and passion, Paul, of our team,
Speaker:as we work to transform public transit in the Tri Cities.
Speaker:The team here, being that a lot of folks come from this area, a lot
Speaker:of our employees are, have been with Ben Franklin Transit one and
Speaker:even two decades, there is a lot of passion, for the work that they do.
Speaker:And so whether it's rolling out a critical infrastructure upgrade,
Speaker:launching, you know, our first, express route, or expanding, access to cleaner
Speaker:and more efficient, transportation, uh, options, I take great pride in the
Speaker:progress that what we're doing, we're, we're making a difference together.
Speaker:And in the end, the human capital is our big asset for any transit agency
Speaker:and making a difference overall.
Speaker:I agree with that.
Speaker:And then maybe you could just give us some final thoughts
Speaker:about the future of transit.
Speaker:you know, you've mentioned the only change, the only constant is change,
Speaker:and we have to adapt and progress, but, what are your thoughts now as
Speaker:transportation enters this, 2025 year, the end of the first quarter
Speaker:century and headed into the next?
Speaker:You know, so, so my thought is we really have to take a look at our industry as a
Speaker:whole, from the, from the human capital side of it, and us folks that, you know,
Speaker:have two decades and three decades, in our industry, Start preparing our
Speaker:younger generation, with the experience and knowledge we've gained over the
Speaker:years and handing it down to them so that our industry doesn't go deficient,
Speaker:in the human capital side of it.
Speaker:That's, that's what I see.
Speaker:Pickings are slim sometimes, and maybe we don't do a good enough job, us
Speaker:as leaders in transit, to find those individuals and really, you know, invest
Speaker:and mentor them so that we can, you know, strengthen our bench overall.
Speaker:that's, that's what I see.
Speaker:We could have talked about technology and the buses and all these flying
Speaker:ships and everything like that, but, but at the end of the day, on any of
Speaker:those things, You still need the people.
Speaker:So the people to me are the most important asset overall, and we need
Speaker:to continually invest, in our folks.
Speaker:That's probably why you and I always click very well, because I
Speaker:have the same philosophy, you know?
Speaker:It's, it's not really about the buses, or the technology, the trains,
Speaker:it's about the people, isn't it?
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker:And whether you're providing it, or they're your passengers, we're
Speaker:in the people business, And, you know, back in the Ralph Kramden
Speaker:days and all that and everything, point A to point B. Right, right.
Speaker:But even today, you watch some of those old shows, there's the
Speaker:people aspect to, that as well.
Speaker:And maybe a little bit different than today, but it was definitely a
Speaker:little bit more neighborly back then.
Speaker:And, you know, in a place like Tri Cities here, we definitely
Speaker:can capture that element.
Speaker:Because we are kind of a small town
Speaker:Well, thanks for sharing some of your journey with us, Tom, and,
Speaker:and, your experiences there at Ben Franklin Transit in Washington State.
Speaker:We wish you the very best as you continue to modernize and serve the people.
Speaker:Thank you, Paul.
Speaker:Thank you for having me on.
Speaker:Appreciate it.
Speaker:Good luck to everybody.
Speaker:Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Transit Unplugged
Speaker:with our guest, Tom Drozt, CEO of Ben Franklin Transit in Washington State.
Speaker:Now coming up next week, we have someone whose episode was one of our most popular
Speaker:last year, Stephen Gardner, CEO of Amtrak.
Speaker:Paul sat down with Stephen in his office at Amtrak to learn what Stephen
Speaker:has planned to upgrade, improve, and expand America's national rail carrier.
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Speaker:on what we do on the show here.
Speaker:Just visit transit unplugged.com/survey and have your say.
Speaker:The link's also in the show notes.
Speaker:Transit Unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo.
Speaker:at Modaxo, we're passionate about moving the world's people and at
Speaker:Transit Unplugged, we're passionate about telling those stories.
Speaker:So until next week, ride safe and ride happy.
