Reflecting on the Leadership and Legacy of Clinton B. Forbes

Stop requested.

Welcome to Stop Requested, a podcast where we discuss everything transit. I’m your host, Christian Londono, Senior Customer Success Manager at ETA Transit.

And I’m your co-host, Levi McCollum, product manager at ETA Transit. Today, Christian, I want to talk about a rather difficult subject, I think, for both of us, and that’s the passing of Clinton B. Forbes.

A year ago, on November 2nd, 2023, Clinton passed away, and he was an inspiration to many. He was a colleague to us, and that was hard to deal with. But today, during this episode, I want us to talk about what he meant to us, the impact that he had on our lives, both personally and professionally, and just celebrate this one-year anniversary.

So I’ll start with, what did Clinton mean to you? What was his impact on your life?

Thank you for that question, Levi. That’s a tough question because the answer, in my mind, is a very long answer because he meant a lot. I met Clinton about a little bit over nine years ago, actually, before he started working for Pomtren when he was just a candidate for the executive director position.

When it comes to what he meant for me and the impact that he had is tremendous because he became a friend, a mentor, and just a great leader and person to work for. If I could describe Clinton in a few words, I would say a tremendous charismatic leader.

His presence was noticeable. He would fill the room when he would walk in and hear him speak. He was an incredible speaker. That had charisma that is so important for leaders to actually motivate people and get him to move and to support a vision, a great visionary leader.

The impact that he had for the agency, particularly at Pomtren, for the industry and all the ones that we had the privilege to work with him is just tremendous. I’m really happy that we’re recording this episode today and we’re discussing Clinton and just remembering all his legacy and everything he contributed.

Let me ask you the same question. Who’s Clinton for for you and how would you describe him?

Yeah, you know, I didn’t work with him as long as you did in my couple of years, working alongside of him. I saw a man of integrity, a really passionate and strong leader, someone who had a clear vision and was able to get the most out of people to execute that vision.

You don’t see many people like that these days. And if you do, they, they’re almost charlatans, you know, they, they have an ulterior motive. I never got that with Clinton. It was always him trying to seek the best version of you, the best version of the transit system, the best version of the leadership team.

He really drove people to think deeply about what they were passionate about and express that in some way. Uh, you know, his, his energy was unmatched. Really? I don’t know how he kept going so strong.

And, you know, just when you think he would, he’s got to tire out. This guy just kept going and going and going. He was able to get so much done in such a short amount of time. I, I think in short, that’s, you know, that’s my answer.

Just a, a really passionate and strong leader.

I mean the passion was very obvious. I mean you hear him talking about any project and particularly about customers right like that you know in my opinion that was something very important to him right anything that had to do with the customers or if the customer was experiencing any discomfort or we were not providing that customer with our best customer service I mean customer service was paramount for him and he said if you’re in the transit industry you’re in the customer service business as simple as that and you know we have to make sure that we’re doing our best job treating those customers you know I remember you know talking about you know any business like you know you when you go into a business the minimum you expect is that the staff is going to greet you you know good morning good afternoon how are you you know and how important that was in our business as well as we’re trying to drive ridership in our transit systems and just make sure that people have an enjoyable experience you know we have a particularly a palm training a lot of transit agencies you have that fixed route system or you know just the type of or the mode of service that is available to everyone and then you also have the part transit service which is you know for those ADA seniors you know transportation disadvantage a lot of them that are life depending they go to life depending or sustaining treatments and they need that transportation more than anything so all those things were very important to him to make sure that they were treated firmly and they were doing our best job and one of the things he would say is I’m very demanding but not demeaning and he would demand the most of you you know based off or following up on what you just said you know he would ask a lot from the people working for him I mean he he will have you working for sure but he would never ask for something he wouldn’t do himself right he would get dirty you know along your side just working and getting things done and you know another word that comes to my mind as I’m reflecting on this is accountability you know he would ask the boards in his superiors hold me accountable hold me accountable but at the same rate to his staff he would say you know because I want to be held accountable I’m going to hold you accountable as well so accountability was definitely something big and I think that drove a lot of the projects of palm train just a tremendous transformation during his tenure you know I think the amount of projects that were completed and how the agency grew and flourish had a lot to do with that leadership and that accountability so you know on that vein I want to ask you Levi you know some projects that come to your mind they were achieved during his tenure and you know what they what those projects meant for the agency

Yeah, well, a big one that comes to my mind is the RPM project, and when I first encountered the RPM project, I was actually at Lee Tran, so not working under, you know, under Clinton B. Forbes at that time, but I, I remember seeing the, I think it was an app newsletter and, you know, I saw Forbes there, I saw Steve Anderson, our good friend and former colleague.

You know, that photo of him, along with some other Paul Tran folks, expressing their, their joy, their excitement for public transportation for the launch of this route performance maximization plan that was just underway, and, you know, that gave me a breath of, you know, and breathe some excitement into me.

It was really kind of an emotional experience because you see how driven and how passionate he was about making sure that the, the service was of quality, that it wasn’t just a, you know, a service that people looked down upon or that the downtrodden used, you know, it was, it was elevated in some way.

Um, so the route performance maximization plan, you know, I remember seeing, as I mentioned in that app to newsletter a year, I think after it had launched, this may have been in like 2019 and, you know, the ridership is up, customer satisfaction is up.

Uh, you know, it reduced a lot of the inefficiencies in the system and there were still some there, but you know, it, it cut out some of the services that were, uh, underperforming and put those in higher performing areas.

And I was fortunate enough that whenever I came on board at Palm Tran in 2021, I got to work under Steve Anderson for a little bit, uh, in, you know, Steve departed. But that, you know, that gave me the opportunity to work side by side with, with Clinton.

And for those two years, we worked on the route performance maximization 2.0 plan, which was about further finding those efficiencies, putting the services where the most people are increasing the passenger per hour account, which was, you know, a key metric for us in the planning department.

As well as finding opportunities to leverage on demand services like Uber and Lyft, uh, as well as, you know, using some of the experience that we had from the go glades project. You know, in, in trying to launch something of our own, uh, he had a never ending drive to continuous improvement.

Uh, and that was expressed in that particular project. And I know you probably have many more than that, uh, but he was a prime advocate to use public transportation whenever you can. And, you know, make sure that you’re serving the community.

It’s not about you. It’s about the community that you’re serving. What are some of the projects that stick out for you?

you know, there’s a few more that I want to mention, but there’s a few things that you said that about the RPM that that I want to discuss or just, you know, reflect on. You know, one of the things is, again, shout out to Steve Anderson, he, you know, Clinton referred to him as Mr.

RPM, you know, he was the person in the planning department, leading the charge and just he worked tirelessly on the project, like all the hours in a week, he was working on this. And even when we implemented the route performance maximization, we changed routes, we’re putting new bus stop signs, we’re changing bus stop numbers, we’re changing route numbers on bus stop signs.

And pretty much a one of the I think the most inspiring pieces of that project is that the organization was lacking a little bit of trust in the community and the board, you know, in terms of, you know, being able to actually deliver good transportation services in the community.

And that project was pivotal, because it regained all the trust from the community. And it brought all the organization together. You have all the bus operators were involved, all the employees from every single level of the organization and people, all the stakeholders, like all the people in the community were involved.

And even the day that it went into effect, you know, all the staff had assignments, I mean, pretty much we put everything on hold, but to get this right, because this was important to gain the trust, to regain that trust from the community and open the door for all these other projects that Pumpton was able to deliver to deliver, particularly under Clinton’s leadership.

You know, another project that that I want to bring up is, you know, I got the privilege, in a way, the learning experience, to work with Clinton in starting up performance program at Pumpton, participated on that, he called that program Pumpton statistics, PT stat, which also was very transformational is changing the culture of the organization, right?

That was something that was important to him is to change the culture, the way the employees were seeing the company as a whole, and the role in making the company better. And this program was a program, a performance improvement program, where employees from all levels of the organization, they were involved in cross-functional teams, and their goal was to come up with performance improvement initiatives to improve the organization.

And I’ll tell you, Levi, just from what I recall, the program generated a lot of initiatives, some of them at zero cost, some of them with a cost associated, but initiatives that actually translated into national awards.

You know, so it’s something that it was definitely transformational. And the most important piece of that was the component that has to do with changing the culture, changing your employee culture, the way they see the organization, the way they see their role in making the organization better.

And then, again, we talk about RPM, and, you know, even bringing up this PT Stat initiative that Clinton brought to POMTRAN, and all these things that started transforming the organization, you know, gaining the trust from the community and from the boards, and getting us into a motion, right, where things are now changing, and, you know, projects are getting done.

So, you know, there’s just a whole bunch of projects to think about. But is there another one that you want to bring up that you can think of?

Yeah, I think the Paradise Pass, that one sticks out to me because one, that’s a great name, like a hell of a name that Clinton came up with, not some marketing firm. He came up with Paradise Pass. You know, it was his vision.

Like you can see his brain working whenever you’d have conversations with him about Paradise Pass. This is what it should look like. These are the colors. And this is how people are going to interact with the system.

He, you know, instructed all of us. We’re going to go to the transit center. We’re going to go talk to people. Everyone’s going to be, you know, everyone needs to wear your shirt. We’re all going to match.

And we are going to give the best customer service possible to make sure that people are ready to go when the Paradise Pass goes live. He was involved in the calls. And, you know, the reason that project got done and got done in the way that it did was because of him.

I don’t know that anyone had the vision, you know, at least in terms of how this should roll out and where are the pitfalls, how can we overcome those? You know, I’m not sure that we would have had a successful rollout of Paradise Pass if it wasn’t for Clinton.

Well, you know, and their rollout was very ambitious, Levi. I had the opportunity to co-present with Genfair at AptoTech. And actually, Mr. Forst was supposed to do that presentation, but his schedule, his agenda, it was always overbooked and packed.

And then he asked me to go on his behalf and do this presentation. And one of the things that was very impressive for a lot of the other agencies that were in the audience and were listening is that we roll out almost all the technology available for state-of-the-art fair technology system.

Some agencies come up with a smart card. Some agencies come up with an app where you can pay. Some agencies upgrade their fare box so it’s able to take wearables, right? Like maybe, you know, contactless payment and so on.

And typically, agencies do one of these projects at a time or maybe they do a mix. Clinton wanted it all at once. And it was successful. I mean, that’s tremendous. And, you know, sometimes when you’re working on these things and you have a leader that is pushing to a vision like that, you, of course, you have to support your leader and go after the vision, but you don’t realize sometimes how ambitious,

you know, those visions are sometimes. And reflecting back and looking at that it got done. I mean, it was transformative, is fulfilling, right? Like, you feel good about being part of that project and being able to deliver that to the community because his vision was literally that any person that wanted to, you know, access palm train would not have to think about fair payment.

They could pay with anything they had on them, cash, credit cards, wearables, you know, their Apple watch, maybe use the app on the phone, you know, if they don’t have any cash or cards, they could pay on the app.

I mean, almost anything in all the technology that is available in, and that’s what it was delivered. So it was quite impressive in a major project for sure.

Christian, I know that you and Clinton were both involved in the United Way. Uh, can you share some of your experiences working alongside of him, you know, specifically in the United Way, uh, but also what were his, his lessons about nonprofit organizations and your service to your community?

That’s a great question and definitely something that is worth mentioning because Clinton used to have a term for giving up, to give him back to the community and he would call it paying your civic rent.

And he said that, you know, just the price you have to pay for living in this earth, you know, like with the community, with everybody that you live and share this world with, you know, you have a duty to give back and to contribute to that community you’re part of.

So, you know, he did that in many ways. You know, he created a chapter in Palm Beach County for Comto. And, you know, that’s the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials and created a movement.

So, you know, Comto promotes minorities in transportation, you know, advancement in the industry. And that was very important for him. But also related to the United Way, he was a leader and a champion for the United Way.

He was board member. He was a leadership donor for several years. And in a matter of fact, you know, initially when I was a palm train, I started getting a little bit involved with the United Way but not heavily involved.

But he reeled me in and he pretty much made me a leadership giver, you know, somebody that has donated a thousand plus. Of course, he was donated, you know, way more than for several years. And then he pretty much encouraged all his leadership team and managers to join in as well and contribute.

But, you know, as part of the United Way, he led several campaigns, including the campaign for Palm Beach County. Collectively, through all the United Way campaigns he was involved with, he raised more than a million dollars for the community.

And that’s a significant amount. I mean, you’re talking about, you know, funding a lot of agencies that serve all kinds of, you know, people in need. So it was very important for him. And one of the fundraising events that, you know, I collaborated on with him, there was a lot of fun and he had a lot of fun doing as well.

It was called Manning Heels. And that’s when a lot of men in, you know, county government at different levels, they would wear heels and they would kind of like parade and do games wearing high heels and all that to raise money for the United Way.

And of course, people would pay a donation to be able to watch the show and see all these manly men trying to walk in high heels. So that was a lot of fun. He had a lot of fun doing it as well. And again, this is something that, you know, I remember the first time I was asked to participate, I was like, uh, no, I’m not going to wear high heels.

You’re crazy. But he would do it himself. And he would do like a film promotional videos where he’s in his office wearing heels and calling other people in the county, asking them if they’re going to participate.

And of course, all of us would end up in heels, uh, walking around or at least trying to, and just, uh, you know, just raising a lot of funds for the United Way. And I tell you that year that he led a campaign, uh, for the county, that was a record fundraising that was the highest amount raised in the history of the campaign thus far.

So giving back to the community is just something that was very important to him. Uh, and, and, you know, you learn from these things, right? That’s leadership, right? That’s what leadership looks like.

And, and that’s where you’re like, wow, you know, it’s inspiring and it’s something that stays with you or at least inspire you to try to follow. And you know, that vein, I’m going to just kick it back to you.

I’m going to ask you about, you know, one or two lessons that you learned from his leadership and the time you got to spend with him.

Yeah, the big one is anticipate, execute, and follow up. That phrase has stuck with me since I met him and he started sharing that with, I’m sure he was sharing that before I got there, but he was sharing it in front of me and in front of other staff at board meetings that our duty in public service, but specifically under his watch was to anticipate what may happen, to execute on what needs to be done and then follow up afterward to inform and to communicate,

make sure that people are aware of what’s happening. I really love that AEF philosophy. For me, that acronym alone is just pure gold. It’s something that you can easily fall back on and it serves as a constant reminder that those three steps are really crucial.

You have to think ahead, you have to do the work and you need to communicate afterward.

Yeah, that follow-up was very important.

And it was, you know, I think that for him, the most obvious, why are you not following up, right? Or why would someone not follow up? Like he really made a point of that. Like you and I both know going to conferences is really important.

And I hope that the listeners out there think the same to be, if not source, but let us know, let us know why it was the communication. Maybe after the conferences could be better or, you know, there are areas to improve, communicate all the years.

We’d like to hear what the organization did after the fact. This was a great episode, Christian. It was a pleasure as always to talk to you and we’ll catch you next time. The staff below the managers need to communicate with them.

So all that had to work its way up and he would be sure to, you know, praise the folks who worked on the project. I think another thing is, is trust, but verify, you know, he said that a lot to me. He’s like, it’s good to trust your staff, but you should really go out and verify that that’s actually a case.

And there were a couple of times where he caught me. I didn’t do the verification and he knew, he knew, and he would call me out on it. He’s like, that’s, I, you know, I appreciate that you, that you trust the people that are reporting to you, but I don’t know if that’s right.

You should go check. So those are the two things that stick with me.

Yeah, that was certainly a leadership tip from him, especially, you know, managing your people, right? Your team, he would ask me the same, you know, trust, but verify, you know, did you check this? Did you review this?

You know, because sometimes, especially when you’re in a director level, high level, a lot of the work that you’re presenting is coming from your team. They’re working on it, they’re passing it to you, and then you’re supposed to review it, right?

Before it goes out, as you should. But he would ask you, did you? And, you know, did you trust this work was done, you know, correct, is, you know, remember to trust, but verify, make sure everything is good.

And at the same rate, he’s doing the same, right? Like, you know, you’re providing work, you’re, you know, bringing up the food chain, you know, projects and so on, and he would do the same thing. So yeah, definitely great lessons.

I have, you know, one more to share. I mean, I can think of more than one, but I’ll share this one that I think is very important. He will share all the time, you know, I can recall almost vividly a lot of, you know, the speeches he would do to know bus operators, to staff in general, to new employees.

And this has to do with what he called customer service guarantee, and what customer service guarantee is. And, you know, he would say that, you know, good customer service, you know, it would be great if people would just apply the golden rule, you know, treat people as you would like to be treated.

And he would say, you know, wouldn’t the world be a perfect place if everybody would apply that? You know, everybody would just get along and everything would just be nice and great. But he said in customer service, and in terms of customer service guarantee, how does that look in transit?

How do we translate into transit? And he said, I don’t know if, you know, the golden rule can be improved, but if I could take an attempt, I would say treat people better than they expect to be treated.

And he said, if we do that in customer service, we will be running a stellar organization. So, you know, I think that that was a great learning lesson and just thinking, wow, you know, that’s true. And in many ways, no matter where you work or what type of industry you’re in, you have to provide customer service, either directly to whoever is consuming your product or services, or to those customers that are buying,

you know, like the organizations that are buying goods and services from you, you have to provide that good customer service and, you know, treating people better than they expect to be treated, like, you know, exceeding their expectations.

Of course, that would be excellent customer service. So that was one of those takeaways that I think, you know, I would always keep with me.

I love that. That’s so powerful. Wow. He had a lot of those. He was good and quick on his feet. He was able to think through problems, be strategic. You know, this reminds me too, this whole conversation, of course, reminds me of when, you know, when he passed.

And those few days after we got together with Yash Nagel and Steve Anderson, who are also former planners at Palm Tran. Well, Yash still is a current planner at Palm Tran. But Steve, a former planner at Palm Tran.

And, you know, the four of us got together and we said, you know, what’s a way for us to be able to remember and celebrate our experience with Clinton B. Forbes. And we put that into an article. We sent that over to F.P.T.A.

And they’ve accepted it, you know, put it on the December edition, I believe, or the winter edition of the 2023 newsletter. And that meant a lot. It meant a lot that people were able to see our experience, to understand that we have this great admiration and appreciation for his leadership, that he’s going to be missed, that, you know, that we we’d love them as a colleague, as a friend.

And yeah, I want to give a shout out here to Yash. And we’ve given one to Steve, but you know, another one to Steve that, you know, thank you for contributing some time and helping us write that article.

It meant a lot. I think it was therapeutic in a way to be able to express our thoughts and feelings about someone who you know, we just had tremendous admiration for. And, you know, with that, I’d like to go ahead and close out this episode of Stop Requested.

Like to thank everyone for listening. You know, hopefully Clinton was impactful in your life. Hopefully you got a chance to meet him. You know, and if you didn’t, then you got to hear about how great he was in these 30 minutes or so on today’s podcast.

So thank you again for listening. Please join us next week for another episode.