Joel Rey, Benesch’s Transit Services Director, Reveals the People, Projects, and Purpose Fueling His Success

00:00 Stop Requested.

00:01 Levi McCollum: Welcome to Stop Requested, the podcast where we discuss everything transit.

00:05 Levi McCollum: I’m your co host, Levi McCollum, director of operations at ETA Transit.

00:10 Christian Londono: And I’m your co host, Christian Londono, Senior Customer Success Manager at ETA Transit.

00:22 Levi McCollum: Welcome back to Stop Requested. Christian, how are you doing today?

00:26 Christian Londono: Doing excellent. Very excited about today’s episode.

00:31 Levi McCollum: Yeah, this one is amazing. One that I’ve been looking forward to ever since we got it on the books.

00:38 Levi McCollum: Today we’re going to be speaking with Joel Rey, who’s the Director of Transit Services and Principal Associate at Benesch.

00:44 Levi McCollum: Joel, how are you doing?

00:45 Joel Rey: I’m doing great, guys. How are you?

00:48 Levi McCollum: Yeah, doing very well. This is really exciting.

00:51 Levi McCollum: You know, I know you’ve been in the industry for 30 years and you know, worked with agencies all over

00:56 Levi McCollum: the country, so I can’t wait to see what we get into with this conversation.

01:01 Joel Rey: Excellent. Let’s get started.

01:03 Christian Londono: In agencies of different sizes with different modes, the stories in different topics of conversation that we can touch on,

01:15 Christian Londono: they’re just very broad, of course.

01:18 Christian Londono: But first of all, we want to start learning more about you and for our listeners to learn about your

01:24 Christian Londono: career. So if you could start by giving us an overview of your career in transit planning.

01:30 Christian Londono: How do you get started and how do you get to where you are today?

01:35 Joel Rey: Yeah, okay. That’s a great place to start, Christian.

01:39 Joel Rey: Actually, I go back about 36 years.

01:42 Joel Rey: May of 1989, I was a junior at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

01:50 Joel Rey: And at that time I was in the civil engineering program working on my my undergraduate degree.

01:58 Joel Rey: And I was going to go into structures, build buildings.

02:02 Joel Rey: And at that time, my junior year, I was going through the remaining classes that I had to take.

02:09 Joel Rey: And before I got into the final part of my program and one of my electives I had outstanding was

02:15 Joel Rey: a transportation course. And so I took that with a gentleman who had come over from University of Wisconsin.

02:21 Joel Rey: His name was Dr. Alan Cobb, and just an incredible professor, one of the best I had in my entire

02:28 Joel Rey: tenure at USF. And he must have had some transit in his background because he made the course fun.

02:35 Joel Rey: It was about traffic and transportation and road design.

02:39 Joel Rey: I got to do cut and fill calculations on dirt and designed a major intersection that had competing super elevations

02:48 Joel Rey: by hand. It was a cool course, but he spent a lot of the time on transit planning and analysis.

02:55 Joel Rey: And by the time I finished that class, just one semester, I was hooked.

02:59 Joel Rey: And I knew that I wanted to get into transit, but I had no idea how or where to go

03:05 Joel Rey: because I’d Never experienced transit, never even ridden a bus up to that point in my life.

03:10 Joel Rey: And Dr. Cobb, he saw my enthusiasm, saw that I had a knack for the work, and he put a

03:16 Joel Rey: good word in for me with a new research center that had just started up the prior year in 1988,

03:21 Joel Rey: called the center for Urban Transportation Research.

03:24 Joel Rey: And it was located at the University of South Florida’s engineering department in three offices.

03:31 Joel Rey: And he put me in touch with them.

03:32 Joel Rey: They had a need for a couple of new interns.

03:35 Joel Rey: And so I went and interviewed and I was fortunate enough to get selected by Gary Brosh, the director at

03:41 Joel Rey: that time, the initial director, and started with Qatar in 1989.

03:46 Joel Rey: I was the 13th employee and stayed there a little over 13 years.

03:51 Joel Rey: And by the time I left, I started out as an undergraduate research assistant and I was the transit program

03:58 Joel Rey: manager when I left in 2002.

04:02 Joel Rey: And it was at that time that I got recruited away, ironically, by one of my colleagues who had been

04:07 Joel Rey: with CUTR until 1995, Bill Ball.

04:10 Joel Rey: He had gone on to Tyndall Oliver, a planning and engineering firm in Tampa, and a small one at the

04:17 Joel Rey: time of 20 some odd people.

04:18 Joel Rey: And he brought me over. Three people were in the transit program at that time, and I was the third

04:24 Joel Rey: one. And so I stayed at Tindale Oliver for close to 20 years and help grow the transit program with

04:32 Joel Rey: bill from, from three folks to over 25.

04:35 Joel Rey: By the time it came around that we were up to 75 folks, this was about 2021.

04:44 Joel Rey: So at that time I was part of the firm’s management team and helped facilitate the sale of the firm.

04:52 Joel Rey: We had gotten to the point where first generation ownership was looking to retire.

04:57 Joel Rey: And so we sold the firm and went through a process.

05:01 Joel Rey: And fortunately for me, Benesch was the firm that ended up buying us.

05:06 Joel Rey: And so we became Benesch later that year in December of 2021.

05:11 Joel Rey: And I’ve been with them since.

05:13 Joel Rey: And so that’s kind of how where I’ve ended up here today.

05:18 Christian Londono: Wow. You know, I didn’t know you were part of Cotter right from the start, right from the get go.

05:25 Christian Londono: And Cotter till this day is doing tremendous work for transit agencies, you know, particularly in Florida.

05:33 Christian Londono: But that’s, that’s very interesting. As a follow up, you know, you, you work at Cotter and then you, you

05:41 Christian Londono: know, work as a consultant as far as Tindale Oliver.

05:46 Christian Londono: And you know, of course you, you grew to the level of being able to be, you know, to get

05:54 Christian Londono: the interest from Benesch and ultimately get you know, absorbed by Benesch.

06:01 Christian Londono: What would you say were the key experiences or maybe projects that you were part at that time that you

06:09 Christian Londono: think helped you and the organization grow to that level, you know, to be recognized in Florida and ultimately to

06:20 Christian Londono: be absorbed by Benesch?

06:23 Joel Rey: Sure. Well, I’ll tell you that, you know, the experiences I had, CUTR was just a great breeding ground for

06:32 Joel Rey: growth. And I worked with a lot of smart people, people that have gone on to bigger and better things

06:38 Joel Rey: around the country there. And it’s just amazing.

06:41 Joel Rey: If you look at the list of alumni that we’ve had graduate kind of from CUTR and go on to

06:46 Joel Rey: do other things. But starting there as a researcher, it helped me grow my skills from the ground up.

06:56 Joel Rey: Learning about data, learning about research, learning about how to dig for answers and find solutions to problems.

07:05 Joel Rey: And that was a great opportunity.

07:07 Joel Rey: And then we became a National Center for Transit Research, which was a federal designation.

07:13 Joel Rey: So we got to do research around the country and working with other research centers from around the US that

07:19 Joel Rey: was also beneficial to my growth.

07:22 Joel Rey: The National Bus Rapid Transit Institute started as a joint endeavor between CUTR and Cal Berkeley back in the late

07:32 Joel Rey: 90s. And that was when BRT was more of a worldwide phenomenon and not yet here in the US There

07:39 Joel Rey: was just a couple of systems like the Lynx Lymmo that had started up that were kind of some BRT

07:45 Joel Rey: elements. So that was just again, another great lab room in which to learn.

07:49 Joel Rey: And then getting to work with students.

07:53 Joel Rey: You know, there’s two sides to every career.

07:55 Joel Rey: And you’ve got the side where you’re doing the work and then you’ve got the side where you’re doing the

07:59 Joel Rey: kind of the people wrangling and management and you know, delegating tasks to folks that you work with.

08:07 Joel Rey: And getting to work with undergrad and grad students at Qatar really helped set me up in terms of what

08:14 Joel Rey: my leadership style is today and helped me, well, helped me force me to learn empathy and communication to make

08:21 Joel Rey: sure that I got across points successfully.

08:23 Joel Rey: And all of those skills that blossomed there at CUTR, at USF, I was able to take with me to

08:31 Joel Rey: Tindale Oliver and then working with a small planning and engineering firm that was at the time, I think we

08:37 Joel Rey: were about 25, 26 folks. And then helping to grow that and becoming not just Florida based, but also doing

08:47 Joel Rey: work, especially our transit group. We were doing work at the time we got purchased by Benesch in 24 states

08:54 Joel Rey: around the country. And that was just with a small group of transit professionals, 25 of us that were based

09:00 Joel Rey: out of Tampa, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, that area.

09:04 Joel Rey: And so that was, that was one of the things that helped us kind of become enticing to, and not

09:15 Joel Rey: just vanish apparently when we first indicated.

09:19 Joel Rey: And it’s real interesting how they do mergers and acquisitions, but when you put out information about a firm, the

09:25 Joel Rey: first thing that goes out doesn’t even have the firm’s name or any identifying information.

09:31 Joel Rey: So we were, we had a kind of a pseudonym project Blackjack that, that went out and when people saw

09:38 Joel Rey: that, then they could request more information and then that’s when you had to get NDAs and things of that

09:42 Joel Rey: nature. But when we were going through that process, we had 85 people asking for our information at the get

09:49 Joel Rey: go. So we did something right at Tindale Oliver to have that kind of interest.

09:54 Joel Rey: And I think a lot of it had to do with our, you know, our Florida centric work.

09:58 Joel Rey: A lot of folks were trying to get into the state.

10:01 Joel Rey: We did a lot of planning and we had a lot of engineering firms that were after us to get

10:06 Joel Rey: that side of the business. And then we did transit and those were the three things that we had heard

10:11 Joel Rey: from Benesch that they really wanted to do.

10:12 Joel Rey: In fact, it was part of their national initiatives program that they had established back in 2020.

10:19 Joel Rey: And so we met a lot of the needs that they had and, and they provided a culture that was

10:27 Joel Rey: basically 10 to Oliver on steroids.

10:31 Joel Rey: You know, going from a 75 person firm to one that at that time was 750 folks.

10:36 Joel Rey: It was neat that it was still family oriented and really cared about the individual staff like we did.

10:42 Joel Rey: So it was an easy decision.

10:45 Joel Rey: Don’t regret it one bit. And I’ve been with them now three and a half years and I look forward

10:49 Joel Rey: to being with them until the day I’m retired.

10:52 Joel Rey: And, and at Walmart, selling people welcome.

10:58 Levi McCollum: Well, so you said you’ve been there for three and a half years.

11:01 Levi McCollum: What do you think sets Benesch apart from some of these other like multinational engineering companies? You know, we, we

11:08 Levi McCollum: know of some of the, the ones with the, the big acronyms right in the space.

11:12 Levi McCollum: But, but Benesch maybe not as much.

11:14 Levi McCollum: So if you could explain to our audience, you know, what, what is Benesch and what, why is it so

11:20 Levi McCollum: different from some of the competitors?

11:23 Joel Rey: Yeah, and let me tell you first I’ll say because I got friends throughout the industry at a lot of

11:28 Joel Rey: other firms and there’s some great firms out there and firms I enjoy working with and I think Benesch fits

11:36 Joel Rey: in well with that mix. But we do, in my opinion, stand out.

11:40 Joel Rey: And certainly since I’m in charge of business development for transit, I’ve got to say we stand out.

11:45 Joel Rey: Right. And I’ll tell you, the first thing is that it’s a great company.

11:50 Joel Rey: And one of the things that I really liked about becoming Benesch that I did not have with Tindale Oliver

11:56 Joel Rey: is the comfort of a whole lot of service areas behind me that I have access to and can offer

12:04 Joel Rey: clients. And I’ll give you an example.

12:07 Joel Rey: Talk about projects. You know, we did a project years ago for Hart in Tampa Hillsboro Regional Transit Authority.

12:15 Joel Rey: And they, they were wanting to modernize their operations maintenance facility on 21st Avenue.

12:24 Joel Rey: And we had a really good team with us.

12:27 Joel Rey: We, and, and it was an engineering project and it’s probably the only time I’ve ever put my, my PE

12:33 Joel Rey: license to good use. But we did a really good plan for them to renovate and, and modernize the facility,

12:43 Joel Rey: revamp the bus, wash the fueling systems, we redesigned the parking and the flows.

12:50 Joel Rey: And we also had a team that was doing their fuel tank because this was, this is probably 2007, eight

12:58 Joel Rey: time period. Because in 2009 the EPA wanted all of the below ground tanks to be replaced, double walled or

13:06 Joel Rey: made above ground. And so we were trying to hit that mark with Hart because that was one of the

13:11 Joel Rey: improvements that they needed at the site.

13:13 Joel Rey: And it was just, it was a cool project.

13:17 Joel Rey: But I was so reliant on my subs for everything.

13:23 Joel Rey: I was just the coordinator. If we had been Benesch at that time, I would say probably at least 60

13:32 Joel Rey: to 70% of the work we could have done in house.

13:34 Joel Rey: And that’s kind of cool to be able to bring those skill sets like roadway design, bridge work, NEPA, rail

13:47 Joel Rey: capabilities, asset management, value engineering, all of those things are things that Benesch can do and more that we didn’t

13:54 Joel Rey: have it at Tindale Oliver. So if I had a client that I was working with on a transit project

13:59 Joel Rey: who said, hey, do you do X? I’d say, hey, I know somebody that can do that.

14:05 Joel Rey: Now I, with pride I could say, oh yeah, I got staff in Omaha or you know, Philadelphia or Pittsburgh,

14:13 Joel Rey: whatever. So that’s, that’s one of the things I like.

14:16 Joel Rey: But I, you know, our biggest strength and what probably sets us apart is our staff.

14:22 Joel Rey: We got an amazing group of folks and all of the folks we have in transit, well, the most of

14:28 Joel Rey: them, except the ones we’ve hired in the last three years, all came from Tindale Oliver.

14:33 Joel Rey: They’ve all been together for a long time.

14:35 Joel Rey: In fact, the person who took my role as Transit Program Manager when I took on this role as Director

14:42 Joel Rey: of Transit Services for Benesch is Elizabeth Schuck.

14:46 Joel Rey: I hired Liz out of college when she was at Stetson 22 years ago and have watched her grow that

14:54 Joel Rey: whole time. And now she just got named Florida Division manager for Benesch.

14:59 Joel Rey: So I’m really proud of her.

15:00 Joel Rey: It’s like watching your daughter kind of grow up thing.

15:02 Joel Rey: So we’ve got a great staff and we’ve got folks that have worked previously with transit agencies, MPOs, DOTs like

15:12 Joel Rey: me and Asela Silva Research centers.

15:14 Joel Rey: Asela is another graduate from CUTR who’s with Benesch.

15:18 Joel Rey: And this set of skills that we bring to the table for our clients, I think that’s what sets us

15:23 Joel Rey: apart. And we have folks that have some of the same skills, but everybody’s got different additional skill sets.

15:31 Joel Rey: And it’s that complementary skill set that we can bring to our clients regardless of what their project is or

15:41 Joel Rey: what their needs are. And all of our folks, I will tell you, just like you guys, I know you

15:46 Joel Rey: guys believe this, but transit, we truly believe that it is a mobility for all agent.

15:52 Joel Rey: It’s not just a social service.

15:54 Joel Rey: Like, you know, sometimes you hear when you’re doing work, they really want to help our clients succeed.

16:00 Joel Rey: Whether it’s to improve their services, grow ridership, become more efficient in their operations, or utilize their resources better.

16:09 Joel Rey: Our folks really care about the client and want to see them have a plan that’s going to help them

16:15 Joel Rey: achieve their their visions and their desires.

16:19 Joel Rey: So those are the kind of things that I think help set our team apart and banish in the market.

16:27 Levi McCollum: That makes a lot of sense.

16:28 Levi McCollum: And I know, Joel, that you’ve probably in contact with many agencies who have sort of pie in the sky

16:37 Levi McCollum: type visions about wanting to do X, Y and Z.

16:41 Levi McCollum: And sometimes there are even those exercises where they say, don’t consider the budget at all.

16:45 Levi McCollum: Just what would you imagine? How do you rein some of the transit agencies back in and say, hey, what

16:52 Levi McCollum: is practical here? What can you actually do? What can you really accomplish? And how does that center around the

16:59 Levi McCollum: community? Can you describe some of the work that you’ve done, maybe in that regard?

17:04 Joel Rey: Yeah, a lot of times it’s interesting because it’s not the transit agency or transit agency staff.

17:14 Joel Rey: It might be management, but. But a lot of times it’s the community that comes in and has the pie

17:18 Joel Rey: in the sky vision, and it’s the transit agency folks who are saying, yeah, they got a great vision, but

17:23 Joel Rey: they won’t pay for it. And so that’s an issue that we often encounter and have to address.

17:32 Joel Rey: Or sometimes it’s the difference where the community is saying, hey, we’d like to reel back the cost of this

17:40 Joel Rey: service. And it’s the transit agency saying, no, we’re just starting to hit these, you know, goals and we need

17:48 Joel Rey: more resources to just get us over this hump.

17:51 Joel Rey: And, and that’s, you know, that’s, that’s tough, I’ll tell you that.

17:57 Joel Rey: You know, talking about the community focus, one of the things that we learn is to deal with that is

18:07 Joel Rey: everybody’s different. You know, we’ve done a lot of service analyses around the country.

18:11 Joel Rey: We’ve done a lot of plans that have been implemented.

18:14 Joel Rey: And one of the things that we’ve learned from all of this work, not everybody does everything the same way.

18:21 Joel Rey: Not every community has the same needs.

18:23 Joel Rey: Not every solution that we can come up with can be universally applied.

18:28 Joel Rey: So, you know, these differences, knowing that they’re there is kind of half the battle and helps us better craft

18:37 Joel Rey: how we respond to the community when they’re trying to set a vision that maybe is, is not practical or

18:46 Joel Rey: feasible with, with the resources that they’re willing to allocate.

18:52 Joel Rey: And just like the communities are different, transit agencies and their services are different as well.

18:59 Joel Rey: And so we need to handle them almost with, you know, in a similar fashion, but with a different lens.

19:09 Joel Rey: Because obviously the community is coming at it from, from one point of view and, and the transit agency another.

19:15 Joel Rey: And whether that lens is budget focused or whatever, you know, we’ve got to handle those.

19:23 Joel Rey: So I’ll tell you one of the things we do and this I mentioned to you all earlier before we

19:28 Joel Rey: got started. I’m working in North Carolina now for a client in Cabarrus County, North Carolina.

19:35 Joel Rey: And, and we have this exact issue that’s, that’s happening where there’s a little bit of a disconnect between what

19:45 Joel Rey: the community thinks of transit and wants it to do and what the transit agencies and, and there are two.

19:53 Joel Rey: There’s the fixed route provider and then the demand response provider.

19:57 Joel Rey: And, and they have a vision of what they need to do to truly enhance mobility in the community.

20:02 Joel Rey: And one of the things that we’re gonna do with their long range plan is actually create a series of

20:08 Joel Rey: scenarios. So when you say, how do you meet unrealistic expectations? Well, one of the things you do is you

20:14 Joel Rey: put in whether you call it a needs plan or pie in the sky plan, you show them, here’s everything

20:25 Joel Rey: that you could possibly do to take transit to the next level in this community within reason.

20:31 Joel Rey: You know, if they can’t support rail, you’re not going to recommend rail, but maybe brt, some express services, new

20:39 Joel Rey: routes, improved frequencies. And you show them that, what it looks like in terms of implementation, in terms of coverage

20:47 Joel Rey: and in terms of the financial plan.

20:51 Joel Rey: Then you show, and a lot of times it’s the transit agency that’s like, well, these are the only resources

20:56 Joel Rey: we’re getting and they’re not going to give us any more.

20:58 Joel Rey: So what can we do with this? Well, then you do this cost feasible plan and you show that trajectory

21:05 Joel Rey: and what it looks like and then you do something in between that says here’s something that I think kind

21:10 Joel Rey: of meets in the middle, helps you achieve some of your dreams and goals.

21:17 Joel Rey: Maybe not all of them, but it also gives you a price tag that maybe the powers that be aren’t

21:23 Joel Rey: going to choke on. And so that’s, that’s typically how, how we deal with those kind of things.

21:34 Christian Londono: There’s a big educational component, right, Is educating all the different stakeholders.

21:40 Christian Londono: You know, you’re coming to assist the transit agency on its purpose to improve transit and access to transit and

21:50 Christian Londono: mobility in the community. But a big, you know, chunk of what that is, is, is educational, right? Educating the

21:59 Christian Londono: boards, educating just altogether all the different stakeholders and kind of get them all on the same page, right?

22:06 Joel Rey: Yes.

22:06 Christian Londono: Because if you have a plan as a transit agency and it could be the best plan for the community,

22:13 Christian Londono: as you know, transit experts and typically those professionals within transit agencies, they have a pretty good idea of what

22:22 Christian Londono: they could do with their services.

22:24 Christian Londono: But if the community is not aligned or they don’t see it the same, right? Like a community would want

22:30 Christian Londono: all the bells and whistles and premium service and one of the things that they don’t consider is just cost.

22:36 Christian Londono: They just want it all to happen magically.

22:40 Christian Londono: But that’s, that’s the problem, right? Like meeting those expectations and making sure that everybody’s on the same page.

22:47 Christian Londono: So I want to ask you a question that has to do with, with impactful projects, right? When you’re coming

22:54 Christian Londono: to assist some of your clients, they’re not calling you about moving one bus stop or like maybe just improving

23:01 Christian Londono: frequency one route. They typically have kind of some transformational projects and they need that help in making those visions

23:10 Christian Londono: into our reality. So my question is, can you think about a few projects you can tell us about that

23:17 Christian Londono: you saw kind of like starting and then being implemented and maybe transforming that community.

23:23 Joel Rey: Yeah. Yeah. And that. That’s a great question.

23:26 Joel Rey: And I know why you’re asking it.

23:27 Joel Rey: It’s because I’m old. And so.

23:30 Joel Rey: So I’ve been able to live long enough to actually see some of these projects happen.

23:35 Joel Rey: And I only say that half facetiously because one of the things that I found in my career, and believe

23:45 Joel Rey: it or not, I know Levi will appreciate because he actually worked in this community for a while.

23:53 Joel Rey: But one of the reasons why I actually even think thought to go to, you know, as people call it,

24:00 Joel Rey: the dark side, and get into consulting is because I was working on a TDP for LeeTran down in Fort

24:07 Joel Rey: Myers, Florida. And, gosh, I want to say this was probably 1998 or 99, and maybe it was 2000.

24:21 Joel Rey: But anyway, it. It was a major update.

24:23 Joel Rey: And at that time, LeeTran and the Lee MPO still today, they coordinate a lot.

24:30 Joel Rey: And Li Tran was real good about going through the process of updating the MPO committees on their studies.

24:39 Joel Rey: And so I was tasked with providing an update to the technical and citizens committees of the Lee MPO this

24:47 Joel Rey: particular day. And I was at their offices, and the meeting space also served as a library.

24:56 Joel Rey: And one meeting was in the morning and one was in the afternoon.

25:00 Joel Rey: So in between the meetings, I was able to have lunch.

25:02 Joel Rey: And then I was walking around the library, just killing time, waiting for the next group to come in before

25:07 Joel Rey: I would present. And I found a couple of shelves with a lot of cutter documents on them.

25:12 Joel Rey: And one of the shelves was a lot of the transit studies that I had actually written and worked on.

25:18 Joel Rey: And they were all covered in dust.

25:21 Joel Rey: It was evident that they were on that shelf since and untouched since the day they had been placed there.

25:28 Joel Rey: And it broke my heart because that was kind of like, at that time, that was my life’s work, and

25:34 Joel Rey: it was worthy of being on a shelf in a meeting space at Lee MPO with dust on it.

25:39 Joel Rey: And I thought, I have got to do something where I actually get to implement.

25:47 Joel Rey: And that’s a true story. And that’s one of the reasons why when Bill Ball called me a couple years

25:52 Joel Rey: later and told me to come over to Tyndall Oliver, I actually took him up on it because I felt

25:57 Joel Rey: like this was my opportunity. So now back to the original question and why that story resonates is because a

26:06 Joel Rey: couple of the projects I’ll talk about are exactly why I got in the business.

26:10 Joel Rey: The first one was only a couple years after I joined Tindale Oliver.

26:15 Joel Rey: Bill had actually done. They had helped create the Lake Sumter MPO back in the day.

26:24 Joel Rey: This would have been the early 2000s and it was a new MPO for Lake County.

26:28 Joel Rey: And they were in the process of getting all of their ducks in a row in terms of their funding

26:33 Joel Rey: and establishing a board. And they had that done and they decided that they wanted to try and implement transit

26:40 Joel Rey: in Lake county and DOT told them, that’s great, but you’ve got to do a tdp.

26:46 Joel Rey: So Bill did the first TDP and unfortunately they weren’t able to get any traction with it to get service

26:53 Joel Rey: started. So in 2005 they called us back and said, hey, we want to do an update to it and

26:59 Joel Rey: really want to kind of have, as you were saying, Christian, an educational process with our board to get them

27:06 Joel Rey: to understand the benefits of transit so that we can get this thing off the ground.

27:11 Joel Rey: So I was fortunate enough to manage that, that project working with the, the Lake Sumter MPO staff.

27:17 Joel Rey: And, you know, it’s kind of tough to do a TDP with a transit agency in place.

27:23 Joel Rey: It’s even harder to do a vision plan when you know you’re just kind of making up things as you

27:28 Joel Rey: go along. And we did talk to the public and we did a lot of outreach and it was a

27:33 Joel Rey: really neat process. Came up with about a 5 to 7 route system that could be compartmentalized and started up

27:41 Joel Rey: with different routes. There was about a three route network that absolutely had to be in place and then everything

27:47 Joel Rey: else could grow thereafter. And the plan really got legs.

27:51 Joel Rey: We got the board to adopt it, which was a feat in itself, I will tell you.

27:57 Joel Rey: It was like pulling teeth at that board meeting.

28:00 Joel Rey: And it was a 10 year plan.

28:04 Joel Rey: The entire cost of the plan was $10 million to get transit started because they’d already saved up money and

28:10 Joel Rey: with the money they were getting from the state and from fta, it was going to be a very inexpensive

28:17 Joel Rey: startup for at least the first five years.

28:20 Joel Rey: And they still bought, got them to adopt it.

28:23 Joel Rey: The next item on the agenda was $178 million intersection improvement at a place where very few cars drove.

28:31 Joel Rey: And they improved it without a second thought.

28:35 Joel Rey: And I knew right then I knew what I was dealing with.

28:39 Joel Rey: I want my, my road for my car.

28:41 Joel Rey: I don’t want bus. But they did adopt it.

28:44 Joel Rey: And within six months I was working on an operations plan for the new service and designed all the routes,

28:53 Joel Rey: did all the scheduling, even showed where the main transfer points would be and some key Stops would be located.

29:00 Joel Rey: And lo and behold, 2007, they had ribbon cutting.

29:05 Joel Rey: That was the first one I got to attend.

29:07 Joel Rey: And the new service was branded as Lake Express and it started running.

29:12 Joel Rey: And today I believe they’ve got seven routes and two express routes going and connecting with links in Orlando.

29:21 Joel Rey: So, really proud of that system.

29:23 Joel Rey: One of about four that I’ve designed from the ground up.

29:26 Joel Rey: But that one still to this day is my favorite because I got a call after they did an RFP

29:36 Joel Rey: for a management company to come in and run the operations of the service and MV1.

29:40 Joel Rey: And I got a call from their operations manager who was going to run the system for the county.

29:47 Joel Rey: And he said, hey, who did the routing and the scheduling for the service plan? I said, well, I did.

29:53 Joel Rey: He goes, really? I just wanted to congratulate you because we didn’t have to change a thing.

29:57 Joel Rey: And so right then I knew I was in the right line of business.

30:02 Joel Rey: So that was a cool project for me, getting to see that system get off the ground and now grow

30:09 Joel Rey: and continue to thrive. The. The other one.

30:13 Joel Rey: And I apologize if these are Florida centric, but, you know, out of my 36 year career or so, you

30:22 Joel Rey: know, 33 of them have been in Florida, so apologize for that.

30:26 Joel Rey: But I would say a year later, a gentleman who I knew back when I was at Qatar, Alan Danaher,

30:35 Joel Rey: was with Kittleson and Associates at the time.

30:37 Joel Rey: I think Alan is still with WSP now.

30:41 Joel Rey: But Alan and I got to be pretty good friends.

30:45 Joel Rey: And we teamed up on a project for the City of St.

30:49 Joel Rey: Petersburg and the Pinellas MPO to do a conceptual planning study for bus rapid transit along Central avenue in downtown

30:58 Joel Rey: St. Pete, Florida. And this was coming on the heels of a 2003 planning study that they had done.

31:05 Joel Rey: They wanted an east west transit connector.

31:08 Joel Rey: And somewhere in St. Pete and Central Avenue became the focus of that study.

31:14 Joel Rey: And they wanted us to expand on that and then show how that corridor could become a bus rapid transit

31:21 Joel Rey: line that would connect the downtown St.

31:24 Joel Rey: Peteria with the beaches. And so in this study, we came up with six different segments for BRT service that

31:32 Joel Rey: could run between either downtown and one of three potential destinations, St.

31:38 Joel Rey: Pete Beach, Treasure island and Madeira Beach.

31:41 Joel Rey: And the preferred option ended up being the St.

31:44 Joel Rey: Pete beach corridor. And then things kind of got waylaid a little bit because there was a drawbridge for part

31:53 Joel Rey: of the corridor. And they were constantly opening up the drawbridge without any concern for traffic to accommodate, you know,

32:00 Joel Rey: the big sailboats. And so there was a thought that that’s gonna mess up operations.

32:05 Joel Rey: So we need to kind of sit and think about this.

32:07 Joel Rey: So several years passed before they started studying it further.

32:11 Joel Rey: But eventually, I’m proud to say that, you know, the work that Alan and I did and our staff that

32:17 Joel Rey: worked with us eventually became the running way for SunRunner service that is operating today.

32:23 Joel Rey: It started up in October 2022.

32:26 Joel Rey: So that’s another one of those things that, you know, don’t get discouraged if you do a plan and nothing

32:32 Joel Rey: comes of it initially, because sometimes you do get to see the fruits of your labor down the road.

32:38 Joel Rey: In this case, it was 16 years down the road.

32:40 Joel Rey: But again, one of the benefits of being old, right?

32:46 Christian Londono: Yeah. The word that comes to my mind when I’m, you know, hearing your stories and these two projects is.

32:53 Christian Londono: Is legacy. I mean, I’m just thinking of the, you know, millions of people that have taken the service and

32:59 Christian Londono: being able to have, you know, access to jobs and, you know, to school and to live altogether, and you

33:08 Christian Londono: were part of that. I mean, I feel all this immense pride for you and the work you completed, and

33:15 Christian Londono: it puts a smile on my face because, you know, I was a transit planner at some point in my

33:20 Christian Londono: career as well, and. And every time that you plan something and, of course, with that goal of betterment for

33:27 Christian Londono: the community and those that use transit and it comes to fruition, you feel that pride.

33:35 Christian Londono: And I think that’s part of what drives us all as transit planners to continue moving the industry forward.

33:43 Joel Rey: Right. I completely agree with you.

33:46 Joel Rey: And it’s something that I think transit with, the folks I’ve talked to at the various conferences I go to

33:54 Joel Rey: and people I meet when I’m doing work at transit agencies, it really is a labor of love.

33:59 Joel Rey: It’s a passion. And I get that.

34:02 Joel Rey: And it’s amazing how many people will say, well, I didn’t start out in transit.

34:06 Joel Rey: I kind of fell into it.

34:07 Joel Rey: And so I think one of the things that I love seeing is that people fall into this and.

34:13 Joel Rey: And then they get hooked because of something like that, where they’ve been able to successfully achieve something that has

34:20 Joel Rey: helped so many others, and then it makes you want to go out and do it again and do it

34:24 Joel Rey: in more places.

34:28 Levi McCollum: So clearly, Joel, you’ve got this whole decorated history of all these projects, all these experiences.

34:36 Levi McCollum: Gotta ask you, what do you think is coming up? What’s in transit’s future that we should be preparing for?

34:42 Levi McCollum: If there are transit planners or CEOs, whomever is listening, you know, what do you think? Are those Future emerging

34:51 Levi McCollum: trends and technologies.

34:53 Joel Rey: Sure. Wow, that’s a tough question because.

34:57 Joel Rey: And I can answer this question.

34:59 Joel Rey: I’m not sure you two can.

35:00 Joel Rey: You’re a little young. But just think about how much our world’s changed just in the last 50 years.

35:04 Joel Rey: You know, I’ve kind of lived it, you’ve heard about some of it.

35:07 Joel Rey: But, you know, the innovations we’ve seen, they’ve not stopped.

35:13 Joel Rey: Think about real time on demand transportation services, you know, kind of the Uber and Lyft model, they don’t seem

35:21 Joel Rey: that old. Right, But Lyft, you know, they started back around 2007, Uber 2009.

35:27 Joel Rey: So they’ve both been around for more than 16 to 18 years.

35:31 Joel Rey: Even though most of their popularity has occurred within the last decade, they’re still, you know, 15 plus years old.

35:38 Joel Rey: That’s amazing to me. And so when people talk about micro transit being the new mode in the arsenal of

35:46 Joel Rey: transit services that’s out there today, it’s been around a little while.

35:51 Joel Rey: It’s just taken a while to get its place in the lexicon for transit services.

35:57 Joel Rey: And I think it’s a great thing because fixed route is not appropriate for all areas and microtransit’s helping us

36:04 Joel Rey: out there. So those are some of the things that, that have emerged just in the last decade that are

36:10 Joel Rey: what people call disruptors, things that have shaken the industry a little bit.

36:15 Joel Rey: But what’s next? Interestingly enough, I have happened to go to the Southwest Transit association conference earlier this year, APTA

36:25 Joel Rey: Mobility, and now the North Carolina Public Transportation association conference.

36:30 Joel Rey: And those are really good venues to pick up on the, you know, the pulse of upcoming trends.

36:39 Joel Rey: And I will tell you, without a doubt, the things that are definitely on everybody’s mind in the transit industry

36:44 Joel Rey: right now, based on the number of presentations I saw about them, is autonomous vehicles and AI artificial intelligence, and

36:54 Joel Rey: how these are going to impact the transit agent agent industry, excuse me, as that next potential disruptor.

37:03 Joel Rey: You know, are we going to see driverless buses on the streets, you guys, one day? Maybe.

37:07 Joel Rey: I, I’ve got questions. I, I’ve got, you know, the benefit of doing some safety and security work and seeing,

37:15 Joel Rey: you know, interior bus videos of, of attacks and things that happen on buses, whether it’s on operators or, or

37:21 Joel Rey: between passengers, that it’s kind of scary that, you know, if, if you put a bus out there with people

37:27 Joel Rey: on it and there’s no one there to kind of police, what’s going to happen? So safety and security first,

37:35 Joel Rey: obviously, you got to figure that problem out.

37:38 Joel Rey: And what about AI, you know, how can it be applied by transit agencies to improve how they operate, how

37:45 Joel Rey: they function on a day to day basis, how they do business.

37:50 Joel Rey: I’m not AI conversant by any stretch, so it’s kind of hard for me to see the possibilities right now.

37:59 Joel Rey: Obviously I’m aging myself or dating myself, but there are quite a few folks out there who think that the

38:06 Joel Rey: applications are endless. And I know several of our young folks who are actively thinking about ways to apply those

38:15 Joel Rey: new disruptors to transit.

38:21 Levi McCollum: Yeah, that’s really interesting, especially regarding the AI part.

38:26 Levi McCollum: And I’m not sure how much you could speak to this, but have you heard from agencies or you know,

38:31 Levi McCollum: maybe during those, those conferences about how agencies are applying AI? Because me, Christian and I had a podcast on

38:40 Levi McCollum: it not too long ago and we thought of some ways that, you know, you might be able to apply

38:48 Levi McCollum: an AI or you know, a large language model to be able to, you know, improve scheduling, for example, or

38:57 Levi McCollum: you know, perhaps it’s writing transit development plans or some documentation.

39:03 Joel Rey: Right.

39:04 Levi McCollum: Do you have any idea about how that would, that would work?

39:08 Joel Rey: Yeah. So some of the things I’ve heard and some of the things that, that triggered in my mind to

39:13 Joel Rey: think about, you know, National Transit Database is a blessing for those of us on the research side.

39:22 Joel Rey: A curse for those of you all on the operations side that are having to collect all that data on

39:27 Joel Rey: annual basis, report on it and then justify it when they come back with their findings.

39:33 Joel Rey: You know, NTD to me is right because it’s just information.

39:38 Joel Rey: And that’s where I think AI has shown itself so far to be really beneficial, is be able to take

39:46 Joel Rey: information and assess it, analyze it, format it in a way where it’s, it can be reported easily and in

39:56 Joel Rey: a way that that’s, you know, something you can digest.

40:01 Joel Rey: That’s what NTD is and what it needs.

40:03 Joel Rey: So I, I think there’s a way of being able to collect data on an ongoing basis from all of

40:10 Joel Rey: the technologies that are currently applied at transit agencies and then compiling it and putting and putting it into the

40:18 Joel Rey: proper forms or formats that, you know, need to go to fta.

40:23 Joel Rey: That’s one area. One of the things I heard was the inventory side, you know, having AI kind of track

40:29 Joel Rey: parts and that if you have something that is actively tracking part utilization, it can assess how frequently parts are

40:42 Joel Rey: being utilized and then it can enhance the ordering process and timing so that you’re not over ordering parts and

40:49 Joel Rey: having stuff sit on a shelf because, you know, bus Parts can be quite expensive.

40:53 Joel Rey: You know, you don’t want five transmissions sitting there for an extended period of time because that’s, that’s money.

40:59 Joel Rey: You’re out. You. You want to be able to have something tell you what’s the most effective way to order

41:05 Joel Rey: parts or, you know, how many should we get in and when, that sort of thing.

41:10 Joel Rey: So that was one of the things I heard, obviously, I heard of what you guys talked about with scheduling,

41:15 Joel Rey: documentation, development of standard operating procedures, those kind of things in other industries.

41:25 Joel Rey: You know, there, if you have.

41:29 Joel Rey: Gosh, I was just in a.

41:32 Joel Rey: I hate to admit this, but I was traveling last week in North Carolina and it was storming and I

41:37 Joel Rey: had to get a quick meal and I drove through a Bojangles because it was the only thing near my

41:40 Joel Rey: hotel. And I swear they had AI on the drive through because I did not talk to a person.

41:47 Joel Rey: It was an automated attendant who changed the questions and requests based on what I said.

41:55 Joel Rey: And it was. It’s interesting. So I think it’s out there.

41:59 Joel Rey: So customer service reps, information on, you know, the telephone, scheduling, trips for paratransit.

42:08 Joel Rey: Those are all areas that, you know, if, if AI can be conversant in that fashion and respond to prompts

42:16 Joel Rey: and questions easily and, and provide information, then that’s, you know, one less thing you have your customer service reps

42:23 Joel Rey: do. And, and maybe they can focus on the scheduling and other, you know, tasks that they, they’re responsible for.

42:29 Joel Rey: So I, I don’t know. It seems, I hate to say it’s almost endless, but it, it really is.

42:35 Christian Londono: It really is.

42:37 Levi McCollum: It’s completely wide open right now.

42:39 Levi McCollum: And the thing that kind of sticks out to me, though, is the potential cost.

42:44 Levi McCollum: Right. The cost to the agency and financially.

42:48 Levi McCollum: I think there is some place right now and perhaps even into the near future that transit agencies might be

42:55 Levi McCollum: more reluctant to spend money or especially to experiment on something like a new AI feature or software.

43:07 Levi McCollum: Yeah. I’m curious though. Have you heard from agencies about their funding woes, perhaps, or any uncertainty related to that?

43:18 Levi McCollum: Federal transit funding under the current administration?

43:22 Joel Rey: Yeah, I will tell you, it’s on top of everybody’s mind.

43:26 Joel Rey: I got to see Dr. Vet Taylor speak at the North Carolina Conference, and also Scott Bogren from ctaa, and

43:37 Joel Rey: they’re both cautiously optimistic that things will open up and, you know, monies will flow again.

43:44 Joel Rey: But. But they also warned that, you know, the IJA is coming up.

43:50 Joel Rey: I guess it’s 2026. It ends September.

43:54 Joel Rey: Yeah, yeah. So the next law that, that they put together.

44:01 Joel Rey: They warned, don’t be surprised if the money for transit doesn’t go back down somewhat.

44:09 Joel Rey: They said it’s not going to be significant.

44:11 Joel Rey: They said, you know, with the, with the latest iteration, I forget the exact numbers but say it jumped from

44:20 Joel Rey: like 12 billion total to 20 billion.

44:22 Joel Rey: They said it’s not going to go back to 12 billion, but it’s going to go back to maybe like

44:26 Joel Rey: 18 billion or 19 billion. So it’s not going to be as lucrative as the last one was.

44:32 Joel Rey: But they said it’s, it’s also not going to take us back to, you know, kind of a couple of

44:38 Joel Rey: iterations ago. So that, that’s something that everybody’s concerned and I will tell you it’s on the minds of the

44:46 Joel Rey: constituents and stakeholders in these communities because I mentioned when I was in North Carolina last week, one of the

44:54 Joel Rey: things I was doing was meeting with this group of stakeholders that are overseeing this long range plan for Cabarrus

45:01 Joel Rey: county. And one of the questions I got is, you know, when are they going to take all our money

45:06 Joel Rey: away? When’s federal funding going to dry up? And you know, how much time do we have before we have

45:11 Joel Rey: to figure out what to do about it? And we were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, who told you? That’s

45:18 Joel Rey: not the story we’re hearing. So you know, we know it’s out there.

45:22 Joel Rey: It’s a concern. People, people are wondering and, and all we’re saying is things have just been on hold while

45:28 Joel Rey: the review process goes on. We expect, you know, them to follow through with the, the obligations as they had

45:38 Joel Rey: planned for the current year. And we don’t see that changing.

45:42 Joel Rey: It’s just going to be delayed a bit because of the change in administration and the additional scrutiny that’s been

45:48 Joel Rey: placed on, you know, the federal government, especially on the funding side.

45:53 Joel Rey: So we’re still hopeful and, and the folks that know more about this than I do seem to be cautiously

46:02 Joel Rey: optimistic. So I, I would caution people don’t, don’t think the sky’s falling but you know, also be prepared because

46:13 Joel Rey: there might be a little belt tightening.

46:16 Joel Rey: Mr. Bogren made an interesting point.

46:17 Joel Rey: He said, you know, the agencies that are likely going to be hit the hardest, he said, because I didn’t

46:24 Joel Rey: realize this, he said, did you know that in the $20 billion program from the IJA, he said about 19

46:34 Joel Rey: of it goes to the major transit agencies like the New York cities and the Bostons and the Chicago’s and

46:40 Joel Rey: the WMATA’s. I didn’t realize that.

46:43 Joel Rey: He said you know, that means that out of the 1400, 1500 transit systems around the country, you know, 10

46:55 Joel Rey: or 15 of them get most of the money and everybody else is splitting like a billion dollars.

47:00 Joel Rey: And he was just using round numbers.

47:02 Joel Rey: But the point was made, if money goes away, it’s likely not going to impact the smaller medium sized agencies

47:10 Joel Rey: as much. It’s probably going to impact the bigger ones.

47:14 Joel Rey: And you know, from what we’re hearing, some of those bigger properties are starting to look at ways of kind

47:21 Joel Rey: of cutting back, belt tightening, becoming more efficient, that sort of thing.

47:25 Joel Rey: Just to prepare, knowing that, you know, they’ve got to be ready for what’s going to come in the future,

47:31 Joel Rey: you know, a year and a half from now.

47:35 Christian Londono: Yeah, that was indeed a really good update.

47:38 Christian Londono: I was at the conference and I had the privilege to also listen attentively to what Scott was sharing.

47:46 Christian Londono: And Dr. Taylor, I think that the other piece to mention is that a new build that will be replacing

47:55 Christian Londono: the current one might also bring new opportunities and they might be new competitive grants for things that don’t exist

48:04 Christian Londono: today. So those are the other things to be hopeful for, is that it might not necessarily be just cutting

48:11 Christian Londono: and everything going away. From what I recall, you know, most of the formula funding, you know, might be staying

48:19 Christian Londono: as it is and it’s some of those competitive programs that might be affected the most but with some going

48:26 Christian Londono: away, as we know, DEI and you know, some zero emissions initiatives there being, you know, they’re under review as

48:35 Christian Londono: they refer to them, but new programs might come up that might help agencies make progress with transit in their

48:43 Christian Londono: communities. So that’s, that’s something to be hopeful for and to be in the lookout for, you know, any announcements

48:49 Christian Londono: of new grant opportunities.

48:51 Joel Rey: Right, right. No good points.

48:56 Christian Londono: So that’s definitely interesting about funding and we all, and I think all transit agencies and mostly at the leadership

49:04 Christian Londono: level and those CEOs just keeping their finger on the pulse with this as new news emerge.

49:16 Christian Londono: And a lot of these things are going to be impacting, of course, later years, which make me think about

49:22 Christian Londono: some of those newer professionals that are coming into the industry that have to deal with the AIs in whatever

49:31 Christian Londono: the new transportation bill is going to be and look like.

49:35 Christian Londono: So thinking about those new transit professionals, young professionals joining our industry, what will be some recommendations you will give

49:44 Christian Londono: them to be successful, to make the, make their most out of their, you know, transit journey?

49:51 Joel Rey: Yeah, that’s wow, it’s. And it’s something near and dear my heart, starting out at the university system and seeing

49:59 Joel Rey: these young folks going through school.

50:01 Joel Rey: So I definitely am invested in getting the next generation of transit professionals and planners ready.

50:10 Joel Rey: So, you know, the first thing I’d say is advice, maybe on skill sets and something out, something that young

50:22 Joel Rey: folks should think about as they’re getting ready to get out of school.

50:29 Joel Rey: A lot of the people I’ve worked with, when they first came out of school, they had the technical ability,

50:34 Joel Rey: they knew how to do analysis, they could work with software, they knew GIS, something I didn’t come out of

50:43 Joel Rey: school with. And so the technical side is usually not the issue.

50:50 Joel Rey: It’s what do you do with the technical side? But, but it’s also the soft skills.

50:55 Joel Rey: And I think maybe our universities aren’t doing as much of a good service for our young folks in that

51:01 Joel Rey: area. And so that’s the one thing that I’ve encouraged the young folks I work with.

51:07 Joel Rey: Hone your soft skills. And consulting especially, it helps regardless of what you do.

51:12 Joel Rey: But if you’re going to go into consulting, you’ve got to be able to communicate clearly.

51:17 Joel Rey: More importantly, you’ve got to be able to listen intentionally.

51:21 Joel Rey: And by intentionally I mean you need to focus on all aspects of that speaker, the person who you’re, you

51:27 Joel Rey: know, talking to, not just listening to the words they’re saying, but how they’re phrasing the words.

51:33 Joel Rey: What are their verbal behaviors, what are their physical behaviors, what are they doing with their body, their emotions? Those

51:39 Joel Rey: are all things that are key to reading people and understanding what they mean by what’s coming out of their

51:47 Joel Rey: mouth. And so those are skill sets that we don’t pick up in school.

51:51 Joel Rey: There are things that we learn, you know, in the classroom of life, really.

51:58 Joel Rey: So I can’t tell you how many times I have heard from my clients, how much they’ve enjoyed working with

52:06 Joel Rey: somebody on our staff, whoever that may be.

52:08 Joel Rey: And I always probe them and say, oh, would you like working with them? You know, why, what, why is

52:15 Joel Rey: it? And what’d you like working with them about? And it’s clear that they’re referring to the relationship that they’ve

52:22 Joel Rey: established with our staff member more than any of the analysis or writing or good work that they did for

52:30 Joel Rey: them. And I’ve always, you know, early in my career I’d hear that I’d be like, ah, it’s relationships.

52:34 Joel Rey: But did they give you a good product? Were you happy with the plan? And they would go back to,

52:39 Joel Rey: yeah, I really enjoyed working with so and so.

52:42 Joel Rey: So as I got older in my career, I realized man, this is critical.

52:48 Joel Rey: People like working with people who they like and who they can relate to.

52:52 Joel Rey: So improving these soft skills, I think are critical for our young folks, regardless of whether they’re going into the

52:59 Joel Rey: transit profession as a public employee at an agency or if they’re going to work for FTA or work at

53:07 Joel Rey: a consulting agency some, somewhere. And another thing I’ll mention quickly about this is there’s not a lot of transit

53:15 Joel Rey: specific university programs around the country.

53:17 Joel Rey: I mean, we talked about how most of the people you all know and I know have fallen into transit

53:22 Joel Rey: in some fashion. So most young planners who want to get into transit, I think they’re already behind the curve

53:29 Joel Rey: a little bit as it relates to gaining these specific, specific transit planning skill sets that they need.

53:36 Joel Rey: So I’d also recommend when, when you’re still in school and you know, you want to get into transit like,

53:41 Joel Rey: like what I did when I joined CUTR, look to intern at a local transit agency for a semester or

53:47 Joel Rey: two. I think that’d be a great help throughout, you know, the later career.

53:53 Joel Rey: I know several folks who have done that graduating from University of Florida.

53:57 Joel Rey: I use that example because I’ve hired a couple of them who interned it at Regional Transit System in Gainesville,

54:03 Joel Rey: and that’s where they got to learn transit before going out and starting their careers.

54:09 Joel Rey: So I think that’s a huge thing.

54:13 Christian Londono: And transit agencies do benefit a lot from those interns as well.

54:17 Joel Rey: Sure.

54:18 Christian Londono: I’ve, you know, in my experience, you know, we ended up hiring a lot of the interns that came, you

54:25 Christian Londono: know, conference when I was there, and some of them brought tremendous skill sets as well.

54:32 Christian Londono: So there’s a mutual benefit and, and new ideas.

54:36 Christian Londono: Right. That you have that new blood coming in and folks just see things differently because they’re not institutionalized just

54:44 Christian Londono: yet. So there’s, there’s definitely, you know, win, win in that relationship with, with interns and those folks that are

54:52 Christian Londono: showing interest in the transit industry.

54:54 Joel Rey: Yeah. And I’ll tell you as, as, like when you get to be in my position, you get older, sometimes

55:00 Joel Rey: you get a little jaded and you’re not quite as excited to come into work every day.

55:03 Joel Rey: Just the excitement of the young folks when I’m around them.

55:06 Joel Rey: I work remotely these days, unfortunately, and I try and get to Tampa and work in that office with a

55:12 Joel Rey: lot of our transit staff as much as I can.

55:14 Joel Rey: And I tell you, just being around them, I get more excited.

55:17 Joel Rey: I’ve got a lot more energy when I’m in the office with them than when I’M in my office, you

55:21 Joel Rey: know, here up in the mountains of North Georgia, by myself.

55:25 Christian Londono: So, Joe, how can new professionals make a minimal, a meaningful impact in the industry and also any mentors or

55:33 Christian Londono: resources you can recommend them?

55:36 Joel Rey: Sure, yeah. Great question, Christian. So the first thing I would tell young professionals, folks coming out of school is

55:46 Joel Rey: meaningful impact takes time. Recall the story I had about SunRunner and 16 years between the time I helped plan

55:54 Joel Rey: a route and time that the service actually got started.

55:57 Joel Rey: So don’t get discouraged if the first project you work on doesn’t get implemented after, you know, the first week

56:05 Joel Rey: or two, you know, give it time.

56:07 Joel Rey: So because those things are going to happen for you and sometimes it takes a little bit of time in

56:14 Joel Rey: your career for meaningful impact to occur.

56:18 Joel Rey: So the best things that, that these folks can do, I think to help them have that kind of opportunity

56:26 Joel Rey: later in their careers is first of all, get involved in as many different types of projects as you can.

56:33 Joel Rey: I had a professor early in my civil engineering education and this is probably why I ended up seeking to

56:41 Joel Rey: do something different than building buildings.

56:43 Joel Rey: He said, hey, look, you might be the best bridge footer designer for your whole career and never do anything

56:52 Joel Rey: else, and that’s okay. And I thought, no, it’s not.

56:56 Joel Rey: I’m not going to sit chained to a desk designing bridge footers for the rest of my life.

57:00 Joel Rey: And so I knew I had to get out and do something different.

57:03 Joel Rey: And working at Qatar helped me achieve that because I was working on all kinds of aspects of transit, from

57:11 Joel Rey: funding to operational analysis to planning to policy.

57:16 Joel Rey: I was involved in the editing and writing of the new TDP rule back in, well, it was in 1999,

57:25 Joel Rey: although the rule didn’t come out until 2007 because the lawyers got ahold of it.

57:29 Joel Rey: But I had so many really unique experiences and opportunities.

57:34 Joel Rey: And it’s because I got plugged into a lot of different things.

57:37 Joel Rey: I just didn’t do projects on Title 6 or projects on, you know, vision planning.

57:48 Joel Rey: Go out and do a lot of different things.

57:50 Joel Rey: Also get plugged into the industry.

57:53 Joel Rey: There are a lot of great things out there.

57:55 Joel Rey: We talked a little bit about conferences, there’s training courses, webinars.

58:01 Joel Rey: You could even do some on the side study and research on topics you find interesting.

58:06 Joel Rey: Those are all things that can help you with your job.

58:09 Joel Rey: They’re going to help you become more confident in your ability to deal with clients needs and answer questions.

58:16 Joel Rey: If you have skills that need strengthening, go out and seek opportunities to do that.

58:23 Joel Rey: I used to work with a couple of folks who were terrified of public speaking.

58:27 Joel Rey: And I’ll tell you that, you know, when you think of transit, you’re thinking, well, public speaking, that’s not part

58:31 Joel Rey: of transit. Sure it is. You deal with the public all the time, whether you’re an operator or you’re a

58:36 Joel Rey: planner or somebody that’s going out and doing the, you know, the public involvement for a study.

58:41 Joel Rey: It’s critical skill in transit. And these folks went out and joined toastmaster clubs near their homes to be able

58:49 Joel Rey: to hone that skill. And then the third thing I think that’s critical is get a mentor.

58:54 Joel Rey: And you reference this Christian and let me talk about that for a minute.

58:59 Joel Rey: You know, whether it’s somebody at work or somebody in the industry that you happen to know, reach out and

59:05 Joel Rey: ask somebody to help you set up regular meetings, there are a lot of seasoned folks out there willing to

59:11 Joel Rey: help the next generation of transit planners.

59:14 Joel Rey: You know, I had the opportunity to, to mentor, actually one of your co workers at Palm Tren, Yash Nagal.

59:23 Joel Rey: He was part of the APTA program and I was his official mentor as part of that program.

59:29 Joel Rey: And we spent a year together and it was fabulous.

59:32 Joel Rey: And Yash and I are now great friends.

59:34 Joel Rey: And now Yash actually works for Benesh, and I get to communicate with him a lot more frequently, and not

59:39 Joel Rey: just on mentoring stuff. But it can be a great experience for both people.

59:45 Joel Rey: And I’ll tell you, I learned as much from Yash as I.

59:48 Joel Rey: I hope you learn from me.

59:49 Joel Rey: So if you work at a transit agency, you know, in addition to mentors, there are other things that, that

59:59 Joel Rey: you can utilize as resources. I know a lot of systems are members of apta, make a use of that

60:07 Joel Rey: resource. They, they have great material out there.

60:10 Joel Rey: They’ve got the conferences, industry research information.

60:13 Joel Rey: These are all things that can be helpful to you in your career.

60:16 Joel Rey: TRB Transportation Research Board is another great resource.

60:20 Joel Rey: Know it well. The Transit Cooperative Research Program, TCRP that comes out of TRB is a great resource.

60:28 Joel Rey: A lot of publications, many of them on all kinds of transit topics.

60:32 Joel Rey: In fact, they’re, they’re generating some new ones now where they’re talking about AI and transit and autonomous vehicles.

60:39 Joel Rey: So some of the things that we’ve kind of previewed, we should be seeing coming up in some TCR reports

60:44 Joel Rey: soon. Both FTA and CTAA also have helpful materials online.

60:49 Joel Rey: So those are all resources that, you know, young professionals should look at.

60:54 Joel Rey: I know the mentors are tough to find, but, you know, start talking to folks at your current job.

61:00 Joel Rey: If you’re an intern or you’re working someplace, talk to some of the older folks that are a little more

61:04 Joel Rey: seasoned and have kind of that gray hair.

61:09 Joel Rey: I’ll tell you the Benesch. I love the fact that our firm has a formal mentoring program.

61:13 Joel Rey: I don’t even have to go out and try and find somebody to mentor.

61:16 Joel Rey: I could just sign up and get assigned to somebody who wants me to help them in their career, who

61:23 Joel Rey: is interested in transit. So I’m sure if you’re working for a firm, they may have similar programs.

61:29 Joel Rey: Just ask the question. But these are all ways that you can really help get a jump start on your

61:35 Joel Rey: career and start building this network that’s going to serve you well throughout, you know, throughout the years and working

61:42 Joel Rey: in transit.

61:44 Levi McCollum: That’s really amazing advice, Joel, and it’s really great to hear that Benesch has that program that’s already established and

61:51 Levi McCollum: all you have to do is just sign up and then you can be paired with a mentor.

61:57 Levi McCollum: I don’t know too many places that are like that, so perhaps that’s another one that you can add to

62:01 Levi McCollum: what sets finish apart.

62:03 Joel Rey: Sure.

62:03 Levi McCollum: Yeah. I was taking notes as you were talking and I’ve got a few takeaways that I hope would be

62:11 Levi McCollum: a benefit to our listeners. But one is don’t get discouraged early on.

62:15 Levi McCollum: Meaningful impact takes time. I really love that quote.

62:18 Levi McCollum: I think that’s very impactful. Funding will likely be there, so we don’t anticipate the funding to dry up.

62:25 Levi McCollum: At least that’s not what we’re hearing.

62:27 Levi McCollum: And don’t forget the soft skills, because those are equally as important as knowing the mathematics side.

62:35 Levi McCollum: You know, being able to communicate and being an effective communicator, especially in a public setting, is a critical skill

62:41 Levi McCollum: as well. Joel, I want to say thank you so much for joining us.

62:45 Levi McCollum: It’s been really a great conversation.

62:48 Levi McCollum: Can you tell our listeners how they can connect with you or learn more about Benesch?

62:53 Joel Rey: Sure, absolutely. If anyone wants to connect with me, I’m available through through LinkedIn.

62:58 Joel Rey: You can also reach me via email at j r e yenish.com.

63:04 Joel Rey: that’s B-E-N-E-S-C-H.com. the easiest way to learn more about my firm Benesch is to visit our website at www.Benish.com.

63:13 Joel Rey: and I just want to tell you guys I appreciate this opportunity.

63:17 Joel Rey: I’ve had a great time and hopefully we can, you know, inform some of the listeners on some topics that

63:25 Joel Rey: either they didn’t know about or wanted to learn more about.

63:31 Levi McCollum: Thank you, Joel.

63:33 Christian Londono: Thank you, Joel. It was indeed a great episode.

63:36 Christian Londono: And thank you for all the advice for the young professionals.

63:40 Christian Londono: We need more people in the transit industry charting the way for a better transit future.