Voted by the Board to hold down the fort until someone is hired into this position. If interested, watch the APTA listings, or call me. I'm retiring in March 2018!

Managing the Dial-A-Ride program

Working in the Call Center receiving calls from stranded motorists, dispatching calls to various tow companies, acting as advocate for stranded motorists and selling AAA membersh?ips over the telephone. I learned a lot of valuable customer service skills that I still carry with me and use!

Hired and trained paratransit operators for newly gained contract with MTA - Baltimore

At MARTA, I was tasked with reducing a greater than 8% No Show rate. By tightening the policy and educating the passengers, I was able to lower the number significantly. I gained the support of higher management to enforce the No Show policy and suspend offending passengers. Letters are dispatched to the offending clients within days of the No Show occurrence, announcing that I was aware of the incident and tracking them. Follow-up letters were mailed after the second occurrence, and so on, up to the fourth incident, where a letter of suspension was issued. I created a committee of Paratransit riders, who met once a month with passengers who wished to appeal the decision to suspend. I was the non-voting policy expert of the committee. Most suspensions were upheld and those that were not, resulted in an education process for the passenger and a reduction in No Shows. When I left MARTA in 2004, MARTA enjoyed a 1.28% No Show rate, and a substantial savings in costs.Using similar principles with Surprise Dial-A-Ride, I was able to slow the No Show incidents. With the ever-changing snow bird population in Surprise, Arizona, there is always a learning process for the new passengers. Despite this, we maintain a 4.5% No Show rate. In the four years that I have been in Surprise, only one person has appealed their suspension.

MARTA took the paratransit service back in-house in February 1997. I was hired as Chief Dispatcher and worked through the re-organization of bringing the operators from DAVE Transportation into the new environment of MARTA. I was responsible for training the new dispatch staff and assisting with the new program. When MARTA re-organized again in December 1997, I was encouraged to apply for and was selected to be the Superintendent of Paratransit Operations.

DAVE Transportation, Inc. Worked under contract with the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority to operate the Paratransit Division of MARTA before MARTA took the program back in-house in 1997.When working for Dave Transportation, Inc., I had the opportunity to provide Paratransit service, as the contractor for MARTA, during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. In addition to caring for our regular registered riders, we transported approximately 17,000 wheelchair passengers from venue to venue, throughout the city. We worked almost twenty-four hours a day for the two-week event, juggling regular service and Olympic service with no additional transit operators. We devised ways to locate our registered workers in the downtown area, which was in the center of all the Olympic hustle. Seven months later, MARTA transitioned the Paratransit service in-house and my MARTA career started.

Provided support and logistics for statewide bloodcollections