John Sides Email & Phone Number

United States

***I am so very proud, and humbled, to announce I have started a new career with SpotBus, Inc. Proud to represent a truly excellent company with an outstanding, holistic, AI-assisted Intelligent Control Center for school pupil transportation. Humbled to be working with talented software developers and engineers and smart business developers. I am the Director of Client Engagement for SpotBus’s new software platform for AI-assisted Routing/GPS-School Bus Tracking, Parent App & Driver App. I work with clients throughout the presentation, sale, on-boarding and learning curve and then into the future to make sure SpotBus continues to foresee and solve their school transportation control center needs into the future with exciting and comprehensive AI assistance.

Kingston, Washington, United States

I began at North Kitsap School District as an Assistant Director of Transportation. One of my first big projects was to oversee the installation of Synovia Cal/Amp navigation tablets in every bus (we now have 72 buses). In January 2020, I was promoted to Director of Transportation. As we plodded through the COVID years, we changed, married together, deleted and otherwise made a shambles of our routes, just to get students to school, first while maintaining "social distancing" on the buses and then later as we battled a severe shortage of bus drivers. As we ended the 2022/2023 school year, we realized a change in the driver shortage and found we were able to recruit sufficient numbers of school bus drivers to finally get our routes back into some semblance of an efficient and effective transportation department. Our contract with Synovia Cal/Amp expired and rather than renew that contract, we chose to explore other tablet systems. That led me to begin talking with the folks at BusRight. They actually contacted me on a cold call and I had never heard of their company. After spending some time on the cold call, we agreed to get more information together and have a demo of BusRight tablet, navigation, GPS and routing software!! We had no thoughts of changing our routing software, but talking with BusRight executives convinced me to push for a contract with them. In August 2023, just before starting the 23/24 school year, we had all the BusRight tablets installed and readied for the big changeover from TransFinder to BusRight! So far it is going great and working with the crew at BusRight has been phenomenal!

Mcminnville, Oregon, United States

After managing two school districts' school transportation contracts with Mid Columbia Bus Company, I made the move to a First Student location at McMinnville, Oregon. This was an opportunity to take on new challenges at a much higher rate of pay. McMinnville, Oregon School District contracts with First Student and the Amity, Or & Dayton, Or School Districts "piggyback" off of that main McMinnville contract. First Student also has (or had at that time) a contract with Willamina, Oregon School District, 18 miles to the west, to provide student transportation services. So, I had the opportunity to deal with four school systems, four district superintendents and four school boards at the same time!! This was actually an enjoyable time for me as I met and made lasting relationships with many school and student transportation professionals. The bus barn at First Student therefore handled over 100 school buses and also a varying number of public transportation buses, since the First Student set of companies also contracted for public transportation services. At First Student, their mantra was Safety is a level above Priority One-it is a mantra of the company, and I felt during my entire time with them that was an absolute-Safety is always forefront. One day my lovely bride was looking around at transportation manager/director salaries and saw that even an assistant director in some of Washington's school districts was about double what I was making, even at First Student-so, onward we go! We moved to the beautiful Puget Sound area of Washington State, and I went to work for North Kitsap School District.

Rainier, Oregon, United States

After Beth and I decided to quit the totally unpredictable Realtor business, we struck out on our long-wished for dream of moving to the Pacific Northwest coast and landed in Clatskanie, Oregon, on the Columbia River, 30 miles from the beach. After a couple months of honey-do chores around the house, I realized I don't retire well. I wanted to do something structured each day. One Sunday morning, while having breakfast in a restaurant in Clatskanie, I spied a school bus across the way with a "Come be a School Bus Driver" banner, and I knew that would be a great part-time job for me!! About six months into that adventure, the location manager, a son of the bus company owner announced they were selling the company and he was retiring. So, I ended up being the location manager for Mid Columbia Bus Company (same job as a Transportation Director, but for a contract company rather than for a school district). I ran that small 18-school bus operation for a little less than a year and was asked to move to Forest Grove, Oregon and manage that much-bigger location for Mid Columbia Bus Company. In 2017, an opportunity arose to work at First Student, the largest school bus contracting company in America. With a much better salary, I jumped at the opportunity and Beth & I moved to McMinnville, Oregon and I ran the school bus operation in McMinnville, which also encompassed the smaller school districts of Amity, Dayton and Willamina, Oregon. Between all four districts, I managed an operation with over one hundred school buses and activity vans. Then, in 2018, Beth saw an add for a school district assistant director of transportation in Poulsbo and Kingston, Washington, an opportunity which would nearly double my salary at First Student. Needless to say, we moved to Kingston, Washington in 2018 and by January 2020, I had been promoted to Director of Transportation at North Kitsap School District.

Albuquerque-Santa Fe Metropolitan Area

After finding that running a half-way house wasn't my dream job, I left that line of work and went to Real Estate School at Kaplan University in Albuquerque and became a licensed Realtor, working at Vaughan Company Realtors. As local Albuquerqueans and New Mexicans know, Vaughan Company Realtors was not a great Realtor to be associated with as the company founder, Doug Vaughan was arrested and convicted of running a Ponzi scheme!! Luckily, I landed then at Coldwell Banker Realtors in Rio Rancho/Albuquerque and found a great company to learn real estate with. After selling Real Estate for about a year, I convinced my lovely wife to leave her government job and come partner with me as we sold Real Estate together. Beth and I realized our dream of self ownership and we started our own Real Estate Company, Our Real Estate adventure was a time of learning! Beth and I learned a great deal about Customer Relationship Management. We made thousands of cold calls, developed and followed leads and lived & breathed Real Estate sales anytime we were in public. At that time, I created at MS Access database we used to track clients, leads and our cold call efforts.

Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States

After my law enforcement retirement, I sought out other types of work that I wanted to experience. for about a year and a half, I worked as the assistant director, and then director of a Dismas/Diersen federal re-entry center. Dismas Charities operate 37 state and federal non-profit residential re-entry centers. As Director of Dismas' Albuquerque re-entry center (in New Mexico Dismas is known as Diersen Charities), I oversaw complete operations of a re-entry center, otherwise known as a half-way house for federal inmates being released from prison terms (also some individuals awaiting trial who were determined to be amenable to half-way house living while the worked or looked for work).As Director, I oversaw staff who worked shifts around-the clock to manage the federal inmates and those awaiting trials in federal courts. The leadership skills I acquired while serving in first-line supervision and later, as an administrator in law enforcement, helped me greatly in managing the day-to-day activities of around 100 inmates and defendants awaiting federal trials. I managed many special tasks during my year and a half long stint running a halfway house, from managing escape incidents, to helping coach inmates and residents in job-hunting and reacclimating to life outside of the federal prison system. I worked closely with the U.S. Marshals Service as their agents often inspected our facility and worked closely with us to re-acquire escapees who absconded form the half-way house. While ultimately, I decided this was not a career I wanted to continue, I learned from this experience and enjoyed the relationships with staff, many of which we maintain to this day.

Albuquerque-Santa Fe Metropolitan Area

After 19 1/2 years in the New Mexico State Police, I committed to an Inter-Agency transfer to the New Mexico Office of the Attorney General (AGO) as the Director of the investigations Division. While in this role, I assisted AGO staff in writing a grant to form an Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force in New Mexico, funded by the US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs (DOJ-OJP). This state-wide task force employed investigators in the AGO who worked tirelessly to identify, track down, arrest and assist AGO prosecutors in prosecuting individuals who attempted to meet what they believed to be minors for sexual encounters. Imagine these creeps' surprise when, instead of a fourteen year old girl, they were met with a bunch of burley cops and getting arrested!! Our task force members also tracked down individuals who trafficked child porn on the Internet. My time as the commander of this task force, working with really great, dedicated and hard working detectives was a perfect ending to my twenty-two year law enforcement career. Aside from the ICAC taskforce, my time at the Attorney General's office allowed me the inside view of a politician's work and life as I was also a personal executive/dignitary protection agent and driver for our state attorney general. This was an exceptional experience and I was afforded a rare opportunity to work closely with dedicated law enforcement agents, prosecutors and high-level political operatives in a fast-paced and challenging workplace. As the director of investigations, I also got to work on and supervise challenging white collar crimes, often involving elected officials, along with appointed state employees and agencies of state government. Overall, my time at the New Mexico Attorney General's Office was filled with once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and challenges.

I spent nearly five years as a uniformed State Policeman in Wagon Mound and Las Vegas, NM. I promoted to Criminal Investigations Section Agent in 1989 and transferred to Espanola. In 1992 I transferred to Albuquerque, still in the Investigations Section. In 2000 I promoted to Sergeant. In 2004, I transferred to the NM Attorney General's Office as the Investigations Division Director.

Wagon Mound, Las Vegas, Espanola And Albuquerque, New Mexico

New Mexico State Police 42nd Recruit School, Santa Fe, New Mexico September - December 1984Uniform Bureau Patrolman, stationed at Wagon Mound (Population ~ 300!) on Interstate 25 in northern New Mexico. Transferred to Las Vegas, New Mexico 40 miles south of Wagon Mound and married a cute dispatcher in our office-Elizabeth Salas! While stationed in Wagon Mound and Las Vegas, New Mexico, I served as a field training officer, background investigations officer, search and rescue mission initiator and as a Hazardous Materials first responder. I also took an EMT basic course to add to the first aid training I received at the academy. I computerized our investigations reports that I completed as a patrol officer, making my investigations reports much more professional looking and more effective records for use by our district attorney staff and in court presentations. I tested for and promoted to Investigations Bureau Agent and transferred to Espanola, New Mexico where I investigated criminal activity from auto thefts, frauds, burglaries and sex crimes, to multiple murders and other types of homicides. I was the lead investigator in New Mexico's largest modern mass murder, the "Chimayo Massacre", in January, 1991. I transferred to the Criminal Bureau in Albuquerque where I was the first NMSP Agent to serve on the FBI Violent Fugitive Task Force where we investigated, located and arrested violent fugitives throughout New Mexico. During my tours of duty in Espanola and Albuquerque, I taught, at the New Mexico State Police Academy, and in training sessions around New Mexico. I taught criminal intelligence database management, crime scene investigations and basic and advanced auto theft investigations techniques. I promoted to the rank of sergeant and led other investigations agents who specialized in auto theft investigations. In July 2004, I accepted a position as Director of Investigations at our New Mexico Office of the Attorney General.

Criminal Justice

Education record