Transit
Metro needs a CEO
The WMATA Board is expected to choose an interim General Manager today. The next step will then be to find a permanent head for the agency. When they do, the Board should look beyond top transit administrators and look for a top manager from the private sector.
Photo by mrellenberg.
Many of the problems Metro faces resemble those of large companies. It's a big organization with many employees and complex operational requirements. It has to drastically reduce administrative staffing while trying to maintain its capacity to get things done. It needs to improve its customer service, again with limited resources.
These are the kinds of problems that a top manager who's run a large operations-oriented company can solve. Maybe it's the head of a transportation-related company, like a FedEx or UPS, or even a large retailer or manufacturer that has to handle complex operations with many workers including a unionized workforce. Someone who's effectively run such a company has experience keeping everything moving on time and balancing that with good customer service.
DDOT Director Gabe Klein also came from a private sector background, running companies whose business related to transportation, first for Zipcar in DC and then running his own company to manage mobile food carts. He knew transportation well enough to have good instincts, but didn't have to know every minute detail of traffic signal timing. He could delegate most of those specifics to top people and focus primarily on building an effective organization. So far, he's made great strides. Metro should look for someone with a similar profile.
Some have said that Metro needs a manager who knows safety. After all, fixing safety is Metro's top priority. The latter is true, but that doesn't mean that the General Manager needs to be a safety expert. If the General Manager personally checked up on everyone inspecting tracks or operating work zones, he'd never handle the bigger issues.
Instead, the General Manager needs to know enough about safety to find the world's best Chief Safety Officer and give him or her broad powers to make sure that Metro institutes a firm culture of safety. The GM also needs to back up the safety officer in whatever decisions he or she makes. A good manager, especially a good private sector manager, can do this. Many private sector companies also deal with safety issues, and we could hire a GM whose company has a stellar safety record.
More and more public sector and nonprofit organizations are hiring leaders from the private sector. Many universities have started to do this, for example. Private sector companies aren't always better run than public sector ones and their managers aren't always better (just look at AIG, or the automakers), but there are a lot of good ones, and management techniques from the private sector that would improve public sector organizations.
Any industry, whether private or public, also develops certain "ways of doing things." People who work in the transit field say that is no different. Some of them are good, and reflect time-tested strategies learned over time. Others are simply relics maintained by inertia. Bringing in someone who's not steeped in existing assumptions gives the opportunity to reexamine them and reject the ones that aren't adding value.
The conservative path would be to hire one of the nation's best transit managers. Maybe there's a really good one out there. But Metro needs change, and it especially needs change in areas that aren't unique to transit, like customer service, or areas that the GM can't personally fix, like safety.
Metro needs two great people: a top-notch manager who knows enough about transportation but more importantly knows how to manage a large operational system, many employees, a sometimes-fractious Board, unions, customer service, and the press, and the world's best safety officer who can knock heads as necessary to make Metro one of the safest systems in the world. Looking beyond transit agencies will give Metro the best chance for success.
 | David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington and Greater Greater Education. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.   |
Comments
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by Local on Feb 4, 2010 10:52 am • link • report
Unless they can find someone like Michelle Rhee, *and* give her/him some opportunities to change the status-quo, nothing will change. And we all know that the many, many, many bosses of the WMATA GM will never give that position more power.
by Jasper on Feb 4, 2010 11:11 am • link • report
by Kreeggo on Feb 4, 2010 11:13 am • link • report
by Lou on Feb 4, 2010 11:16 am • link • report
I wasn't around here when he was the GM, and I suspect the board wouldn't be willing to give him the freedom he would need to do the job. And he probably has no interest in returning to DC and working under the sort of political constraints that led to his ouster as Amtrak CEO.
by thm on Feb 4, 2010 11:27 am • link • report
In Arlington, the County Manager is essentially a COO, running the county staff and resources, and reporting to the Board (the Board is more or less the chief executive of the County, our CEO). The Board sets policy and direction, the Manager administers the Board's decisions, or comes back with alternatives and recommendations based on his intimate knowledge of the workings and capabilities of the system.
Metro's GM position is essentially a COO. Unless things get reorganized, as Pierce Homer editorialized a few weeks ago, we need a skilled COO type at Metro.
by Lou on Feb 4, 2010 11:28 am • link • report
David Gunn, based on the birthdate on his Wikipedia page, is 72 years old (turning 73 in June).
by Alex B. on Feb 4, 2010 11:32 am • link • report
by Alex B. on Feb 4, 2010 11:44 am • link • report
Nothing is going to allow the trains to keep running in snowfall like the one we had in December. It's simply not possible.
You're talking one day out every 5 years, and when that one day happens nothing in DC is going to be open anyway. Not worth the investment in my opinion.
by MLD on Feb 4, 2010 12:00 pm • link • report
Made sense for Saturday of the storm. Not so for Sunday.
by Jason on Feb 4, 2010 12:08 pm • link • report
In case the absurdity of a 'weather machine division' wasn't enough, I was joking.
Point taken about the cost-benefit ratio of said weather machine division, however.
by Alex B. on Feb 4, 2010 12:26 pm • link • report
by Michael Perkins on Feb 4, 2010 12:45 pm • link • report
by JTS on Feb 4, 2010 12:58 pm • link • report
by Dennis Jaffe on Feb 4, 2010 2:38 pm • link • report
OMG, can you imagine actually hiring Rhee to run Metro!
by Jes' kiddin' on Feb 4, 2010 2:44 pm • link • report
I'd look to Gus. Or someone like him. I'd appeal to their patriotism and self-sacrifice. After all, no capable person would want the problems and aggravation that come with this job.
by Mike S. on Feb 4, 2010 2:50 pm • link • report
Honestly, having a person with a military background run the place would be awesome because not only are they willing to put up with a lot of the crap that's likely to come their way, they are usually not the type to deal well with the BS.
@JTS
I was thinking the same thing, kind of. I was actually thinking of getting a Japanese or Chinese person to come do it. A former head of the Beijing or Tokyo metro? I see your point though, as someone that's run Berlin, Paris, or London would likely fit the description well too.
by Teo on Feb 4, 2010 3:29 pm • link • report
His inability to work with the Board and jurisdictions lead to his being not hired when his term was up.
We've done that once before. Not again.
We need a manager who knows the region and is sensitive to the unique nature of Metro and its funding sources. We don't need a military man to show us how it's done. We need someone to run a safe, efficient system. We don't need someone from Europe or China (God forbid). The talent is here in this region.
What reasonable names can be suggested?
I like Doug Duncan when he ran Montgomery County. He's familiar with transportation issues. Knows his way around the region and on the Hill. He was ruthlessly efficient when he needed to be with the county government, let was not an dogmatic when it came to solving the County's, or the region's, problems. Who knows if he's interested, but it's the call the Metro should make.
Get him in and let him prove himself. Give him a year to get the system on track, literally.
No more Gunn, no more military men to come save us civilians, no one from China!
by Any1butgunn on Feb 4, 2010 3:42 pm • link • report
by David C on Feb 4, 2010 4:10 pm • link • report
Beijing's system is very well run, as is Shanghai's. And given the lack of communication and discipline at Metro, a person with a military background might actually have some ideas on how to implement a more effective chain of command than is currently in place.
by Teo on Feb 4, 2010 4:12 pm • link • report
by Neil Flanagan on Feb 4, 2010 4:15 pm • link • report
@Michael Perkins - glad someone got the reference. Scorpio, you're mad! :)
by Alex B. on Feb 4, 2010 4:17 pm • link • report
A military leader might be great for the safety job, though. The military is good at doing really dangerous things and avoiding killing people except when they're trying to kill them.
by David Alpert on Feb 4, 2010 4:25 pm • link • report
by kreeggo on Feb 4, 2010 5:12 pm • link • report
by Phil on Feb 4, 2010 9:03 pm • link • report
All we know is what we read about Metro and its needs. Still, it's clear that some needs to be politic enough to look at Metro's long-term finances and sell a long-term solution to its constituencies. It also needs proper oversight over its basic operation in terms of safety, keeping the rolling stock in shape, and running it on time. I left DC at the beginning of the Gunn era and came back for the very popular Tangherlini. Gunn was expected to cut service (his M.o. elsewhere) but didn't. Tangherlini had a flair for p.r., but it's difficult to know how he'd do during financially tighter times.
The public sector in this region has a short bench. Michele Rhee seems tempermentally unsuited to a job that involves working with multiple jurisdictions and her experience is pretty thin for the position she has. Her policies have not been much different from her predecessor and her actions often leave potential allies shaking their head. MoCo, once the archetypal "good government" jurisdiction is stuck with a weak unimaginative exec after having a slimy pro-business one, and the list goes on from there. I doubt that most corporate environments would prepare someone for dealing with multiple, legitimate masters.
This tends to leave the field to people experienced in running transport systems, or at least complex govt systems. They do exist--a decent set of stakeholders would go recruit one of them.
by Rich on Feb 4, 2010 9:07 pm • link • report
by anonymouse on Feb 4, 2010 9:27 pm • link • report
The military is good at...avoiding killing people except when they're trying to kill them.
there are millions of people around the world, including myriad Americans, who would beg to differ.
that said, my main objection to a military person would be their deep indoctrination in the chain of command, their top-down decision-making philosophy (which is anti-democratic, at its core), obedience to authority, etc. we need someone who can think for themselves -- not a yes-man/yes-woman.
find a women, put her in charge, give her all the support she needs to do a good job, don't expect her to be a hero -- expect her to a good job as part of a very large team, that's it -- and then if she doesn't perform well, fire her and find someone who can do the job right -- no more Cult-of-Catoe-while-people-die nonsense.
by Peter Smith on Feb 5, 2010 4:01 am • link • report
by Michael Perkins on Feb 5, 2010 8:51 am • link • report
by Froggie on Feb 5, 2010 9:34 am • link • report
I'm curious as to how you think it would be "simple" to convince the landlords of all that prime DC office space to just hand it over to WMATA.
Also, what's the clamoring for military people? I don't really see the DoD, et al as some kind of bastion of efficiency.
by MLD on Feb 5, 2010 9:50 am • link • report
by Interested on Feb 5, 2010 10:02 am • link • report
Because the Pentagon is such a model of efficient budgetary management!
by Greyskull on Feb 5, 2010 12:21 pm • link • report
by Phil on Feb 5, 2010 3:47 pm • link • report
Greyskull, your comment about budgetary management would eliminate virtually every local public official, but would actually help Gus Pagonis. You see, after he retired, he took over logistics at Sears and completely turned the company around. He transformed their inventory and logistics systems and saved them hundreds of millions of dollars.
David, after Pagonis left Sears, he became Chairman of the Board at RailAmerica, which operates dozens of short line railroads all across the country. He knows how to run a railroad.
Pagonis was the first American soldier in Saudi Arabia in Desert Storm. Lacking a hotel room, he slept in the backseat of his rented Chevy for the first two days. He envisioned and created the air-sea bridge that won that war and he showed an uncanny ability to lead and to delegate.
I absolutely love the way he describes his specialty:
"The secret of logistics is never to lose sight of who the customer is."
Problem is Gus is 67 years old, and doesn't need the job or the aggravation. But possibly someone could convince him to lead America's subway back to respectability. He knows a little about the system. It stops at his old office building, you know.
by Mike S. on Feb 5, 2010 5:16 pm • link • report
There's no doubt that Mr. Catoe is a good transit manager – but he lacked the qualities needed to run a system that is both chronically underfunded (due to the lack of a steady, reliable source of funding, such as the fractional percentage of sales tax that system BART and NY's MTA have); while being a system constantly in the public eye.
I was amazed to read somewhere that Mr. Catoe was surprised by how 'political' a job running Metro turned out to be. He shouldn't have been. If true, that comment shows that Mr. Catoe didn't really know either his riders or the environment he was operating in.
On any given day you have government employees, Congressional staffers and members of the press riding Metro and I'm sure like most people, they complain to their co-workers when it takes them an hour or two to get home or to get into the office. You know that filters both up and down the line in their workplace – so of course, Metro will periodically end up in the Washington Post or on the evening TV news – especially when you add in the recent spate of fatalities. It's inevitable and whoever is chosen as the next Metro head needs to be sensitive to that and have a game plan at the ready to deal with it – Mr. Catoe did not.
by laSerenissima on Feb 6, 2010 2:51 pm • link • report
not sure what being so dismissive and crude is all about, but you shouldn't feel so threatened - the womyns are coming - they've proven themselves. it's a definite trend in the recent history of mankind - get used to it.
WMATA should jump on board.
by Peter Smith on Feb 8, 2010 12:52 pm • link • report
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