Carol:
Welcome back to the People-Forward Leadership Podcast. I am so glad you're here because today's guest has lived every seat of the industry she now leads, and I mean that literally. Dawn Distler is a 39-year veteran of the public transportation industry and the CEO of Metro Regional Transit Authority in Akron, Ohio. She began her career as a bus operator at Metro before rising to SCAT operations manager and assistant director of customer services. After 17 years, she headed south to join the leadership team at Davidson Transit in Nashville, then became director of transit for the city of Knoxville, where she led the organization to win APTA's outstanding transit system award in 2017.
In 2018, she came home to Akron as CEO of the very system where she once drove, and she has championed equitable transportation as an essential service ever since. She is called Transportation Access a Civil Right. And under her leadership, Metro just posted its highest ridership since 2009. She serves on the leadership team of the Ohio Public Transit Association and on APTA's board of directors. And in 2024, she was named Transit CEO of the Year for the entire country. And in 2025, she led her team at Metro to win outstanding public transportation system of the year. Two agencies, two system of the year honors, and a career that started behind the wheel.
Dawn, I have been looking forward to this conversation. Welcome, welcome, welcome. I mean, wow.
Dawn:
You make me sound really good, I'll tell you.
Carol:
You are good. Listen, I love your origin story. In 1987, you were laid off a softball team and a softball teammate suggested you drive a bus. And when Metro turned you away for not having a chauffeur's license, you drove straight to the DMV, took the test, came back with your license in under two hours, and nearly four decades later, you're leading the same system as the National Transit CEO of the Year. So I want you to take us back a moment when you pulled up into this work and what has kept you there all these years.
Dawn:
Well, it's crazy because I definitely came into the industry by chance and just absolutely fell in love with it because I fell in love with what you get to do every day, the people you get to meet, and there's never been a position throughout my career that I didn't love what I was doing. And what other industry do you get to work for that you get a paycheck, but you also get to give back to the community every single day that you do it?
Carol:
Wow, that's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. That's incredible. And so you fell in love with the industry, and I think that is so important that people love what they do. And I always say we work, the majority of our time is spent in our work, so it should be something that brings us joy and have the ability to give back to that, which I think is great. And for you as a full circle moment to start driving, but now lead the organization, how has that been, that journey from sitting behind the wheel to actually governing all the people who are behind the wheel now?
Dawn:
Yeah, it's different because even though every once in a while people will say, "Well, it's been a long time, so you've forgotten what it's like," you really don't. Driving a bus, you never forget what it's like to actually be a bus operator. There's amazing parts to it, and there's a couple of bad parts to it too. So when I'm thinking all the time about what's the next thing and when we're making a decision, I also think about how does that affect the bus operator? How does that affect the mechanic? Because everything you do, every decision you make affects everyone. It's like a domino effect all the way down through the organization. And so because I got to start as a bus operator and make my way through a lot of different areas, I think that it's helped me. I hope it's helped me to really know that any decision I make does not just affect a passenger or just affect a person or a department. It affects everybody as a whole.
Carol:
Yeah, I like that, that domino effect of decision-making. That's really powerful. Now you've said that the bus itself is one of the most equitable spaces out there, and nobody asks for your race, your gender, or how much money you make. You get on, you pay up, you sit down, you hold on, and you've sat in nearly all of these seats as we've talked about. Which one of the seats that you've sat in has shaped you most as a leader?
Dawn:
Oh, wow. Shaped me most as a leader. That would have to be, I think it truly was in Nashville. When I went to Nashville, I learned a whole different way of doing transit. Coming up through Akron, they have a way of doing things, but then I moved to a, first of all, a different part of the country. It's almost like being in a different country when you go from Midwest and Ohio all the way to Winn-Dixie there, and people think differently. But getting to work for Paul Ballard, who is probably one of the best CEOs in my opinion ever, and he taught me so many different things and so many different outlooks. And knowing that there are different ways to look at things, I think Nashville kind of helped me start to see that.
Carol:
Okay. That's really interesting because the thing that we talk about in leader awareness is one of the pillars of the People for Leadership Framework, and it is about this kind of reflective opportunity to take in information, to learn from other people, and then really reflect on your leadership and how you want to put that back out there. I'm curious, what did Paul, what did he teach you about leading differently? Particularly when it comes to thinking about leading your people and probably helping even informed, I love this domino effect of decision-making as you're thinking about everybody that's impacted by the decisions that you make.
Dawn:
I think Paul saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. Well, first of all, coming from Akron down to Nashville, I came down and worked for Bob Balser, and Bob was a union rep, same time I was a union rep in Akron. And he left and went to Nashville, and then a few years later he said, "Hey, I got this job and I think you'd be perfect for it." And it just seemed to be the right time for me in my life. And went ahead and went down, was able to secure the job. And he started teaching me different ways of looking at things as far as, "Hey, just get out there and get the job done. You don't have to ask a bunch of permission, just get it done." So he taught me that. And then Paul kind of moved me into a spot where I didn't really think I'd do more than be a mid-level manager, which is fine.
I'm always one of those people, "Hey, if you're going to be a bus operator, be the best one you can be. If you're going to be a mid-level manager, nothing wrong with that, be the best that you can be at it." But Paul, he took me to a spot where, really quick, I'll tell you a quick story of something where, first of all, Paul said, "You have to get a degree. If you don't get a degree, you can't go any further in my organization." So at, I don't know, 45 years old, I went back to school full-time. Full-time school, full-time work, got my degree, and he was good for his word. When I got my degree, he looked for a way in the organization and changed the organization to make sure there was a spot for me. And it was just like, wow, when somebody believes in you that much that they actually changed the way things are.
Now, it was right for the organization too. He didn't do it just for me. But then I went into a spot where he threw me into maintenance. He put me in charge of maintenance. I didn't know how to do anything as far as turn a wrench or anything like that. And I remember asking him on a couple of occasions, "Can I just have customer service? I know that." And he looked at me and he said, "If you don't learn enough about maintenance and everything in this organization so that people can't pull the wool over your eyes," he says, "You're not going to get any further." But then he caveated it with, "And if you ask me one more time if you can get out of maintenance, I'm going to take your ID badge and you can go work somewhere else." Okay. I liked working there.
So I learned maintenance and I learned enough that it made sense. And then it helped me understand how things affect maintenance when you make decisions, as well as how they affect customer service or how they affect operations or whatever was next.
Carol:
Wow. What a great story. I mean, I'm just jotting down the nuggets of the things that he did by helping you to take up your own ownership and trust yourself, providing you guidance and supporting your journey, helping you, and him investing time and money into your growth, and believing enough in you to create space for you within the organization. I mean, that is a recipe for success and really supporting someone and to believe in them, to help them own and step into their own power and significance. As a leader, how are you implementing those things within your own leadership team? I mean, are you catching people who you see diamonds in the rough or others that you're like, "Boy, I see an opportunity for you," or, "I see potential and possibility for you." How are you bringing those lessons into your leadership?
Dawn:
Especially after the pandemic, planners, planners, trying to find a good planner was really hard to do. And especially if you wanted them to come to work and didn't want them to work from home, it was really hard to do. And I'm a real stickler for, if you're going to roll your eyes at me when I ask you something, I want to see you do that. So I want you in front of me when I talk to you. But Akron has been a good place for us to do that because we've gotten away from the, you have to have 10 years of experience and all this stuff. We are, I call us a small mid-size transit system.
We don't have a lot of the funding that some of the bigger places have. And so we have to be very careful with what we have, and we can't always pay somebody because they have a master's degree and they deserve to be paid. So we started looking at our place as a place that hopefully people learn, and it's a stepping stone for whatever's next for them. Now, if they choose to stay with us and grow that way, that is awesome because for some people, money is not the end-all, be all, right? Be all, end all. But for other people, it is.
So if you want to make more money, awesome. Tell me when you're ready and I'll go help you find the next spot. I would much rather somebody came to me and said, "Hey, Dawn," or now I can always find you more to do though. Yeah, I can always do that. Or I need more money, I get that, or I need to change a scenery. Let me help you go to the next level that you want to go to. But in the meantime, there are people in our organization who might have a degree or they're working on a degree or they're really interested in how they can be a planner or a data analyst or something like that. So we'll bring them along and start them at a level where we can mold them and help them and hopefully help them find their passion in the industry and become one of the best planners or data analysts or accounting or whatever it might be.
Carol:
I love that so much. I love that because so many times people are so worried about people leaving and they do all these things to limit opportunity because they want to make sure they stay captive. But to lean into your people and have to say, "Listen, we know who we are, but we know what we can provide in terms of a growth opportunity and a learning opportunity for your people," which probably I'd be curious if it contributes to the longevity of people because I think most of the time people want to feel valued and seen and supported. And the fact that basically by doing that, that's exactly what you're doing. People probably end up staying more than they do leaving.
Dawn:
They really do. Yeah, especially in our spot. I think you have to be ready to help people to the next step. But I think you also have to be careful, and I've had to do this in my career too, where you go, "Hey, I'm making some changes here and you're going to stay here in this spot while I move these other two people over here." And I did that at Akron, and I had a gentleman who, just an amazing guy, I mean very talented, and I knew that he's going to be really even better and bigger someday, but he wasn't quite ready.
And when I said, "Hey, I'm making this new level of senior leadership," he said, "Was I even considered?" And I said, "Actually, you weren't. No. You got to be honest, right?" And he goes, "Why?" He goes, "So why was I not considered?" I said, "Because you're not quite ready. And I don't want to put you in a position where you could possibly fail because you're close, but you're not quite there yet." Now today, he is in that position. He's leading in that position in that group, and it only took him two more years. But you have to be ready. The organization has to be ready, and he had to be ready.
Carol:
Yeah. Yeah. And you, as a leader, had invested the time and energy to understand his capability and capacity to position him for success and not position for failure, which is phenomenal. It's phenomenal. Riders depend on Metro to get to work, to school, to medical appointments, and you're balancing budget, safety, and workforce of hundreds. When the pressure is high and the stakes are real, what keeps you anchored in your values instead of reacting in the moment?
Dawn:
Yeah. Actually, reacting sometimes gets you in more trouble. And that's something that we've had to really think about. I guess one of the things that's been really cool about being here is I have leaders now who I've moved into. We made a C-suite of chief positions. And when we move people into that, helping them go to the next level, but then taking them even further of going, "Hey, you guys are the ones that have to have the 40,000-foot view now, and you have to trust the people that you're supervising, and you have to delegate to them." And teaching that and helping them not to be reactionary also, don't jump in and do it, let your folks do it, and if they make a mistake, that's okay. It's part of the learning process.
And I think the best part of me being successful is when I'm really not essential anymore. And I'm kind of getting to that point now, I think, in Akron, because my group, it runs like clockwork even when I'm not there. I might get a call once in a while, but for the most part, these guys take it and run with it. And to me, that's cool. Watching a light bulb go over somebody's head and go, "Oh, I got it." Or knowing people feel comfortable to make decisions. But back to your question, I'm sorry, reacting is I kind of learned that, especially during the pandemic, I learned you can't be reactive because you don't know what's happening next.
And sometimes it was just things changed by the hour, not even by the day. And I remember one of my folks saying, "Will you just make a decision so we know what to do?" And I'm like, "No, I won't because they don't know what's happening next. So we're going to do this right now, but in 59 minutes, that might change. And you have to be ready for that. You have to be ready for that to change."
Carol:
Yeah. Yeah. You named some incredibly key principles of leadership. And one, what you just shared about being adaptable and flexible, that there's a difference between being reactionary and being flexible and adaptable because you don't know what's going to happen, but you have to stay ready for whatever could happen as a leadership skill. But I also really love what you said about teaching your leaders to have that 40-foot view to delegate to others. And that for you, success is that you're not even needed anymore. And I think I often tell leaders that 60% of your job is about developing other people so that you can stay up here and set the vision and create the pathway for them to shine and for them to grow. And that is such a hard thing for many leaders to understand. They think it's about them as a leader, and it's really about how you're creating capacity for that next level of leadership so that they can step up.
So to your point that you're like, they can run it without me. I've set them up for success that it's not me, it's what I've been able to pour into them to make them successful. I would just love for you to share, what are some of the things that you did or that you do to really help foster that within your team? Because that is phenomenal.
Dawn:
I would say one of the things, and for some people, this can be kind of rough to deal with, but you learn your people and you learn how to talk to each one of them because you have to talk to everybody differently. I mean, some people say, "This is my style." My style is I've got folks in my group who I'll talk very professional to all the time. I got others who I go up and go, "Hey, what's happening? What are we doing today? Let's go get a drink." And everybody's different. And how you motivate them and what motivates them to be all they can be and what's next. I think you have to know that. But the other thing that I do is I a lot of times start with a smaller group, but that group kind of becomes my brain trust. And there may be decisions in my head that I've already made for going forward, but very few of those decisions do I just do.
I sit down with that group then and I say, "Okay, here's our issue or here's where we need to be," or, "This is what I'm seeing over here with this. How do we get there? What is you guys' opinions of this?" And then a lot of times it's kind of fun because I just get to play devil's advocate while the three or four of them are bouncing back and forth. And it's fun sometimes. Sometimes I just sit there and listen to them and they're like, da, da, da, da, da, da. I go back and forth and back and forth. And then every once in a while I think it's my job to go, "Okay, that's enough. Now let's make a decision. We've heard everybody. What do you think?" Or I'll say, "Here's what I heard from you and what I heard from you. How do we meld those together?" And I think that way they feel that they're part of not just the problem, but part of the solution to the problem going forward.
And they buy into it with ownership. So when they leave, they're not leaving as Dawn wants this. They're leaving as, "This is what we're going to do next." And I think it's important for people to walk out of your office with a vision and know what they're doing and know that it's part of their vision and what they want to do.
Carol:
Yeah, that's so good. The ridership role is 24% the year after some changes, the redesign that you governed at Metro. And last year you hit 5.6 million trips, your highest in 2009. But every design means hard trade-offs. And you have a lot of successes that you have hit through your tenure as leading the organization. And I'm just curious, how do you translate the credibility, the level of success into trust across your operators, mechanics, dispatchers, your executive team so that people with very different priorities can actually execute together? So it's not just one group that's doing it, it's the collective.
So how are you building that trust and that safety within the group that people are coming together, making it happen?
Dawn:
Well, I would say giving credit where credit is due. I can't run a bus system without bus operators. I can't get bus operators in buses that work without mechanics. I don't know. I don't really know how to plan things. There's a running joke around here that I have no clue what planners do. I really don't. I'm an operations girl. Somebody actually took that the wrong way one day and said, "You just hate planners." No, I don't hate them. I just don't understand them. They think differently than I do. But I do think back to that domino effect of, "Hey guys, I need you to do this and this has to be accomplished."
And again, a lot of times we give stuff to our mechanics and say, "Tell us how we get there. How do we get the bus to look like that or run like that?" Or we say to a bus operator, "Hey, how do we make sure that that person gets picked up?" Or, "How do we make sure if we change this route that there aren't a bunch of people to get left? What do you hear?" And I think it's all the way down even to those groups. And those are some of your most important groups, your frontline folks, and asking them what their opinions are too. And I think that helps them buy into it.
Carol:
Yeah. I love that. The theme that I'm hearing from things that you're sharing is that you just position yourself to stay curious and just to get the information from the talent you have around you. That you trust, that people know what they're doing and know that their input has some value, and that you're actually soliciting it, listening to it and using it.
Dawn:
Yeah, I have that kind of Henry Ford mentality. I'm really not that smart and I really don't know a lot. I just surround myself with people who do. I try to make sure that people who I hire, and especially who I put in leadership positions, think completely different than I do, because I need other people and the way they think to bring that home and then tell me what the next best steps are. Those are actually the smart people and they just make me look good after that.
Carol:
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And so my follow-up to that is how then do you still own your leadership and authority? Because that's a tricky line. Some leaders do that, but then they're not seen as the leader or authoritative. They're not seen as the bottom line, the final say. So I'm curious, how do you balance this ability to bring these smart people together, but they know that the buck stops with you, Dawn?
Dawn:
Well, I think one of the big things that we do, accountability is a big thing. So I'm always going to hold you accountable. I'm always going to give you the credit, but I'm also going to hold you accountable. And I make a promise to my group that works with me. I'm responsible for any decision you make. So if you make a great decision, I'm giving you all the credit. If you make a bad decision, I'm taking all the responsibility. And we could be kind and hold people accountable too. And that doesn't mean that you and I aren't going to sit down and talk about your decision. We are, and I'm going to hold you accountable for that decision.
But at no point am I going to say, "Well, that was Joe's fault, not mine." Because you know what? It's my responsibility. And I'm not going to lie, there are times when I have to go, "Hey, whoa, whoa, did you forget you worked for me? I don't work for you. So sit down, let's talk about this again." And every once in a while you have to do that.
Carol:
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. I want to switch and talk about AI and people. Transit is becoming a technological business from scheduling and real-time data to customer-facing tools, and AI is really accelerating all of it. And I'm curious, you've been an early adopter of rider-facing technology going back to your Knoxville days. So as those capacities are reshaping what's happening in the workforce, how are you keeping people, both your workforce and your riders, at the center of your decisions with all of this new technology?
Dawn:
I want to do it. If we can do it faster or we can do it, we're always going to have that mentality. And I believe in technology to help us out, but I also, and maybe this is just because I'm old, I don't believe that a machine can ever take the place of a person. Because you know what? Even when you're scheduling a trip, and as an operations manager in our demand response group, which was my first management job after driving bus, we had to figure out routes by hand. We had to figure out that demand response route. Okay, this person's going to take a little longer because they use a mobility device. This person's going to need a little extra help. This person's going to pop right out, jump right on, no problem at all. Boom, boom, they're gone. I know this driver can get here this quick or this. A machine can learn some of that, but it can't learn all of it.
And I think sometimes we're too quick to go, "Okay, well, I can replace six people with this. I only need one." Yeah, but you know what? Those other five people can't talk to that person on the other end of the phone who's only calling because you're the only person they get to talk to all day long, even though they know they could schedule their trip on an app. And if somebody wants to do that, that's cool. But there's always going to be Mrs. Smith or Mr. Jones that just wants to hear your voice and wants to know that everything's okay that day.
And so I think it's important that we remember, I don't think you ever, you replace them. You might be able to do some things in between, but I don't think you actually replace the bus operator because that bus operator knows their passengers and they know what that's supposed to look like. They know what that area's supposed to look like, and they're eyes and ears for other things.
Carol:
Yeah. Yeah. One of the things when I talk about with organizations when they're bringing in AI is to make sure that they're having that kind of framing conversation in their organization, that they're very clear on their philosophy and their Their vision and their idea of the limits, how we're going to use AI, what it's here for, what it's not here for. When you decided to bring that in there, and I love what you said about, listen, it can't do everything a human could do. Is that the type of conversation you have with your team? Because people are fearful that when you bring AI that you're going to replace me or I'm not going to be of value anymore. And I'm just curious, when you rolled that out with your team, how did you do that?
Dawn:
Yeah, I mean we did. We talked about, okay, who are the people who are going to jump right on and do this? Who are the people who are going to grab the app and run with it? And people get real afraid. You don't know what you don't know, and you're afraid of what you don't know. So making sure that even your group understands we're not trying to do away. We know Mrs. Smith is going to call every day. We're not trying to do away with that. We're just trying to make sure Mabel over here is able to use the app if she wants to use it and doesn't want to tell her she could go on her trip. I don't necessarily think that there won't be driverless vehicles. I do. I've been in a way mo, I thought it was kind of cool. And I think that someday a bus will go around on its own.
That doesn't mean there won't be an attendant or an operator on the bus that's doing the things of making sure everybody's okay, making sure that region still looks the way it does, making sure Mr. Johnson who's on there every day is on there every day and not missing for three or four days. I think it's important for that interaction.
Carol:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally agree with that. So I want to close out with this question. You've now led two different agencies to System of the Year Honors, and it all started behind the wheel of a bus in Akron, as I mentioned before. If you could leave the leaders listening with one shift or one practice or one mindset to become more people forward, what would it be?
Dawn:
It's not about you. It's always about them. Doesn't matter whether it's the passenger, the bus operator. It doesn't matter who the person is or what their role is. When you're thinking about what you're doing next, think about how it affects them and how it makes life better for them. I tell my folks all the time, "You guys are smarter than me. You guys know more than I do." I said, "The only thing I can promise you is you'll never outwork me."
And one of the things you said at the beginning was work is your life. You spend a big part of your life at work. And my wife will tell you, I spent a big part of my life at work when she wishes I was home with her. And it's because it's about them, and I'm never going to let you think that you're alone in whatever you do or by yourself. If there's a big thing going on and I expect everybody to be there at night, I'm not going to be home. I'm going to be there with you. Now, a lot of times you may ask me to leave because you want me to keep my mouth shut and get out of your way. But just remember, it's always about them. And whatever you're doing, think about how that would make you feel if you were them.
Carol:
Yeah, that is powerful. That is really good words to live by, that it's not about you. And I agree, leadership is always about the other person. And you being there I'm sure is why you have such a dedicated team of people who are doing great things and helping you win those awards that I think [inaudible 00:33:58]-
Dawn:
We're winning them as a team. They're good people. I got great people.
Carol:
Yeah, that's incredible. Dawn, I want to thank you for joining me today. This was exactly the conversation I hoped it would be. And I look forward to how people will take this and think about their own way of leading people forward in the future. So thank you so much for joining me.
Dawn:
Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate you.
Carol:
Awesome. Awesome. And listen, to everyone listening, if this conversation moves something for you, please share it with other leaders who need it. And come find us. You can learn more about the work we do at thriveaccessgroup.com or reach out to us at hello@thriveaccessgroup.com. Until next time, keep leading people forward, and I'll see you soon.
