Carol: Welcome to the People Forward Leadership Podcast. Today's guest has been leading the same organization for more than two decades, and has been part of it since the day it opened its doors, and that kind of longevity in a CEO seat in public transit is rare. Doran Barnes has dedicated his career to making public transportation more efficient, accessible, and community focused. As CEO of Foothill Transit since 2003, he leads a 38-line bus system and oversees the operations of 360 buses serving the San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys in Eastern Los Angeles County. What is very interesting about this is that Foothill Transit doesn't employ its own bus operators. Every operator and every mechanic works for a private contractor. So, that means Doran leads a workforce he doesn't directly employ, but he's built a strong culture anyway, which is pretty powerful. Under his leadership, Foothill Transit became one of the first agencies in the country to put a battery electric bus on the road, and now runs one of the nation's most ambitious mixed zero emission fleets.
Nearly half the agency's employees are women, and nearly 70% are people of color. And he was honored last year with the WTS-LA Ray LaHood Award for encoding inclusion into the agency's values and culture. His influence reaches well beyond Foothill, he serves on the board of directors for Access Services, the paratransit provider for Los Angeles County, and has served as chair, vice chair, and secretary treasurer of APTA, the American Public Transportation Association. And he is deeply rooted in his community, serving on the planning commission for the city of San Dimas. With more than two decades at the helm, Doran Barnes is a passionate advocate for building stronger, more connected communities. And with that, I am excited to welcome you. Actually, there's so much more I could say, but we're going to-
Doran: No, that's great.
Carol: We're going to stop it there, and I want to welcome you to the podcast. Thank you for joining me.
Doran: Oh, it's a pleasure to be here today and to be able to join you, and to have this great conversation. I'm looking forward to it.
Carol: Awesome. So, I'd love to start with a leader's journey and what they've gone through has informed their leadership. So, you started this work behind the wheel driving a bus as a college student, and you've been with Foothill Transit since the very beginning in '88, and you left to run Tulsa Transit, came back, and now lead Foothill as CEO, and you've done that for 23 years. So, I'm curious about your leadership journey. When you pull into this work, what's kept you in transit? What's kept you in this organization? And how has that informed your leadership?
Doran: Well, I think for me, my journey actually began, as you mentioned, as a coach operator during my college days. I did my undergraduate work at the University of California at Davis, which was a great experience. Really had no idea what I wanted to do. I had kind of an idea, but it wasn't a real idea. I thought that international business sounded really cool, and UC Davis had an international relations program, and so I started taking classes. And as I started that journey, I needed a job. A college student, you need a job, need to have money to do the things that college students need to do. And I landed a job as a coach operator, and that's really led to this amazing career. I was a coach operator, I went through their student management program, which was like an internship program. It was a small system, about 35 buses, but everything that we did there at Unitrans in Davis, we do at Foothill Transit just on a bigger scale.
And so, I never thought I would be a transit professional. I think the thing that really draws me and has kept me in this space, couple things. First and foremost, we exist to help the members of our community. We're here to make the community better, we're here to get people to the places that make their lives better. That's our mission statement, by the way. But that's really at the foundation of what we do, helping people, making people's lives better. That's a calling in and of itself. I think the second piece of it, and it focuses on the work that you do, which is really about the people. It's the people that make this work. And what I find is the people in our industry are all, in some way or another, connected to that journey, that mission, that goal of making people's lives better. And that's just a really, really cool space to be in.
Carol: I love that. You talked about really the mission, and I heard you talk about the mission of Foothill but it feels like it's a personal mission for you as well. And I'm just curious around how does that having your own connection to the mission and the passion of the work contribute to how you show up as a leader and how you work with the rest of your team and the other leaders within your organization?
Doran: Well, I think it is a personal mission. It's an industry mission, it's an organizational mission. I think if you look at this entire transit space, those of us that are in it and that really stay in it, and a lot of people do, we are connected to that ultimate goal of helping make people's lives better. That's why we're here. And so, I think that is the glue that pulls us all together in some really powerful ways. I think in terms of showing up as a leader and leading the organization, sharing that vision, sharing that mission, sharing that story, sharing that common goal, ultimately what I want to do is root all of our people back to that purpose. The individual things that we do are different. We have a lot of people that do a lot of different things. Coach operators make up the biggest chunk of the workforce, but we have folks that are doing finance, they're doing construction management, they're doing vehicle procurement, they're doing communications. They've got specific tasks, but at the end of the day it all links back to that common goal of making the community better.
Carol: I think that's so powerful. In the People for Leadership, the framework that's named in the podcast, the three pillars are leader awareness, empowered ecosystems, and adaptive continuous learning. And that piece around connecting, having your people connect to that vision. I always tell leaders that people often think that employees just want more money and more compensation, which no one's going to say no to it. Don't get me wrong.
Doran: Right, right, right. It's all good.
Carol: But for the most part, people want to feel like they're making a contribution to something, that their work is meaningful, that their work is valuable, that there's a connection that no matter what it is, they're contributing to something bigger. And so, I love how you are connecting that vision and passion to everyone's work, and making sure that that's leading in terms of what you're doing. Yeah.
Doran: I think one of the results we see from that is that, and a common refrain you'll hear in the transit space, is that a lot of people never thought about transit as a career, but once they find it they really fall in love with that goal of serving people, of being connected to that higher purpose. And folks, once they get into our space, it's really common that they build a career from what was sort of that accidental entry, but becomes that adopted and that embraced passion going forward.
Carol: Yeah, yeah. It's why I love working with transit agencies because I feel like in some way I'm contributing to that as well, to that mission.
Doran: Well, you are. You're a part of this family. I mean, it takes all of us to come together, and that's in part where bringing people together from a variety of different viewpoints is also really important and really foundational to a lot of the work that we've done, that I've done. Here at the Foothill Transit in our service area, we have a phenomenally diverse community. If you look at people coming from really all kinds of backgrounds, we have folks that are coming from Asian backgrounds, from Latino backgrounds, from really all over the world into this special place that's Los Angeles. We have to understand and have insight into all of those communities, because the way you communicate with them, the way you serve them, the way you help build their lives or help them make their lives better is different. If we don't have those voices at the table, we miss out on how to connect with parts of our community.
So, we're really focusing on how do we embrace our differences, embrace the variety, the diversity, and use that to build an even better organization, better community.
Carol: Yeah, I love that-
Doran: So, it's very foundational to our purpose.
Carol: Yes. Yeah, because you've described wanting a rainbow of perspectives on your team, and you've built a workforce, as you just described, as nearly with different backgrounds, with different ethnicities, with women. And like I mentioned earlier, roughly 70% of people of color representing. So representation is important, right? Because like you said, it gives you that perspective.
Doran: Absolutely.
Carol: But I'm curious, how do you ensure that those perspectives are heard, are taken up, that they're embedded in the culture and the things that you're doing? Where people understand that those perspectives are wanted or desired, and there's trust and safety to be able to bring that forward so that you can serve this vast amazing population that you service.
Doran: Yeah. Well, I think there's a number of ways, and it is foundational. It is part of our value system to be supportive of each other, to be respectful of each other, to understand that we are all different and that we shouldn't all be alike. What we should do is learn from each other. I think drilling down a bit, so you mentioned our coach operators and frontline personnel are provided by contractors. We do have a core staff of about 53 employees that are direct employees, and one of the things that we do as part of our onboarding process is do a lot of investigation and evaluation in terms of how each person brings their unique perspectives, but does it in a way that coordinates with others on the team. And so, I'll give you one example.
Carol: So great.
Doran: When we interview candidates, we have a little bit of a unique interview process. We generally bring five or six candidates together at the same time in the same room, and have them go through what is essentially a simulated staff meeting. We give them a problem statement, each one of them, each of the five or six that are in the room, they have a problem that replicates the kind of problem they would deal with in their functional area. And then they lead a discussion amongst the other candidates about that problem, and then report back the results of the group conversation. What we're really looking for in that, now you might think that's unorthodox, but-
Carol: No, I think it's fantastic.
Doran: I love that. What we're looking for there is can a person bring their unique perspective? Can they interact with others in a stressful environment? Because we really don't tell them a lot about this, we're kind of throwing them into the fishbowl. But can they bring their perspective? Are they respectful of others? Do they contribute to the conversation? And in part, if someone is dominating the conversation, that might not be the right person. If someone shrinks into the wallpaper and kind of disappears, their voice isn't going to be loud enough to be heard. And again, every time we do it's different. It's different players, different people, but what we're looking for is can you bring your unique life experiences and add to the conversation in a way that makes us stronger?
And I think that's been just one of many ways that's been powerful in terms of how we've built culture. Also in that same room, we have most of our department directors and some of the key staff from the department where the hiring's happening. So, we're not only looking at the candidates, we're getting a lot of diverse viewpoints from our own team about how that individual is going to contribute to the whole.
Carol: Yeah, I think that is brilliant, because what you're doing is right at the door creating psychological safety. Because one of the key components of psychological safety is that you can feel that it's okay to bring your whole self-
Doran: Absolutely.
Carol: ... to the table, and that your voice can be heard, and that you can express opinion, and offer counter ideas, and not have fear that if you show up that somehow or other that's going to be either disvalued or not taken up. And so, what you're doing right walking through the door is creating a sense of safety and letting people know that here, this is how we work, this is how we operate, which I think is brilliant as opposed to waiting until a problem comes up, or letting people come in and, what is the phrase? Like sink or swim? But you're actually creating a container that's allowing people to move in as part of the culture, and you're building it simultaneously. Because as you said, it's always different and there's new people and there's new perspectives. So, you're constantly iterating and adapting the culture as people are coming in and making space for them, which I think is brilliant.
Doran: Well, and along those lines, another part of that process, again, when you look at the number of current team members that are in the room, and it's usually 8 or 10 people that are in the room, again, absolutely want to get their perspectives, their value, their input to the decision. There's a part of it too, that is building buy-in amongst the current team members that whoever we pick, you have a role in helping this person be successful. If somebody comes in the door and it's not the idiot that I hired, if you will, it's the idiot we hired together so we better stand that person. And I'm saying that somewhat facetiously, but what I'm getting at is we all have a vested interest in that person being successful because we all collaborated in the person that we selected. And again, doesn't mean we always agree.
Carol: Of course.
Doran: In our internal discussions, we don't always have complete agreement. I don't think that is necessary, I don't think that's even healthy. But what we try to get to is at the end, we have a robust discussion and that we agree together on a path forward. Again, that creates for the candidate an understanding of the organization, the environment we're trying to create for the team, the notion that, "Hey, we all have to support each other to be successful. We succeed together, we fail together. I don't like option B, so let's succeed together."
Carol: Yeah, that's so great. I mean, it fosters accountability. Like you said, we're all in this together so we're all responsible for the success. And you're right, I always tell people everyone shouldn't agree. That's what I call toxic positivity.
Doran: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No.
Carol: It means that it means something's not being said that should be said if everyone's disagreeing. So, it's great that you create a culture as well for there to be differing of opinions and ideas. I always tell people conflict is just a misalignment or a difference of opinion that just needs to be aired and expressed. It's not a bad thing, but it's a healthy thing. Most cultures are more healthy when they allow for that dynamic.
Doran: I figure if 10 people are in the room and all 10 agree, then 9 of them were redundant. So, we need those diversity of inputs and viewpoints. I think, again, part of the culture, we have spirited discussions about things. But at the end, what we're always striving for is let's have that discussion, let's hear each other, let's do everything we can to come together and chart a path forward, and I think that gives us strength.
Carol: Yes. And so, I'm curious about that in connection with, as you talked about before, everyone else that's on your team. So, I believe that people who are leaders are always, there's always trade-offs between when you're managing budget, people's inside needs and when you're managing budget, what the board requires, what the community requires. There's always this kind of management that you're doing. And as we talked about, you have this added layer, because the decisions that you make about service schedules and technology are actually with people who actually aren't employed with you. So, how do you bring them into the conversation? How do you make the hard call when balancing between budget, community and your people, and keep people motivated, inspired, and moving in the same direction?
Doran: Yeah, it's an interesting dance in many respects. So the way we're structured, we have two operations and maintenance facilities. About half of our buses are assigned to each one of those two facilities. We have a different contractor that operates and provides the frontline staff at those two facilities. So these two companies, they happen to be international companies that have international presence. They bring international expertise, which is one of the many values that this model has. They also bring their own cultures. And so, what we are striving to do is to allow them to bring their own cultures and build their own cultures, and at the same time understand our culture, our goals, our mission, and really meld the best of those together to the greatest possible extent. Fortunately, even though our two operating contractors are competitors, and we respect that and we understand that, when we come together at the end of the day, what the community sees is just Foothill Transit.
They don't see our operating contractors, they see one organization. So, we do a lot of meetings, a lot of activities where we collaborate together and we focus on things together, and we try to tackle challenges together. And to the largest extent that we can try to share best practices across that entire platform. It's not a perfect dance, but I think at the end of the day, again, it gives us added perspectives. It gives us that added power of the international expertise that these companies bring that we wouldn't have if all of that was operated under one umbrella. And people ask me, "Is it easier or harder to contract?" It's just different. Some days it's easier, some days not so much. Some days we can nudge those individual cultures more than others. There are times when I want to go over and I want to nudge it a lot, and we have to respect the boundaries of how this model works. So, it's got its pros and cons but the balance has been good for us.
Carol: Yeah, for sure. For sure. I'm curious around how do your values as a leader, you talked about your passion and what the core focus is. How does that shape you responding to different challenges or things that come up? We had the pandemic, and I know people are still even in some ways recovering from the pandemic, even though it's been some years, but it was a big impact. And so, when challenging times come up, how do your values keep you from being reactive but really staying the course and holding that stability for everyone? And how have those things, and particularly with building this kind of rainbow perspective, really shaped how you see leadership, particularly as you're developing the next generation of leaders?
Doran: Absolutely. I think the values combined with the mission and vision become the guiding light. And I'd say that for me, and I believe and I hope that that follows through for all of our team members. When they're faced with individual decisions and I'm faced with individual decisions, go back to the mission, go back to those values, those guide us as we make those individual decisions. So to me, that becomes the bright light that we come back to. We've had a huge commitment, for example, to sustainability. We have, as you mentioned, one of the nation's largest zero emission vehicle fleets. We've been a pioneer and we've had breakthroughs in many zero emission technologies. That takes people to make that happen, and that takes an environment that allows for risk-taking, that takes financial support, that takes political support.
But at the end of the day, we come back to the notion that we want to do things that protect the environment and position us to be good stewards of the environment. Another value that we have is accountability. When you put those two things together, accountable for our actions, accountable for the way we use resources, we have to make sure that we're being sustainable but we're also being good stewards and accountable for the financial resources that we've been entrusted to manage. And so, you have to create this mosaic of things where one value doesn't drive it in and of itself.
And in some cases, these values can push and pull against each other, but that combination of things becomes the guiding light that drives us forward. And people are at the heart of so much of that. You could say, "Hey, we're in the transportation business, we're in the bus business." We're not really in the bus business, we're in the people business. The buses are the tool, the people are the heart of what we do. And again, that's the people that we transport, that ride with us. That's the people in the community who essentially provide the financial resources to do what we do. And it's the people that day in and day out deliver on the promise that we've made to use those resources wisely. So to me, people have always been at the heart of everything that we do.
Carol: Yeah, I love that. I love that. So as you think about it, I saw an article after the World Cup left, that the winners of all of that were the transit systems that were supporting these massive people getting to and from the game. So, LA hosted the World Cup and the Olympics are around the corner in two years. So, how are you leading the organization right now, or preparing the organization for what's coming down the pike? You've kind of had it with the World Cup, but I'm just curious as the Olympics are coming up, how are you successfully positioning your people to navigate what's coming down the pike?
Doran: Yeah, the World Cup was certainly a great event here, not only in Los Angeles but across the country. And here in Los Angeles we have, if you look again, a different cut on diversity and approach. Here in Los Angeles County, we have this phenomenal mosaic of public transit providers that operate service throughout Los Angeles County. We're just one of those operators. We handle the Eastern San Gabriel Valley. Los Angeles Metro or the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is the overarching organization that does a lot of transit operation, but also does planning and coordination at a countywide level. And so, they've had the lead for World Cup, they have the lead for the Olympics, and have really done a great job of pulling us all together from a planning and coordinating standpoint.
I think from the World Cup experience, I think we did a couple of things. One, we demonstrated that transit can deliver, transit can help people get to those venues and enjoy all the great things that are happening. And we did that, and we were nimble, and we made course corrections as the World Cup unfolded, as we learned things. I think that's part of the resilience and the value of what we do. So that was a real, real positive. I think we also saw, and this is a community challenge, is that those services don't just magically appear. It takes resources to make them happen. And so again, LA Metro having the lead on the Olympics, we're leaning in with them.
A key conversation, a key element for our entire community is how do we deliver what we did for FIFA on a massively bigger scale? And that's conversation that's ongoing. And so, we've got to realize we can do it, but we can't do it without the resources to make it happen. So, that's really a fundamental question that I think from a community standpoint, we've got to continue to work on.
Carol:
So, Doran, I have a question about, how as a leader do you prepare your people for the unexpected? Right? Because there's so many things like the pandemic, there's so many things outside of your control, and that can build a lot of anxiety with the people that you're working with. But it's so important as a leader to teach resiliency and adaptability. So, how do you do that? And if you have examples of that or how you've done that in the past, and even positioning forward for things that are coming up, how do you build that within your workforce?
Doran:
I think that flexibility, that resiliency is so fundamental for an organization. For us, it's been another cornerstone. It's interesting, it's not really a written value. I guess maybe it should be in some respects, but it's ingrained in what we do. And I think it really initiated... Prior to the pandemic, it initiated in that I'm usually the big idea guy. I'm the come up with the, let's move the ocean kind of thing. And so, I would throw crazy ideas out. And our prior deputy CEO, Kevin McDonald, Kevin would always have this line. And I'd come up with a grand idea and he'd kind of give me this look like, "Oh, we can't do that." And then he'd say, "Okay, we'll do it." And then he'd say, "We'll do it because blessed are the flexible for they shall not be broken."
And the notion was, we're going to be flexible, we're going to adapt. We're going to embrace that crazy idea. And it's really become ingrained, the first part particularly. Blessed are the flexible, which means as stuff changes, as things happen, we're going to adapt. We're going to make do, we're going to make the best. We're going to make better out of the circumstances at hand. I think the pandemic reinforced that even more than ever because that flexibility had to be on display, in action, sometimes hour by hour. So, again, it's a fundamental value of our core values. It's not really up on the board, but it is. Because everybody knows that saying, blessed are the flexible.
Carol:
Yeah. I think that is so powerful. And I said, the third pillar of our people for our leadership framework is adaptive continuous learning. And that model, blessed are the flexible, I think summarizes everything, what that particular pillar tries to teach. Because we try, when we do any kind of leadership development programs, talk a lot about flexibility and resiliency and being adaptable. And just being okay with just being comfortable with the discomfort. And knowing that it's an opportunity for innovation and growth as opposed to an obstacle or fear of, what do I do? It breaks the rigidity and allow you to just be more nimble to go with things, and to be creative in those moments.
Doran:
Yeah. I think in some respects, our organization, again, this great collection of people, I view my role in part being to push those boundaries, to push that creativity, to nudge us to try to do the things that maybe we think we can't do. What I need and what I have surrounding me are the folks that say, "No, we really can't do that. Slow down, boss." And I'm saying, "Yeah, we can." And at the end of it, we come to a middle ground where we push harder than we probably thought we could, but we also don't push so far that we try to do things that truly are impossible. And again, that's that push-pull. That's that diversity of viewpoint, of opinion, of perspective that in the end makes us stronger.
Carol:
Absolutely. And then when the next thing comes up, you have all this evidence and this past experience that shows that you did it, that you were able to move through the chaos of this. So it lets you know that you can do it in the future as well.
Doran:
No, absolutely. Absolutely. It gives us that confidence, that strength.
Carol:
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.
Doran:
Absolutely.
Carol: Yeah, yeah. I want to talk about AI, because I know-
Doran: Yeah, yeah.
Carol: Yes.
Doran: Oh, AI.
Carol: Because I know Foothill has a reputation as an early adopter.
Doran: Yeah, yeah.
Carol: As I mentioned, you were a pioneer in battery electric buses back in 2010, and are talking about sustainability or running hydrogen fuel cell buses now. And you've written about using data-driven route analysis to decide which technology fits which service. And so, AI being the next wave and scheduling, predictive maintenance and customer service, I'm just curious how is AI reshaping how your teams work, and how are you keeping people, which I know is the cornerstone, as you mentioned, of everything that you do so I know it's there, but how are you keeping people, not just technology, at the center of those decisions? Because you know there's a lot of fear and worry, but you all have moved into it. So, the typical fears and worries that other people who haven't even touched it are probably a different animal in your organization.
So, I'm just curious about how is reshaping things, or potentially reshaping things within the organization.
Doran: Yeah, I think worry, fear, enthusiasm, excitement, unknown, you can mix all that stuff together in an interesting soup of I don't know what, and it's all there. I think from an AI standpoint I think we're still at the infancy stages in terms of what can be done. There's tremendous potential in terms of things like improving schedules and using AI. One of the challenges we have with schedules is how do you take into account traffic patterns? And the schedule that you write for Monday isn't the schedule you need on Tuesday, or a random Wednesday when there might be a collision on the freeway that backs up the road system. We're looking at all of those things in terms of how we can move forward. Same thing on the maintenance side, what can we do in terms of predictive maintenance? What can we do to take tasks that have been in the past either labor-intensive or haven't happened to help us be stronger?
And I feel like we're not even taking baby steps yet in terms of what's possible. We're trying to be thoughtful about that, we're trying to make sure that we're taking a careful approach, that we're taking an ethical approach. I mean, we could probably spend a whole podcast talking just about that because it's really, really complicated. The other area that we're looking at, and probably one of the more leading areas, is what can we do to use AI for better customer support? A lot of the questions that we get are things like, "How do I get from stop A to stop B? What's the schedule?" Well, AI can handle a lot of that, and the human interaction can handle the more difficult questions. What can we do to leverage AI to provide better customer service to free up the human interaction for those more difficult types of transactions?
And for that matter, we can provide schedule information, for example, with a telephone inquiry and AI 24 hours a day. We can't do that with human beings simply because the resources aren't there to make that happen. So a lot of potential, a lot to think about. Like I say, I think this is a topic that's going to be front and center, and it's going to continue to evolve in a whole variety of ways over the upcoming years.
Carol: Yeah. Well, but what you said I think is really valuable in terms of having the conversations. When I talk to organizations about AI or becoming AI ready, one of the first things I talk about is framing. How are you having the conversation of who are we going to be with AI? What are going to be the ways we use it? What is going to be the impact to deal with any kind of fear or questions or uncertainty that's going on? And I think to your earlier point, what you said is that we're a people business. As that is a guiding value, I think, should reassure a lot of people that there's always going to be that human in the loop, if you will, that's taking place, that using AI to handle things that allows for the humans to elevate what they do in their work and their impact, and how they're overseeing the use of it as well.
And so, I love that from your value perspective, bringing that into the conversations that you're having around the technology I think is really powerful.
Doran: I think it's a whole new training area, a whole new skillset area. And I think to not lean in in that means that folks are going to get left behind, because it's happening. I mean, I see it around in all sorts of environments where it's happening. So to some extent, if we don't learn these skills and we don't learn how to interact with it, we're all individually going to get left behind. And I think that's an important thing to consider. I do think from the standpoint of our business, again, getting back to the people component of it, where we have the most people involved in the organization are the coach operators, are the folks that have that customer interaction. And you could ask the question, "Well, what about automated vehicles that are operated with AI that don't have a human coach operator?" I personally think that that's going to either be a hugely lagging element of transition, or maybe never transitions, or at least doesn't transition to where the human goes away.
Because we still need a human there, even if the bus can operate completely by itself, you still need someone there to be able to interact with the customers, to be able to help persons with disabilities, to help make sure that there aren't unsafe conditions. And I'm not sure how AI handles those tasks, at least in the next few decades. Certainly in my career, I think. Who knows? Who knows?
Carol: Yeah. Well, and the other thing is you got to get people on the bus, because I'll be honest, I'm not sure if I would get on one.
Doran: Right. Well, no, exactly. I mean, as human beings we want to have that human connection. And to get on a vehicle that is completely AI operated or automated, that's a thing.
Carol: Yeah, exactly. Right. And you get to know the people, the operators driving the bus, because if they know you take that route and maybe you're a couple of minutes late, they may wait for you when you're waving. But an automated bus is going to keep it moving on their schedule. Yeah. So, not only dealing with the people element within the people within the organization operating it, but also the community and how they're perceiving and receiving what you put out there.
Doran: Absolutely. So again, it's an exciting area. It's a scary area, it's an area that is going to demand attention. And again, we're trying to be thoughtful about how we approach it and what we do. And the one thing I absolutely know is we have a ton of things to learn and a ton of things to explore as we go forward.
Carol: Yeah, yeah. How are these conversations framing how you are identifying, fostering, and developing the next generation of leaders in Foothill?
Doran: Part of what I look for and have always looked for in leaders are individuals who can lean into challenges, who can learn, who can adapt. And foundationally, I think as we look at AI or we look at really anything, I've had great success and I'm really proud of some of the folks, many of the folks that we've been able to bring into the organization that have that as a core. Often when we're looking at someone, I'm looking at what technical skillset do they bring?
But beyond that, what is their capacity to learn, to grow, to adapt? Take, for example, our deputy chief executive officer who is my right hand in running the organization. She came into the business 20 years ago, I hired her. She had zero transit experience. I always often joke with her that LaShawn didn't know the front end of the bus from the back end of the bus. She came in and she was super smart, and she joined our procurement team, learned procurement, moved over to planning, which she knew nothing about but then led our planning department, moved over to our operations and customer service department, which is our biggest department, led that, and then moved up to be currently the deputy CEO.
And she's brilliant, but she came in with that curiosity, that willingness to learn. She didn't come in knowing a whole lot about the technical aspects of the business. People like that have been successful in our organization. I could go through dozens of examples of folks that have leaned in, have gone outside of their area of technical knowledge and space, and learned and applied and solved problems. That to me is the most fundamental part of leadership and what I'm looking for in trying to mentor and grow in terms of our future leaders.
Carol: Yeah. I love how you match capacity with opportunity. Because instead of just staying in one role, this opportunity to move around and really learn the industry as a way to grow and develop, people often think that the leadership trajectory is lateral and it really is a lattice. And that's a perfect example of how moving into different areas, you expand capacity and capability so that you can step into other higher levels of leadership. So, I love that as an example.
Doran: Yeah, I think to really move into those leadership roles, having experience in different parts of the organization, to your point, it really does add strength. And to the extent that we're able to allow people to do that, I say lots of crazy things around the office. One of them is you can't go out and play until you do your chores, and it's not really play. But what I mean by that is you got to take care of the thing that you're responsible for taking care of. Once you've done that, there is then this added opportunity to be able to explore in these other spaces. And we do that in terms of getting people involved in other aspects of the organization and tasks that they might not normally do. We're involved with a tremendous number of community organizations, tremendous number of industry organizations.
And so if someone says to me, "Hey, I'd really like to get some experience in governance and as a board member, and I'm interested in joining the board of directors for one of our many local chambers of commerce," my response is, "Absolutely. I want you to do that. You got to do your core job, but if you can add this to it and you can grow and expand, by all means we'll support you in doing that." And again, that might be a local community role, that might be an industry role. Everybody's path is different, but the notion is if you go that extra mile, you take advantage of those extra opportunities, you're stronger. And when an opportunity does come up, you're going to be more prepared to compete. The other thing I've found is that people will say, "Well, what's my career path?" I don't know. I don't have a clue. I can't predict that, we're not big enough.
But what I do know is that people that have been successful at advancing are the people who have done those extra things, learned those extra skills, so when that opportunity does present itself they're ready to step up.
Carol: Yeah, that is so great. I think about the saying around prove you can take care of, handle what you got before you ask for more.
Doran: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, again, my little home spun way is do your chores before you go out. And like I say, it's not play, it's do extra stuff. But I also hope that it's, and this is another part of, I think, the professional world, my hope is that our team members come to work and enjoy what they do, and that they're in a technical area, technical space where they enjoy what they spend most of their time on, but also that they enjoy doing this extra stuff. And we'll send folks, for example, we'll send somebody from the finance department. Going back to FIFA, we did some of the fan zones. We had some Foothill Transit booths at the Fan Zone events. We needed people to go out and be ambassadors. Someone from the accounting group that may not normally do that, but for an afternoon got to tell the Foothill Transit story, they got to become marketeers, they got to become those ambassadors.
That's out of their normal skillset, but I hope that when they do that, one, they find it rewarding, but also enjoyable so that it isn't like, "Oh, I have to do this extra work." It's like, "Hey, there's this cool thing that I get to add on to my normal daily activities."
Carol: Yeah, yeah. I love that. Okay. So, before I ask my final question, I want to circle back to something that you talked about that when you came into transit you were in a student management program.
Doran: Yes.
Carol: Does that still exist? I'm just curious if that exists. I haven't heard something like that before.
Doran: I think it does. I should circle back and see where they are. But Unitrans, which is actually part of the Associated Student Government of the University of California at Davis up near Sacramento, they at the time had only two career staff members that were part of the organization. So, there was a general manager, CEO, if you will, but all of the other positions were student positions. So, I was the student operations manager. I did all the same things that our operations leaders do at Foothill Transit on a smaller scale. And so, just an incredible learning opportunity-
Carol: Wow, what a great opportunity. Yeah.
Doran: Yeah, yeah. And we had a variety of student management positions that were there that gave folks the foundation then, if they chose, to take what they learned at a small system and then build a career from that. And so, I think that program still largely exists today, I don't know how much it's changed. But yeah, it's again, a great way to build and grow talent and people in a way that's perhaps a little bit untraditional in a college setting, but proved to be for me and for many people that I know, many of my colleagues in that era that are in the business, really, really powerful.
Carol: That's fantastic. Okay, so my final question is if you could, with your massive amount of experience and various levels of leadership both inside and outside of transit, if you could leave leaders with just one shift, or one practice, or one mindset shift to be more people forward, what would it be?
Doran: Well, I think the number one thing for me is build relationships. And I think of myself as a relentless relationship builder. And that happens not only with the workforce, but it happens across the community, it happens across our various funding partners. I spend a tremendous amount of time working on building those relationships, telling the stories, building the confidence that helps bring the effort back to deliver what we're trying to accomplish as an organization. And that can happen, like I say, in a whole variety of ways. It happens with our funding partners, I want to make sure they know what we're doing, that they have confidence in us. I want to make sure that happens with our team members, that they're committed to and that they feel and understand that they are part of something that is bigger than themselves. That contribution, like I say, leads to our ultimate success.
So, I think that's the first thing that comes to mind in terms of if you're going to do something, build those relationships.
Carol: Yeah. Well, I think that's a great way to leave it here. Doran, thank you so much for being here.
Doran: Well, thank you. It's been great to chat with you today and always great to explore these themes, and tell a little bit of our story and the journey that we've been through.
Carol: Yeah. I mean, I think what I'm taking from this conversation is that, as you talked about people, relationships, building a great culture isn't just about an org chart, but about really building trust and a shared sense of purpose and values with people. Even if you don't share them as employees, but bringing those different perspectives and just building something beautiful together, co-creating a space and leading that, and allowing all of the facets of that to shine. So, I really appreciate you sharing that. I think that is what people forward leadership is in practice.
Doran: That's beautiful. Thanks for the opportunity, really appreciate it.
Carol: Yeah. And listen, to everyone listening, if this conversation gave you something to think about, share it with a leader who needs to hear it. You can learn more about our work at thriveaccessgroup.com, and you can always reach out to us anytime at hello@thriveaccessgroup.com. Until next time, keep leading people forward and I'll see you soon.
