Question of the Day: What if you weren't in transit?

If you didn’t have a career in transit, what would you be doing instead?

“I would almost certainly be in education. I have the passion and, I believe, the skill set to be an effective superintendent of a big city school system or a college president.”
Keith Parker, GM
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority
Atlanta

“I have always enjoyed public service, and when I started with our transit agency, it was part of the County. If I wasn’t involved in transit, I would still want that public service element to be at the core of what I was doing, likely in city or county management.”
Jeff Meilbeck, CEO & GM
Northern Arizona Intergovernmental Public Transportation Authority 
Flagstaff, Ariz.

“Since I have spent my entire adult life in transit, it’s hard to envision doing something else. My education is in planning and geography, so I suspect I would be doing that somewhere. Or, I might have decided to do something on a completely different career track.”
Carm Basile, CEO
Capital District Transportation Authority
Albany, N.Y.

“Without a doubt, I would be involved in progressing

issues for education in Southern Nevada. Like hundreds of thousands of other people, I moved to Southern Nevada in the 1990s thinking I was only going to be here for a couple years. As a result, I didn’t get involved in, or care about, investing in our community. Now that I have kids and embrace Nevada as my home, I realize how wrong I was not to have been more involved. I am determined to make up for lost time by doing all I can to ensure we make improvements in all of our basic infrastructure needs for a healthy, growing economy and quality of life.”
Tina Quigley, GM
Regional Transportation Commission Southern Nevada
Las Vegas

“I graduated from Eastern Washington University (EWU) with a bachelor’s degree in government with an emphasis on pre-law and public administration. I also minored in economics. At the urging of the university president and his offer of a fellowship, I decided to continue my education at EWU and get my master’s degree in public administration and then eventually earn my Juris Doctor in a joint program with Gonzaga University. My intention was to practice public interest law or go into politics.”
Tim Fredrickson, GM
Ben Franklin Transit
Richland, Wash.

“Public transit combined so many of my interests that anything else would

not have been as satisfying. My grandfather worked his whole life on the CBQ Railroad. My father took me and my brothers all around Iowa to the interurban rail lines. I rode buses from a young age in Des Moines and Sioux Falls. I have always been concerned with safety, the environment and transportation. Public transit provides all of those interests as well as the opportunity to work with men and women that have the same interests.”
TJ Ross, executive director
Pace Suburban Bus Service
Arlington Heights, Ill.

“I’ve spent my entire career in transportation and engineering. I believe I am perhaps a little unique in that I’ve followed the path of my education through the entire course of my career. I can’t imagine doing anything else.
Michael Allegra, GM
Utah Transit Authority
Salt Lake City

“History or political science teacher for either high

school or college.”
Art Leahy, GM
Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Los Angeles

“I would guess that the same desire to spend my time helping the communities where I lived that led me to a career in transit would have ultimately led me to seek a career with another public or charitable organization, like Habitat For Humanity or American Red Cross, had things not worked out for me as well as they did in the public transit field.”
Carl Sedoryk, GM/CEO
Monterey-Salinas Transit
Monterey, Calif.

“Law and legislation — assuming I could have even been accepted into law

school I think that would have been an interesting alternative. Economic development — I enjoy the thought process and forward thinking aspect. Acting — “Life is an act” and as such one is always put in a situation where you have to take on a certain role.”
Bill Volk, managing director
Champaign-Urbana MTD
Urbana, Ill.

“There are lots of careers I have been interested in my life. I may have gone into marketing. Right now, if I weren’t working I would definitely be spending every day with my two grandsons.”
Joyce Eleanor, CEO
Community Transit
Snohomish County, Wash.