Women in Transportation Whether it’s building rail facilities or securing funding for capital investment, women continue to play a major role in the transportation industry. This year we chronicle the achievements of five women who have used skills in finance, construction, contract negotiations, planning and entrepreneurship to make their mark on the industry.

Sharon Greene

• Title: President

• Organization: Sharon Greene & Associates

• City: Laguna Beach, Calif.
  Her graduate studies in urban planning helped position her for a career in transportation.

  Before the concrete for a highway is poured, before the first bus rolls out of the station, before a light rail line takes its first commuters to work, capital has to be raised. That’s where Sharon Greene comes in.

  Greene is the president of Sharon Greene & Associates, a Laguna Beach, Calif.-based firm that specializes in transportation finance. She works with transit agencies to “look at their whole stream of capital” and the costs they can expect to incur over the next 20 years as they develop the systems that will best serve their transportation needs.

  “I help identify existing revenue sources, as well as potential new sources of revenue,” says Greene. “I also help transit agencies see how they can use resources more creatively.”

  With more than three decades of transportation experience, Greene can point to successful projects from California to Tel Aviv, including work on the Pasadena (Calif.) Gold Phase II Line Light Rail Transit Project; the Central Phoenix/East Valley Light Rail Transit Program and the Jerusalem (Israel) Transportation Master Plan.

  With a bachelor’s degree in economics from Tufts University and an advanced degree in urban and regional planning from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Greene had the training she needed for her first professional position. While a graduate student, she began working in 1968 for the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, gaining valuable experience in transportation corridor planning.

  Her next position was with the Boston Transportation Planning Review, which analyzed and re-designed the entire area-wide transit and highway system in the 1970s. Headed by Alan Altshuler, this task force devised the 3C Planning Process, which is still considered the model for public transportation. During the last 30 years, it also became the prototype for other metropolitan areas throughout the U.S. that have completed comprehensive studies of their transportation systems.

  Greene’s firm is currently working on projects in San Francisco, Utah and Los Angeles. In San Francisco, Greene is helping the Metropolitan Transportation Commission assess the feasibility of a free-fare transit system. She is also working with the Utah Transit Authority on its 2015 Program, which includes a commuter rail line to link Weber and Davis Counties with Salt Lake City. For the Regional Goods Movement Program in Los Angeles, Greene is coming up with a financial plan to address transportation of goods and people in and out of Southern California, including the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which are two of the busiest in the world.

  Despite her hectic schedule, Greene finds time to serve as the first vice chair of APTA’s Board of Governors and as chair of the legislative and government affairs committees. What’s more, she co-founded a nonprofit organization that empowers Ethiopian weavers by finding markets for their goods and uses some of the profits to fight poverty in Africa.

  Greene is not one to sacrifice relationships for the sake of her career. “I really enjoy working with clients and staff who are committed to collaborative problem solving,” she says, adding that her biggest success is “having a happy family even though I’m a compulsive worker.”

  Her passion for transportation is shared by her husband, Michael Schneider, who founded InfraConsult, a firm that, among other things, operates and maintains infrastructure, and her daughter Anna, who is a capital grants manager for San Francisco’s Department of Public Works. Greene, however, is equally proud of her two other daughters — Hava, an associate director for development at Human Rights Watch, and Miriam, a product marketing manager for Google.

  Heidi Nye

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  Pat Jacobsen

• Title: CEO

• Organization: TransLink

• City: Vancouver, B.C.

  A former Deputy Minister of Transportation for Ontario, she also has a background in the financial services industry.

  Pat Jacobsen has lived and worked in three of Canada’s provinces, with a career trajectory that has garnered her a wide spectrum of business experience, having worked for various Canadian financial institutions, as well as holding positions within the Ontario government. She planned on a career in community development, but found a calling in the transportation industry when she was appointed Deputy Minister of Transportation for Ontario in 1989.

  Based on her experience as a senior government official and as a private sector executive, Jacobsen was selected CEO of TransLink in 2001. “TransLink is one of three integrated transportation authorities in the world — Dublin and London being the others,” she explains. The integrated transportation system includes public bus transit, commuter rail, rapid transit, the major road network, ferries and services for persons with disabilities. In her role, Jacobsen oversees the planning, funding, building and operation of the regional marine, road and transit network.

  Jacobsen credits her decade-long stint in the financial services industry with giving her the skills to handle her biggest challenge at TransLink: securing funding for capital investment. “I think working in the financial institutions in Canada was very helpful for what I’m doing now,” she says.

  Raising money was also a key component to one of the projects she took on during her three years as Deputy Minister of Transportation — the development and approval of the Greater Toronto Area Transportation Plan. The 10-year road and transit plan includes $10 billion worth of capital expansion, $1.7 billion of which is comprised of private capital, representing two public/private partnerships secured and coordinated by Jacobsen that she says are “both on-time and on-budget.”

  Among her accomplishments at TransLink is a significant increase in public support for the system. “When I took over, it was 34%. It’s now about 70%, despite the fact that we’ve raised taxes locally three times,” she says. Seeing that increase in support, as well as a recent 20% increase in ridership, has been one of the most rewarding parts of her job, Jacobsen says.

  Jacobsen has also managed the recruiting and retaining of new employees. “I take a lot of pride in the team that we’ve been able to build in a very competitive marketplace,” she says.

  Her human resource leadership skills are due in part to her experience working for the provincial government, where she managed 9,000 employees and an operating budget of $2.5 million. Today, Jacobsen is in charge of TransLink’s 5,000 direct employees and an annual operating budget of $1 billion. Her time at TransLink has also seen the stimulation of major developments along rapid transit lines, the introduction of discounted monthly passes, camera surveillance and increased security, all-door boarding, and retail services at rapid transit stations.

  Jacobsen notes that Vancouver is rated internationally as one of the most livable cities in the world. “I think that working on the things I work on keep it livable,” she says, adding that having a key role in how the city grows in the next 10 years is extremely rewarding.

  Concerning the future of transit, Jacobsen sees the industry moving into the forefront of the environmental and energy supply agendas. “I think that the industry needs to reach out more to be part of the agenda, because we don’t play a strong enough role in pushing the integration of land use and transit planning, including road planning.”

  She also encourages transit industry leaders to take on what she sees as a lack of diversity of experience among the ranks. “Most people stay in the same agency and don’t get the breadth of business experience that I think is helpful in making transit operations as efficient as possible and in developing the strategy for the organization,” she explains.

  Claire Atkinson

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  Saundra Lautenberg

• Title: Vice President, Operations

• Organization: True Form LLC

• City: Edison, N.J.

  She serves on APTA’s Business Member Board of Governors, procurement committee and the Buy America task force.

  As vice president of operations for Trueform LLC, a New Jersey-based bus stop, shelter and solar lighting company, Saundra Lautenberg has come a long way from her beginnings as an elementary school teacher in Patterson, N.J.

  In those early years, she married, had three children and received a master’s degree in education from Rutgers University.

  Finding her interests went beyond teaching, Lautenberg returned to Rutgers, working towards a master’s degree in community and regional planning. “I remember studying until about 10 at night, going to sleep and waking up at 4 or 5 a.m. so that I could get an hour or two in before the kids got up.”

  After graduating, Lautenberg got a job with engineering firm Louis Berger and Associates writing environmental impact statements for major construction projects. She started off working on the MX missile project. “They had the money to do things that you only get to do once every twenty years,” she says. Other work included major New Jersey highway projects.

  Lautenberg’s next stint took her to the public sector, where she took a position in the engineering and construction department for New Jersey Transit. “We were in charge of capital construction, which is different than ordinary day-to-day operation repairs,” she says. After working on bits and pieces of various design and construction projects, Lautenberg was given her own project to manage — she was hooked. “I tried it and loved it.”

  After working in the bus division for six years, she was promoted and began working on rail facility construction. “I was deputy on the Secaucus Transfer Station in its early formation, which was about a $700 million project.”

  She was then charged with all capital construction for New York’s Penn Station, where she supervised design and construction of the New Jersey Transit Seventh Avenue Concourse. “The planning, the scheduling, the general chaos, having a puzzle and a problem to solve to me, is a fun challenge,” she says. “That’s what I loved about construction.” She worked at the transit agency for a total of sixteen years.

  Lautenberg was then recruited by Siemens Transportation Systems, where she worked for five and a half years as a division contract manager doing negotiations full time and contract management before joining Trueform in September 2006. The company, with a worldwide headquarters based in the U.K., wanted to expand to the U.S. and was looking for someone to help set up their newly incorporated company. “I think everything that I’ve ever done comes together in this job,” she says. “And here was a chance to bring [my skills] together and make it work.”

  Currently, Lautenberg supervises the North American operations and negotiates contracts. “We’ve set some ambitious goals and we’ve actually surpassed them our first year in business.”

  Having had the opportunity to work in both the public and private side of the industry has been helpful she says. “My knowledge of how the public sector works is extremely helpful for me to understand my client and for my client to understand that I do get what their needs are and how they have to operate.”

  Lautenberg also finds time to get involved in the industry outside of work. She was president of the Women’s Transportation Seminar, greater New York chapter from 1999 to 2000. “That was a very exciting and wonderful learning experience to interact with others and promote the benefits of transportation as well as the need for women in the field,” she says.

  She is also very active in APTA, serving on the Business Member Board of Governors during her tenure with Siemens, and now representing her current company. Lautenberg also serves on the association’s procurement reform committee as well as the Buy America task force.

  Having worked in the industry for 25 years in construction and in environmental impact studies, primarily male-dominated areas, she hopes to see more “women in the room” before she retires. In her downtime, Lautenberg enjoys playing with her five grandchildren.

  Janna Starcic

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  Joan Libby

• Title: President

• Organization: Cavalier Coach Trailways

• City: Boston

  Growing from a five-coach, eight-employee operation, she now manages a fleet of 30 vehicles and serves on the UMA board.

  As president of Cavalier Coach, a private bus operation in Boston, Joan Libby’s dedication to her company is anything but cavalier. When needed, she’ll back up her garage technicians by helping out with parts ordering or she’ll work the front office, answering phones and doing dispatch. “I make a point of being a working president,” she says.

  Libby is used to hard work. She owned her own travel agency in the early 1980s until a serious illness in the family required her to sell her business and return home. She went back to work for a travel agency that had previously employed her, but eventually was lured away by a large transportation company that had a motorcoach division.

  When that company closed its doors a few years later, Libby took over the lease of five motorcoaches and incorporated as Cavalier Coach. With eight employees, Libby launched the company in fall 1987. “I recall that my first payroll was Aug. 19, 1987,” she says. “Those are things you remember.”

  Now, just slightly more than 20 years later, Libby’s company has expanded and diversified to include tour and charter work, line-haul contracts, athletic and senior activity trips, corporate outings and shuttles for colleges. For the past 20 years, she’s been on the organizing committee of the Boston Marathon and has provided transportation for the annual event.

  And her fleet has grown to 30 vehicles, including 10 full-sized motorcoaches, 17 mini-coaches and three activity buses. Libby has kept her fleet up to date. The oldest bus is about 10 years old, and the newest are 2007 models. The average age is about 4 years. For large vehicles, she prefers Prevost and MCI coaches; the smaller buses are purchased from ABC.

  Getting started in the motorcoach industry was anything but easy, Libby says. As a woman and an unknown quantity, she experienced resistance from different fronts. For example, many of her vendors wouldn’t extend credit. “Dealing with the industry as a whole was difficult,” she says.

  The learning process was accelerated, however, after Libby joined the United Motorcoach Association (then known as the United Bus Owners Association) in 1988. “It was so helpful to me, as a small operator,” she says. “They taught me the right way to do things and extended their hands 100%.”

  These days, Libby is one of four women on the UMA board and makes her own contributions to the industry. As chair of the association’s Marketing Committee, she spearheaded a volunteer effort to help in the recovery of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Gaining approval from the board, she arranged for UMA members to help build houses with Habitat for Humanity during free time at the UMA Expo in New Orleans earlier this year.

  Libby says many motorcoach operators reaped financial rewards in the wake of Hurricane Katrina during the relief efforts. “I felt like it was time for our industry to give something back to help the people down there,” she says. And they did. Libby says 185 UMA members signed up for the Habitat for Humanity project, and 165 actually showed up to assist with the construction work. “It was such a great feeling for me to see these people working and giving back,” she says.

  “Joan is very creative and is always thinking of new ways to enhance the image of our industry,” says UMA President/CEO Victor Parra.

  Libby believes the future of the motorcoach industry is bright, but emphasizes that teamwork will be essential. “I believe that no operation is an island unto itself,” she says. “For the industry to work, you have to extend your hand and work as a team.”

  Steve Hirano

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  Stephanie Negriff

• Title: Director, Transit Services

• Organization: Santa Monica Big Blue Bus

• City: Santa Monica, Calif.

  She has held three positions over two decades at her agency before being appointed director of transit services in 2002.

  Moving from the big city of Los Angeles to the rural town of Wichita Falls, Texas, at the age of ten may have been a cultural shock for Stephanie Negriff, but in the long run it proved to be vital in helping her get to where she is today.

  “It was very different culturally, but it was also a small community of neighbors who were good people to know,” she explains. “And they always encouraged me to go out and pursue my dreams.”

  Initially, Negriff didn’t know what her dreams were; however, she did know that she wasn’t interested in pursuing the “usual” dreams, such as being a lawyer or a doctor.

  In the late 70s, Negriff got to work in many different facets of transit as an intern in Austin, Texas. Following that, she answered an advertisement for a job with the Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority in Oklahoma City, Okla.

  “At the time, I didn’t really know what type of transportation it was,” she explains. “As it turned out, it was in public transit.”

  Negriff began as an associate planner and left a few years later as planning manager. During her time in Oklahoma City, Negriff designed a series of commuter services that saw substantial growth in ridership in an area she says was challenging because of its size and the fact it was driven by a very strong oil economy.

  After leaving Oklahoma City, Negriff landed in St. Louis with the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council where her work included the design of paratransit services for three counties in nearby rural Illinois and system analysis work for what later became the area’s light rail system.

  But another culture shock drove her from St. Louis almost as quick as she got there. “The first winter I was there was the worst winter they had in 40 years,” she laughs. “Needless to say I thought that if I could make it through that winter, I’d definitely be gone by the next one.”

  Fortunately, Negriff received a phone call from where her career began, — Austin, Texas, which was in the process of creating a mass transit system that would later become known as the Capital Metro Transit Authority.

  Following hundreds of meetings throughout the area, Negriff was part of the team that presented the service plan, got outreach, and modified the plan.

  “The referendum sailed by, and as you know Capital Metro has been around for several years now,” says Negriff with pride.

  In 1986, Negriff landed at the City of Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus, where she served as senior administrative analyst, manager of transit development and intergovernmental relations, and assistant director of transit services, before being named director of transit services in 2002.

  “My career was generally three-year stints until I got here,” Negriff says. “The city of Santa Monica is a great place to work. It’s always been an outstanding transit system, I’ve had great mentors here and the work has always been interesting and satisfying.”

  As part of her job, Negriff oversees the delivery of all of the services that Big Blue Bus offers to its community of more than 450,000, including operations, customer relations and maintenance.

  She explains that the most satisfying part of her job is the work that she does with the community.

  “Unlike a lot of transit systems, Big Blue Bus enjoys very strong support from its policy board and community,” she says. “We’re successful in getting good support because we have a very active community outreach program that plays a part in the development of services.”

  With retirement seemingly in the near future, Negriff is now looking at making her indelible mark on Santa Monica’s future.

  “I want to be proactive and bring every conceivable public transportation option to this community,” she says. “I would like to leave this city knowing that public transportation is not just good or improved, but fundamentally shifted to another level.”

  Alex Roman