Access Services' Strategic Planner Eric Haack has demonstrated commitment to his work with this agency, which provides paratransit service for all of Los Angeles County. He has not only aided it in producing and providing important services to the customers, but he has also become an expert on the service. He has spoken regularly at outreach events and recently, at statewide conferences.
Prior to joining the Access Services team, Haack earned a degree in urban planning and a law degree. Within months of his arrival, Access Services needed to provide updates to all of its civil rights reports and with his legal background, Haack was able to research the relevant regulations and quickly produce updates to the agency's Equal Employment Opportunity plan, as well as draft, from scratch, a new limited English proficiency (LEP) report which thereafter was used as a template by other transportation agencies in the region to develop their own LEP plans.
Haack has been instrumental in overseeing a newly created premium ADA service funded by a Federal Job Access Reverse Commute (JARC) grant called “Access to Work,” in which Access customers who use the service to travel to jobs or job training, can receive guaranteed arrival times so they are not late to work. As this is a very unique service for Access to provide, Haack's willingness to oversee all parts of the outreach to customers, monitoring of progress of the program, and accepting of applications of customers, has proven invaluable and has kept the project's progress easy to manage and has enabled the easy identification of any problems that arise in the deployment of the service.
Recently, Haack was able to secure additional funding through a new JARC multi-million dollar grant to extend and expand the Access to Work program following its initial success.
Haack is committed to improving the service of Access Services and the mobility of the customers of Access, who are frequently unable to utilize other modes of transportation due to a disability. When asked to take on additional tasks or to help other members of the office in his department or elsewhere in the agency, Haack does so without hesitation. His commitment to improving the services that Access provides has led him to work with, and contribute to, teams developing grants to secure additional vans for the agency's fleet, working with staff to develop and strengthen a network of volunteer driver programs in Los Angeles County, and researching the possibility of developing a county-wide taxi-voucher program.
Providing Service
"I enjoy working with a diverse group of talented people. My colleagues at Access feel passionate about the valuable service the agency provides and know that paratransit improves the quality of life of our customers by responding to their transportation needs. I also enjoy the opportunity Access provides to work closely with our customers. Because of the close relationship Access has with its customers, it is often with their guidance and advocacy that new services develop and the agency is able to improve."
