I've done interviews in some interesting places before, including on moving buses and trains, but they all pale in comparison to my recent sit down with Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) President Gary Thomas. Thomas insisted we do the interview at one of his favorite eating places in all of Dallas — the Texas State Fair. So, as we sat on a picnic table outside the corn dog stand I got a chance to find out what makes DART special and why Thomas won't even entertain thoughts of going anywhere else.
Thomas has spent his entire career in Texas. Originally a civil engineer, he would eventually work as a consultant with DART before joining the agency in 1998 as its senior vice president of project management, serving in that roll for three years before being named president in 2001.
Thomas is one of a rare breed of transit executives who have spent their entire careers in one location, resisting the nomadic lifestyle of so many others. So has this been a help to him?
“You know, I think it does help because I'm familiar with the region,” Thomas says.
“I grew up in Fort Worth. I've lived in Dallas for the last 30 years almost. I'm familiar with the region. I'm familiar with the cities. I'm familiar with the dynamics within the different cities. You know I came to the state fair when I was in grade school through high school,” Thomas smiles with a bite of his corn dog.
Thomas admits, though, that it might not be imperative to a transit executive's success. “I don't know that it's imperative, but I think it is valuable to just understand the history of a region and history of the significance [of things] like the State Fair and what the value of that is to a community and to a transit system and a transit system to it.”
Thomas likens his position to that of a baseball manager or other high-profile positions where you spend four to six years in a place and, as he says, “for a lot of different reasons it's time to go to the next place.” It's the high profile of the position and the huge expectations on public transportation to create opportunities and provide choices for people, especially with gas prices hitting $4 a gallon, Thomas says.
Thomas admits there is a lot of pressure with the position because of the nature of transit. “Everybody understands the economy. Everybody understands what's going on. But the expectation and the anticipation of transit and specifically in our case light rail doesn't change.”
Thomas points to his 20-year financial plan, which identifies target revenue service dates years in advance of a project even starting as something where estimates for the agency become expectations for the public. For example, two years ago DART was struggling with a 12-month delay on the first third of the Irving line, just that part, not the other two-thirds, but that didn't matter.
“That's what everybody got so upset about, delaying the first third. Well it wasn't fun at the time,” Thomas says with a laugh.
“We literally had bus loads of people coming to our boardroom to express their concerns about our schedule. And so certainly it wasn't fun. But you know the neat thing is Fred, is that for a region that is so car-centric for so long, to have that kind of passion and that kind of concern about a 12-month delay. It's kind of neat to see that this region has really embraced transit like they have and that it's that important to a region.”
With so many factors and forces beyond an executive director's control that can influence an agency, what does Thomas see as a needed element to counter the problems caused by them? Stability.
“I think the other thing is that the stability of an organization is so critical to the success of that organization and having people and having staff that transcends those problems that have dealt with [them],” Thomas says.
“I think the stability part is huge. And sometimes that's a part that we miss. There's this expectation that things have to happen now, they have to happen today and maybe we all understand that. That's just the nature of the business.”
And for Thomas, stability offsets change. “It's like I tell our folks all the time, change will happen, things will happen. The test is how we deal with it. How we address that change. How we address those issues. It's not that we can keep them from happening. We all know it's going to happen. It's how you deal with it.”
On Time
One of the things I did to prepare for my interview with Thomas was to go back and review the interview we did with him back in 2005. The thing that struck me is that the projects discussed in that interview are now being completed, on-time. With dozens of miles of rail being completed within the next five years, I asked him how he kept DART's projects on time.
With his characteristic chuckle Thomas replied, “You know, we worked real hard in looking at what we did wrong the first time.
“We opened our first light rail line in 1996. The advantage is that we've had, in relatively close proximity to each other, a series of openings and a series of very significant projects. Our starter system was 20 miles, which opened in 1996. The next phase was 24 miles [and] opened in 2002. Now the next phase we're going to essentially open another 42 miles in just the next few years. And over 45 miles in the next three or four years.
“We have the advantage of having a lot of the same people involved in our programs and our projects that were on the starter system. And certainly we all want to talk about what we did right, but we all know what we did wrong.”
Thomas admits learning from your mistakes is key. “Shame on me if I don't do it differently.
“We've got a seasoned group. They're smart. They've been through it before. Things that we are doing differently, we're constantly looking at how we deliver projects.”
Under Budget
Thomas says that at any given point in time you have to look at what the issue is with a project. Not being on schedule might cause problems, but being over budget is definitely a bad thing. But coming under budget isn't simply a matter of building a huge budget in the first place.
“People say, 'Gary it's easy to go under budget, you just have to build a budget big enough that you know you can come in under it.’ The reality is that's awfully hard to do, especially on a federally funded project, because everybody is looking at your budget. How did you develop your budget?”
This issue arose in 2002 when the rail expansion project came in 10 percent under budget. Thomas says they had to go back to the FTA, which had partially funded the project, and try to figure out if they could keep a portion of the leftover money. The FTA not only worked with DART, it put incentives into the next funding bill to encourage projects to come in under budget.
“But as a result, you know, to get incentives, you have to pay a lot of attention to how that budget was developed and make sure that it was developed in the proper way,” Thomas says.
“And there again, while we've got estimators that estimate projects, we also understand that the only accurate number is when the contractor tells you at the end of the day what that project is worth to build, but we do have a lot of history in building projects. And very recent history too, relatively speaking.
“The real challenge for us is to take the time to document the process that protects us going forward. So when I leave, when my head of construction leaves, at some point far, far in the future, we all hope the process will transcend us,” he smiles.
“It's not about us anymore. It's about the process. Its about making sure the agency knows what we're doing and that we follow the right path.”
20-Year Plan
Part of the process Gary Thomas and the rest of DART use to forecast the agency's future is a 20-year financial plan. Usually even a five-year plan is more overarching goals and key points, not the nitty-gritty details, but Thomas says while it may sound crazy, it works and works well.
“Think about this from a personal perspective,” Thomas says.
“You're going to take a piece of paper and for the next 20 years you're going to put down all the money you're going to make. So, you're a young man, you're 35 or so, so for 20 years, from 35 to 45 to 55 years old you're going to put down all the dollars you're going to bring into your household. And then you're also going to put down all the dollars you're going to spend. Everything. Everything you're going to bring in. Everything you're going to spend for the next 20 years.
“Most of us would say that's crazy.
“You can probably do it for one year. Some people might even try it for five years. But to say you know what it’s going to be for 20 years — we don't.”
According to Thomas it's about making assumptions and adjusting every year. “We have to adjust, but that's the plan that tells us what we can build, when we can build it, and then to make sure that we can operate it when we build it. That's pretty important.”
DART is in the position of a lot of transit agencies across the United States with the majority of its revenue (75 to 80 percent) coming from sales tax, which as most of those agencies will tell you has taken a serious hit in recent years. Thomas points to their 20-year financial plan as a reason DART has weathered this economic upheaval so well thus far.
“We recognized early on this year that our revenue was not going to be what we budgeted for,” he says.
“When we do that 20-year plan we have an economist that actually helps us project out what sales tax revenues are going to be for the next 20 years. And his model is based on our 13 member cities understanding the growth, the dynamics and the demographics, and all those things are taken into account. He gives us that projection of what sales taxes are going to be.”
Thomas says at the beginning of their fiscal year, which starts October 1st, they recognized sales tax revenue would be lower than predicted, so they had their economist and a second one from a local university give them updated projections for the next two years.
The good news was that Thomas had two economists that agreed and that their projections matched actuals coming in for the current fiscal year. The bad news was those actuals were trending between 10 and 12 percent below budget. Three months into FY09 Thomas says they began making adjustments and presented changes to the 2009 budget and the 20-year financial plan to the board in April with the intent to have minimal impact on both riders and employees.
How did they do that?
“Well you know, obviously you look for the lowest performing routes and we've been trimming, like a lot of agencies have around the country, for a long time, so those bottom routes, it's not like there aren't people on them. There are people on them. There are people riding those. But what can we do? Can we cut out Sunday service? What can we do minimally to make that happen? And then also just looking internally at administrative changes how can we do some things there that change things,” Thomas says.
And despite having to make those adjustments, DART actually hired 200 people this year. Part of this has to do with budgeting on the currently-under-construction Green Line. The budget called for an additional 100 people to be hired, but Thomas says they realized they didn't need those people and saved money by not hiring them to begin with.
“And then of course having a Green Line that is somewhere between 6 and 10 percent under budget on a billion dollar construction. That starts to add up,” Thomas says.
Thomas says they pulled from several other sources to offset the sales tax reduction, but it was the federal stimulus program that helped them the most, including federal stimulus funds, an advance on their full funding grant agreement (a benefit of the stimulus program) and the issuance of Build America Bonds.
“We issued a billion dollars of bonds in June,” Thomas says.
“We'd budgeted 5.25 percent interest on that bond issuance. We got a combined grade of just over 4 percent, 4.06 percent. Well 4.06 to 5.25 percent on $1 billion, there's another several hundred million dollars that we were able to save.”
DART was also able to save money by cutting bus service that would have been duplicated by the opening of the Green Line.
“I said OK we're not going to do this all at once, but because we've got this opening, we're going to phase the scale back,” Thomas says.
“I say it's the easiest, it's certainly not easy, but it's logical when you say OK, we're going to open the Green Line next year and we're going to cut out the duplicative bus service. Well that makes sense.
“Now at one point in time what I was hoping to do was take those miles and hours and redistribute them to other places, but I'm not going to be able to do that right now given the current state of the economy.
“But I'm not leaving people that are used to service today without service. And that's what is important. So I can take the duplicate service out of the mix, save those dollars, and yes, I don't get to redistribute them to different places, but I'm not affecting people who are used to a particular service.”
Meeting Expectations
By completing these projects on time and under budget, I wondered if DART had created expectations with its riders that it would have a hard time to meet. I asked Thomas if they were fighting expectations and he said, “You know, it's hard.”
He said DART surveyed not only riders, but stakeholders who weren't necessarily riders and another very important part of the operation, the employees.
“We have 3,500 employees,” Thomas says, “and as I tell them every single day, they make, the men and women make it look so easy that people take what we do for granted. You turn on the light switch, the lights come on. You turn the water faucet on, the water comes out. You go to a bus stop; you go to a train station; the bus shows up; the train shows up. We have an opening scheduled for the 14th of September and it happens.
“Those things are just expected of us, and so on one hand that's a lot to live up to. On the other hand it's good to be in that position where things just happen. People expect them to happen.
“I would suggest we're not fighting the expectation, we're doing our darnedest to live up to the expectations,” Thomas laughs.
“And we think we've got a plan to do that. We think our plan not only lives up to the expectations, but exceeds those expectations. We think that based on what we know right now, we're going to continue to be ahead of schedule and under budget on the balance of the Green Line, which is the longest light rail project under construction in North America.
“The Orange Line, which will ultimately go out to DFW International Airport, the first two-thirds of that are under construction and the contractor for the first opening, which is 2011, he is trending certainly on schedule at this point in time. We don't see any problems.
“We've got a Blue Line extension under construction as well. We’re trending on schedule for that one, so quite frankly right now our plan, based on our plan, based on what we know today, we'll meet people's expectations at the very least.
“So I would suggest it's not a fight, but you know people at DART are committed. There's a lot of pride in what they do. And it goes throughout the ranks, whether you're a servicer in the transportation department cleaning the buses, or you're an operator on the bus or train, or a mechanic, throughout the organization [this is] one of the most dedicated and committed group of people I've ever had the opportunity to be associated with.”
Thomas says that attitude permeates throughout the community and that the community is extremely supportive.
“So it's a challenge for us, but think about how boring it would be without challenges,” Thomas says with a laugh.
Always Improving
I always like to ask the executive we feature on our cover what kind of advice they have for other agencies, and Thomas says as for his advice, it really comes down to having a quality staff.
“It's having the right people on the bus as the book says. Its having the right people in the key positions to make sure that you’ve got the knowledge, the experience, the creativity,” he says.
“As a matter of fact we were just talking about that this week. It’s the diversity within the organization, and when I say diversity I'm not speaking about simply the EEO type diversity.
“It's about having the different backgrounds, having the different ideas, having the different perspectives on how to approach things and making sure that you take advantage of that. Because everybody in the organization has ideas regardless of what position they hold, regardless of where they are or what they're doing, they all have ideas.
“Our job is to always improve. As good as we think things are right now, there's always opportunity to get better, and the only way to do that is to be open, as leaders to be open to sometimes those criticisms and often times those challenges.
“None of us like to be criticized. None of us like to be challenged. But if you close your mind to those, close your ears and eyes to those things, you're not going to improve. So as leaders we've got to make sure we stay open minded. That we stay flexible; and that we continue to listen to our people and have good people.
“And then the other thing, Fred, is never let them see you sweat,” Thomas adds with a laugh.
Nothing Better
Last year the man Gary Thomas replaced at DART, Roger Snoble, retired from Los Angeles Metro, so I asked Thomas if he had any plans for after DART, and all I got at first was a smile.
“You know, here we are sitting on a beautiful September day with not a cloud in the sky at the State Fair of Texas in front of the Cotton Bowl eating corn dogs and drinking Dr. Pepper.
How could anybody do anything but that. You know it doesn't get any better than this, Fred,” Thomas laughs.
“You know that's a big question. I'm not that old,” he laughs again.
“I've got a ways to go before retirement. I really love what I do. I love the people here at DART. All these DART people are great people. They do wonderful things. They make my life so much easier.
“And with an expansion, being a civil engineer at heart … it's a fun place to be.”
