(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 477: Culture Change in Cleveland

This week we’re featuring a one to one conversation between Billy Terry, Executive Director of the National Transit Institute at Rutgers University, and India Birdsong Terry, General Manager and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. They discuss leadership, hiring, and culture change at Ohio’s largest transit agency.

This podcast was produced in partnership with Mpact. To find out more, visit http://mpactmobility.org

To listen to this episode, visit Streetsblog USA or our hosting archive.

Below is a full unedited AI generated transcript of the episode:

Billy Terry (1m 33s):
I’m Billy Terry, executive director of the National Transit Institute housed at Rutgers University, and I’m excited to be here today as an impact champion. An Impact Champion is one of those organizations that supports the ongoing work of impact to build bigger, stronger communities around transit all throughout our country. And today I am extremely excited to have with me India Birdsong. Terry. How are you doing today, India?

India Birdsong-Terry (2m 1s):
I’m doing well. How are you, Billy?

Billy Terry (2m 3s):
I’m doing excellent. I’m doing excellent. Now, India and I, we, we share a last name, but we’re not related. I will be, I would be honored to call her family. And actually, we are family, we are Transit family had an opportunity to know India for, for quite some time. Our paths have crossed. So, India, tell us a little bit about India the leader. Tell us just a little bit about yourself, but with a, with a little spiciness of India, the leader,

India Birdsong-Terry (2m 35s):
So Billy that you always lead in with the, the most interesting questions, right? I’m thinking what is, what is my brother from another mother gonna ask today? So first I wanna say thank you for, for being here and, and sharing the, the podcast with you. This is really nice to be able to just kind of talk as colleagues, but as friends about the industry and about some of the things that we’re facing, I think as a, as a nation when it comes to mobility. So India the leader, it it, I can say I, I don’t know that my leadership ability, I think really depends on the success of the team. And so it’s a little weird to say, but I don’t think of it that way. I just feel as one of the team and just the loudest person on the team.

India Birdsong-Terry (3m 15s):
And it’s funny, I’ll tell it you a quick story if I can and then get to the answer. We just had our leadership retreat about 30 days ago, and this was, if you think of the, the top 50 decision makers at G-C-R-T-A, right? We have a little over 2000 people here. And so a lot of those folks that are in those either c-suite or director level positions or decision making pivotal roles tend to be in the, the offices a lot or tend to be the lead person out at the districts or the garages. district is, is what we call them. So they’re the folks that probably are in a suit, probably aren’t getting their hands quite as dirty physically, but have a lot of the brain power and the connections that move us through the community.

India Birdsong-Terry (3m 58s):
And so a lot of these folks are making decisions on their own or at the tail end of a crisis, right? So it was interesting that I wanted to get us out of our, our comfort zone. So true, true form. We, we do the educational thing in the first day of the retreat, which is nice because I have, I come from a very long line of educators. So in my family you usually own a business or you’re an educator. And so those are the predominant kind of vocations in my family, or you get into politics and in some weird way, whether it’s you’re the, the leader of your block G club or manage some kind of business or something. So we’re, we’re not really shy, a little loud, as you probably know is a Terry.

India Birdsong-Terry (4m 38s):
So, so that’s, that’s what we got into. So we had the educational part actually at the community college, Tri-C c corporate community college here in Cleveland. And then we had the second day where we were supposed to take, and we did, we took our theoretical ideas and put them into practice to be able to really show the leadership that we had really like leaned into for the first eight hours the first day. And then we went down to the foundry. And for those of you who may not be aware, the foundry is a rowing facility, a a crew facility that’s in the flats in downtown Cleveland. And it’s an amazing facility, but a lot of people just forget it’s there. And so , we did run it through legal and I got everybody to sign off on the waiver and they kind of panicked a little bit because I told ’em, I said, leave your suits at home, , wear your sweats in your hoodies and everything.

India Birdsong-Terry (5m 27s):
I think I had on an urban league sweat shirt . I sit on the board there and just lean into who you are. We, we got on the, the herbs and the row machines and, and we got in the tank and wow. Yeah, it was really cool. We had a lot of folks who I mean, some folks were red face and huffing and puffing.

Billy Terry (5m 44s):
They had to tap out.

India Birdsong-Terry (5m 46s):
Yeah, nobody tapped out. But I was a little nervous. But it was nice because we actually had to physically roll together in order to not clash ORs and in order to actually move the boat, so to speak. And I think it really kind of humbled a lot of folks where they learned that you have to follow the leader in front of you. It doesn’t matter if you are their boss, right? And that happens sometimes. You might have an administrative assistant, Rowan in front of you and their directors behind them, and if they don’t follow them, the boat is going to sink. And so it was really fun doing that. And of course we had a, a competitive sphere where we had a sudden death challenge is what they called it.

India Birdsong-Terry (6m 26s):
And we had to de rig and rig the boat where we actually had to put the oars together and, and that again, you, you could not roll unless you actually help your teammate, right? So we have people diving on the floor and doing all kinds of, and so it was really cool. So to your, to hopefully answer your question, I think my leadership is characterized by some surprises and also hopefully a good balance of, of forward movement, right? Like you’re rowing the boat, but also being able to kind of have a little bit of a, a humility to it and that you have to put yourself in someone else’s shoes to really appreciate the product that we’re providing, which is mobility services. Right? And if you don’t do that completely and immerse yourself into listening to someone else’s opinion, you’ll never really be a good leader.

India Birdsong-Terry (7m 11s):
So it it, I hope that answers the question, but that’s

Billy Terry (7m 14s):
Absolutely, absolutely. What, what a, what a powerful example of, of leadership, but in the reality that at times and in circumstances, everyone has to serve as a leader, right? What a, what a what a powerful example of of, of leadership, servant leadership. So India, now you’ve been at G-C-R-T-A since 2019, right? Coming from Wego Nashville, her good friend Steve Bland and others, and then, and the shy hometown Chicago, right? I can feel that wind whipping up there now. So I, I don’t wanna be like super cheesy or generic with this question, but, but, so I want to ask it like this.

Billy Terry (8m 1s):
Is there an element of India that drew her to Transportation? Is there something about who you are, what you represent, what you believe in that drew you to working in the industry of public Transportation?

India Birdsong-Terry (8m 19s):
So that’s actually an easier question that than I anticipated, only because my educational background is actually in language arts. It’s in English and Spanish, right? Which a lot of it doesn’t have on, on its surface a lot to do with transportation, but it totally helps when it comes into branding, right? So we go, as you mentioned, used to not be, we go, it went through a rebranding when I was there. And that’s going into actually your public face with the, with the outside world, so to speak, outside of your agency and kind of getting that public trust. So that helped there. Public transit is always asking for money, right?

India Birdsong-Terry (9m 0s):
We cannot function without the, the, the federal grants and without the local matches and the state help and all of that. So we have to be able to explain ourselves in a way where it is understandable, it’s clear, concise and transparent, right? Because the, the worst thing you wanna do in transit is lie to someone because you’re gonna be found out by 5:00 PM right? Your, your rush hour is where you get either you, you, you get made or, or broken. So going from being an English and Spanish major in college and thinking about law and not doing it and moving into urban planning is where I think the Transit comes into play.

India Birdsong-Terry (9m 40s):
So, so I’m an urban planner by trade and community development, community developer type interaction is, is where I really kind of got into the work of Transit. And so transitioning from community development and urban planning into Transportation was a little easier than I would have anticipated, but it still was unexpected because I never really would have been able to tell you that transportation was an immediate indicator of urban life and even a rural life as well, right? The accessibility portion, I think you realize that later. But my interest in Transit came from working on a community development project in Chicago for the CTA, right?

India Birdsong-Terry (10m 26s):
And so I actually started as a facilitator on a, on a bus system redesign. So I was using the community development skill that I had in order to translate what we were doing with and to the community and get their feedback. And then it just went from there and become service planner and, and on and on until I am now. So I think that the curiosity to wanna know who makes the decision to put our assets in our community, where, and does it reflect the needs of the community was my immediate introduction to urban planning. And then it was a natural sort of progression in the transit as I learned how to help people find their voice to express what they need.

India Birdsong-Terry (11m 6s):
And transit just happened to be where I landed.

Billy Terry (11m 8s):
Oh wow. I gotta say I got like 50. I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m a horrible moderator. Interviewer ’cause I got 56,000 questions. One, one quick question. Was that work that you did? Were you an employee of CTA at that point or some other entity?

India Birdsong-Terry (11m 23s):
When I started the facilitator work? Yes. On the, so yeah, so I was a full-time employee. They called it, they had some odd name that was like a hybrid, which basically said, I think it was full-time. Temporary is what it was. So I was being paid out of a grant that was associated with the actual, but I was considered a full-time employee, but I was not a permanent employee until I actually had to apply for a job that was not attached to a project. And that, I think my first real, so to speak, full-fledged position was maybe a year or two later after the redesign was over. And then I became part of the service planning department as a, I think it was a planner one.

India Birdsong-Terry (12m 6s):
Right,

Billy Terry (12m 6s):
Right. Wow. And look at you now. Look at you now. And so one more question, getting back to when you spoke about your language background and, and how useful that is in your role now as the president and CEO of G-C-R-T-A-I, I would imagine that those skills are useful because you are communicating with a, with a diversity of individuals in the community, right? From community college presidents to local elected officials to people in community suburban communities. So c can you, can you talk a little bit about not just so much win in Rome concept, but the, the capacity and the, and the foresight that has to go into speaking to those different elements of your, not just your community, but in India the region, right?

Billy Terry (13m 2s):
Speaking to those different elements who all need different things from mobility.

India Birdsong-Terry (13m 7s):
So Billy, I think that’s a really interesting question. I was just writing down little notes while I was listening to the question, right? So I don’t forget anything. And first I’ll say it starts with, with decent grammar, if if I could just lay it out,

Billy Terry (13m 20s):
Right? Exactly.

India Birdsong-Terry (13m 22s):
And , it sounds silly, but I think it goes a long way first because something written well and with intention connotes the idea that you care, right? And it, it gives the, the idea that you’ve taken your time, you’re writing it for the person who’s reading it, , you’re not just writing it at some upper echelon level that doesn’t translate to the typical person who’s just riding a bus and may not have knowledge or education of all the intricacies of some funding package, right? You’re trying to let them know that you’re here to take them from A to B. And then I think it’s gotta be able to be translatable. So it’s funny because we’ve had, I I literally was just in here this office 30 minutes ago before I logged on and talked to you talking to our, our internal comms manager and she’s a a, a lady named Christie Cox doing great job for us, came from a different system, a smaller system in Ohio a couple years ago and really has started to kind of shape the way that we are creating our internal communications package.

India Birdsong-Terry (14m 30s):
And a lot of that is trying to understand the difference between the voice that you’re trying to have in one document versus another. So the way that you talk to your legislators, as you were saying, might have to have something in that document that speaks to them so that they can feel confident to be an ambassador for you. But if I’m only speaking to them in the, the voice that is advantageous for me, then they’re gonna tear it up and go on to the next document, right? I’ll never get that resolution passed or, or the funding support or whatever I’m asking for. But if I make them feel like they’re prepared to answer a decent amount of questions within reason, right?

India Birdsong-Terry (15m 12s):
Then they feel like they’re armed with more information, understanding that they have to be a supporter to begin with. I’m not here, I’m not a sales person. I’m not here to to sell you on transit. You either believe it or you don’t. And then we have to prove to you that we’re worth your time. So if we have you in that, that yes bucket, right? And and that’s something we started to talk to talk about internally is, is what’s a net promoter score? You’ve heard that term perhaps on the private industry, right? And that’s basically how likely is someone else to sell you on something that I do? They’re the word of mouth push, right? That’s the greatest ambassador we can have respect to all of the legislators that are out there and the support mechanisms and , the APTAs and the contos and all of this.

India Birdsong-Terry (15m 58s):
They are fantastic, fabulous. We couldn’t do it without them. But my main, my main target is that person who’s making the decision to take the bus or the train or to hop in their car. And if I can get that person who has a choice, the dependent rider is absolutely important too, right? But if I can get that person who has a choice to hop in a car or an Uber or whoever, a rare a ride share or hop on one of our, our vehicles for public transit and they choose us, then I’ve won. Because that person is likely gonna tell someone that they had a good experience just the same way as they’ll tell somebody that they was horrible. Don’t take it, I never wanna transit again.

India Birdsong-Terry (16m 39s):
Right? I wanna be able to have them be our mouthpiece. And the more, if you look at the math on that, and you take a a, an alderman or a council person and they’ve got 10,000 people in their district and 5,000 of them are RTA supporters, that goes a long way and

Billy Terry (16m 58s):
Reverberates farther,

India Birdsong-Terry (16m 59s):
Right? So then when, when that legislator is talking in front of that person or that 5,000 constituency that had a good experience with our ta, it makes it easier. They don’t have to sell, they just are reverberating the things they already know. They’re regurgitating it and it’s almost like going to church and everybody they Amen. Absolutely. Alright.

Billy Terry (17m 22s):
Right?

India Birdsong-Terry (17m 22s):
And so then when we need to ask for $400 million to replace some rail cars, it a little bit easier to be able to get it at the ballot. So that, that’s the kind of strategic planning that I’m hoping to impart here in Cleveland.

Billy Terry (17m 34s):
Absolutely. And you have a wonderful team. I know several people on your team who are part of those efforts. So it, it only took me 10 minutes or so to ask you to talk about G-C-R-T-A. I am sorry. But, so can you, can you paint a picture for us? India , for those who are not familiar with the system there in in Cleveland, can you give us a sense of G-C-R-T-A, who you serve, how expansive you are, the various communities that you serve, and maybe one or two key initiatives that you’re engaged in right now?

India Birdsong-Terry (18m 9s):
Sure. Well, we’ve got quite a robust system here. As I mentioned, we’ve got about 2100 employees and that’s inclusive of two local unions. We have a fraternal order of police, FOP, we do have a transit police force as well that is comprised of about 100 officers. And then when you get administrative and canine and all of that, all told, you’re probably looking about 150 employees that support our, our security initiative. So they’ve got their union and then you’ve got the A TU, the Amalgamated Transit Union, and they handle the bulk of our kind of lay folks, right? The ones that are operating the, the vehicles and maintaining them and, and, and being public ambassadors for the program.

India Birdsong-Terry (18m 53s):
We have traditional bus, big bus, as we call it here, right? Your 40 and your 60 footers. Then you’ve got your downtown trolleys, which has kind of shrunk a little bit after the pandemic just because of people’s work from home. Patterns are a little different. But we’ve got those services for the park and rise, and then we have light rail and heavy rail. We are are very proud of the fact that we are the only public transit rail operator in the, in the state. And so that’s a big deal for us. . I understand you’re from the East coast Billy, so

Billy Terry (19m 25s):
Well, I’m right around the way. I’m Pittsburgh. We right down the street that

India Birdsong-Terry (19m 28s):
That’s true. That’s true. So , we really are excited about that, but it also comes with a lot of stated good repair, right? So that’s what we’re in the throes of that right now. I mentioned the $400 million price tag thereabouts for replacing the rail rail car replacement program. We’re in the middle of that now and we’re almost there. So we’re super excited to bring those cars on in a couple years. And then we also have direct access to our airport. Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uber game

Billy Terry (19m 55s):
Changer. That’s a game changer. Yeah,

India Birdsong-Terry (19m 57s):
It is. It is. Only if it’s utilized the right way. That’s the thing we can’t take for granted that we’re just there, right? Because you could easily just bypass it. So we have a new airport director that we’re really excited about working with as well to just kind of rethink how things work in the city and how we’re bringing people into Cleveland. So that’s, that’s gonna take a life of its own in a bit. And then we, we also maintain our fleet in-house, right? We also have paratransit as well. We have paratransit services, which is a, a really source of pride I think for our community and, and for our board as well. Our, our board chair, Reverend Charles Lucas is in a wheelchair and a user of pair of transit every day.

India Birdsong-Terry (20m 42s):
So what better real, real time experience, right? Can can you get than that? We, we handle that. We’ve got a fleet of about 80 to a hundred vehicles that operate out of the paratransit district with about a hundred plus operators and a couple of different three actually third party providers. And we operate the bulk of that. So we handle all of greater Cleveland. So Cuyahoga County is our service area within reason. And we’ve got accountability to the mayor of Cleveland. We’ve got a new millennial mayor who’s been in for about two years. Justin Bibb. He actually was a former board member of RTA that brought me here to Cleveland. So really excited about that kind of relationship to be able to move the needle forward.

India Birdsong-Terry (21m 23s):
And then we’ve got a new county executive with Chris Ronna, who was a planner. He was a, a city planner by trade. So I’m writing my, I’m a, I’m a . We have great mayors and managers through that association. Lisa Baro heads that up. And just being able to think about how to work with constituencies that may not know RTA. So we have three sitting mayors on our board at any given time. And, and that’s always an interesting dance to be able to think about how to loop the suburbs in. So we have a lot of things going on, A lot of things

Billy Terry (21m 53s):
Absolutely that’s an understatement, understatement of the decade. So India, can I link back a little bit to your community development days and, and, and ask you to tease out a little bit how the, the work of RTA is adding to the Regional economic development. Clearly you talked about the direct line to the airport, but can you talk a little bit about RTAs contribution to, and i, I dare say renaissance, but to the, the, its economic development contribution to what’s going on at the city, the, the residential and commercial development along the Healthline. Just, just a number of different ways that RTAs efforts are contributing to the economic vitality of the city or the region for that matter.

India Birdsong-Terry (22m 36s):
Absolutely. So we’ve got a lot of different avenues that I think we are really starting to kind of get comfortable in. Again, and I say, I always say kind of like a rebirth, right? So the Renaissance term will definitely take that. Just being able to kind of like turn the lights back on , what I mean, especially after Covid being able to, to see people in person and, and not being able to do that over the last few years, I’d actually say has, has not been a hindrance for us. , it’s been a challenge for sure. But I got here about six months before the pandemic started and I was fresh off the airplane, right? Coming in from Tennessee. And so I think the question was, okay, are you gonna be able to get to know Cleveland? You’re not from here now I do.

India Birdsong-Terry (23m 16s):
The little secret is half my family’s from Ohio and this Chicago, right? So I I Ohio’s not new, but it’s always new if you haven’t lived there. So you never can take that for granted. But I, I had to figure out how to make it my city and to learn it in the midst of the pandemic and the virtual age. So our team got together and we really started to think about what do we need to clean up? What areas do we really need to be able to shore up so that when we do emerge from this, we emerge stronger than we were when we got into it. And I said, this is the grind time. Cleveland’s a little bit of a gritty city, , respectfully, it’s a blue collar city, . That’s kind of what I’m from. And you, you, you get that with Pittsburgh, same kind of thing.

India Birdsong-Terry (23m 57s):
And , we grind hard, but I think we, we grind in silence. And I think that’s a benefit, right? Because you can get the work done and you can get to shine later. Don’t, don’t worry about don’t chase the award. So that’s the culture change that we’ve gotten into over the last few years. And to get to your question, going back to the community development, I love to be able to see a plan come together, but it has to be done over time, but it hasn’t be done in a hurry, right? So it’s position there, and I think we decided that transit oriented development should be on the top five of our priorities, right? So how can we look at the issues of greater Cleveland and work to start to solve it?

India Birdsong-Terry (24m 39s):
And economic disparity is at the top of the list for Cleveland Ohio, especially in the urban core. So it’s a very wealthy city in terms of history and contribution to the country and all of that. But you have a different identity going on and you also have a different strata of economics between your urban core and your suburban areas. And so you could meet somebody that says they’re from Cleveland, but they may be from the suburbs and and vice versa, right? So we started to think about housing, workforce development and job creation, mobility to those jobs and how we can impact that. And also diversity. And those were the areas of interest. We had a a few others of course with the built environment that are equally important to make people and safety, safety was another one.

India Birdsong-Terry (25m 23s):
So when you look at those kind of priorities, it was a great time because we actually were right in the middle of putting the final touches on a, a long-term, 10 year strategic plan when I, when I came in the door and it takes us out to 2030. Yeah. And it was about halfway done when I walked in. And we had done some pillar studies and some great ground research, but we still had to kind of agree that these are things that were important and there was a lot in that plan. And being a planner, , I can identify a plan that that’s pretty aggressive and you need to have some steps in between to get to 2030. Right? And so we actually signed that off, put the bows on it, and then we went ahead and implemented a short-term plan, a short-term strategic plan in addition to the long-term.

India Birdsong-Terry (26m 8s):
So I effectively had to staff go through it again and then and then we prioritize the things that we could do in three to five years instead of looking at a 10 range. Right. But it’s all based in the, in the one we had, right?

Billy Terry (26m 20s):
It’s couch in it. Yeah. Yeah,

India Birdsong-Terry (26m 22s):
Yeah. And that’s where the TOD comes from. That’s where the micro Transit comes from. That’s where the workforce and the diversity comes from. And I’ll be real quick or quick as I can. Micro transit for example, is something that we’re getting our feet wet and, and some of our counterparts, Columbus has a great program, a couple of other close cities have good programs that’s relatively newer for Cleveland because that was a a question that I got right away from some of the council folks that said, Hey, we’ve got job opportunities out further, right? But the system doesn’t take you out that far. There’s a gap the first last mile. How do we get to that? So we, we have a couple pilot programs out for that. So another area that we had in addition to micro transit was community development by way of TOD.

India Birdsong-Terry (27m 7s):
And so we found that after taking an inventory of the property that we own the actual land, we had a lot of land in odd places, right? So normally you would work with a developer and they’d ask for parking lot and maybe, or would or would not be adjacent to one of our, our stations. And so we started taking the premise that if we’re going to engage in acquisition or selling of land, it had to be advantageous for the community as well. It had to be able to have some kind of public transit connection. So we’ve had a lot of development conversations and MOUs in place to be able to work with developers for mixed use income housing for example. And so that way we have a direct correlation between being able to get to work, being able to support the elderly, low income, black and brown folks, , you name it, to be able to live in these high rises, for example, that may be right next to a bus stop or a rail station.

India Birdsong-Terry (28m 1s):
So that’s part of that sort of forced collaborative process that we now say, Hey, we actually have a little bit more power than we thought. Let’s go ahead and take advantage of it. And then don’t get blinded by the dollar sign that comes along with selling off a weird piece of property for a parking lot . Yeah.

Billy Terry (28m 17s):
And a, a respectful addendum. Get to work, get to worship, get to medical appointments, get to school, get to recreation, right? All the other things that that RTA mobility provides can, I’m gonna dig in just a a little deeper and edge if you can expand. You talked about the strategic plan A, was there any level of community input for the in, in the strategic planning process? And then also could you maybe elaborate on those opportunities for the ongoing community input? I don’t know if you have a writer advisory council or whatever. So really what I’m trying to get at India is those elements and those opportunities for community input as you talked about your number one lobbyist, right?

Billy Terry (29m 1s):
Is a individual who takes your system with any regularity. So elements for community input. I guess that’s the question.

India Birdsong-Terry (29m 8s):
Absolutely. So if I go back and I rewind a little bit to the, the system redesign we did a couple years ago, which was next gen is the name of that, that one we actually delayed, we consciously delayed it about six to eight months because we wanted to figure out how to get the most robust community input in the middle of a new pandemic. ’cause it was on track to just come out, right? So all of a sudden you wanna have community input at a library and so and so and nobody shows up because they all wanna get sick, right? So we had to be able to kind of slow down a little bit and come up with different me mechanisms, whether it was surveys electronically or having a digital workshops and that kind of thing to be able to, and, and spacing if they wanted to show up in person to keep everybody health healthy and safe.

India Birdsong-Terry (29m 54s):
So we did that. I will say we also, even after that next gen redesign came out, it still doesn’t make everybody happy. You can do the majority, right? So the, the argument, the the big fight, right? The boxing match was between more frequent or more coverage it is, it’s like the sugar, like less taste more. And so , we kind of found that everybody wanted everything. So we took a traditional kind of a way of looking at it to make sure that we didn’t have replication of three and four lines going down the same road and you could have decent walking distance and all of that. And then we took the next couple of years actually to also clean up our internal processes for community outreach, as you mentioned.

India Birdsong-Terry (30m 39s):
So it’s funny you should say that. We literally just had the swearing in at the, around the holiday time last year in 2023 of our community advisory committee. And that was one that we had for a while, but it kind of dried up during the pandemic and then it was a great opportunity to say, Hey, let’s just revamp this whole thing, right? And so if you served on it before, thank you for your time, you’re awesome. You’re an emeritus. So we still wanna, right, that is we gotta people Yeah. So we have them as advisors that serve on that, right? A handful of them that still wanna be involved and are, are are willing and able and then we, we put out it like a, we put out like an application process.

India Birdsong-Terry (31m 18s):
Like you would be going for a job, right? ’cause it’s a job. Yeah. And an extension of our, our 10 member, our board, so they’re the CAC is the moniker for that. And they are actually gonna have their first meeting coming up in the end of quarter one. So we have a great array of capacities and experiences and a great diversity on that, on that team and that committee. So we’re super excited to get them started and they’re gonna really have that voice of the customer and be involved in everything. So alongside that, we actually just had our first c oc civilian oversight committee meeting last week actually. And that’s our transit police oversight. If you think about it that way, and I’ll put the disclaimer out there, we’re doing this in a place of positivity, right?

India Birdsong-Terry (32m 2s):
We’re doing this in a place of positivity. So we’re not doing this on the heels of some issue that came up, which is a, a really blessed way to come at it because you can kind of level set and it educate people on how to be a good reviewer of incidents that come up . We don’t use choke holds and that kind of thing. So all of this came out after post George Floyd, this was part of our reaction to say, Hey wait, we’ve gotta make sure that we are, as our deputy for operations calls it 21st century policing, we wanna make sure that we’re ahead of the curve on these things because we are riding high with a pretty good relationship with our community. We wanna make sure to, to maintain it. And then at that same time, if you, if you go back about a year and a half, two years, we had our police chief who was retiring after more than 20 years in the seat.

India Birdsong-Terry (32m 49s):
And so that was a great opportunity. Yeah, great, great guy. But we were going for a little bit of a different flare, right? And that was a good opportunity. Timing was, was great to be able to go out there and say, Hey, let’s, let’s look at new leadership too, And, what does that look like now that we were coming off of that? So, and that comes with a lot of changes, right? Because my predecessor was here almost 20 years. So you, you get the retirements coming and it just marries up for a good opportunity for me to get in some new faces as well and play pay homage to the ones that that came here before us. So we have our first African American female LGBTQ plus police chief. Wow. And yeah, we found her right in our backyard and we had a national search show.

India Birdsong-Terry (33m 29s):
You gotta, you gotta work from there.

Billy Terry (33m 31s):
She was already there. She was,

India Birdsong-Terry (33m 33s):
She was there and she was, she had worked with the city of Cleveland for a long time and this is her first stint as Chief . She’d been commander, she’d been Lieutenant Sergeant . I said that in the wrong order. But she definitely has paid her dues and, and has worked every beat you can think of and, and is a, an educator as well and security tactics and has a great eye on diversity. So we’ve actually been able to shore up our gaps in getting enough officers because that’s a big issue to workforce. So we were down about a fourth of our, our, our manpower in the, the police area. And we are at a hundred percent at this point. So we’ve got a waiting list for officers.

Billy Terry (34m 13s):
Wow. Wow. Okay.

India Birdsong-Terry (34m 15s):
Yeah. We changed our whole hiring strategy. That’s a whole different conversation Billy, that I hope we’ll get into. But that’s another area of of change that we, we’ve definitely kind of jumped into. Pete, first

Billy Terry (34m 26s):
You talked a lot about the assets of RTA to serve the community v and I’m let, let me, let me just throw a curve ball in here. India, I would submit your greatest asset is your human capital of RTAI. Let’s just take a moment and, and talk about your philosophy on a enhancing in educating and training your, your workforce. And, and let’s blend that in and give you an opportunity to talk about you can’t, you can’t enhance ’em unless you get them in the door first. So you, you an opportunity to talk a little bit about your proactive, purposeful way that you touch recruitment or did you you go about recruitment?

India Birdsong-Terry (35m 6s):
Sure. Well we, we found a lot of opportunities in the human resources and, and training era division of our company to really revamp some things, right? Because just the way people are being hired is different now than it was in the nineties or the early two thousands or even 10 years ago. So a lot of the demands of the candidate pool are very different. Folks wanna work virtually, they wanna work hybrid, they wanna have access to childcare, they want to have access to the mobility options. I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of things that people are asking for now and expecting that they may not have said out loud 15, 20 years ago.

India Birdsong-Terry (35m 50s):
Right? So a lot of that and, and, and we are a shift driven company, right? Like all of our, our our sister agencies. So we haven’t gotten to the point where you can drive the bus autonomously yet.

Billy Terry (36m 3s):
Not yet.

India Birdsong-Terry (36m 4s):
Not yet. And so,

Billy Terry (36m 6s):
No, our union brother and sisters, we were that conversation strategically. Yeah, yeah,

India Birdsong-Terry (36m 11s):
Yeah. Strategically, right? We we’re not at the gym there, but we’ll we’ll get there sometime I guess. But right now we have to still bring people in and so that competing with the Amazons that are out there and the, the Uber eats and the so and so and the blah blah blah that you can essentially perhaps make your own schedule or you may not have so many or the same, not so many but so the same rules and regulations, you may or may not have to have a CDL right? To be able to operate a, a vehicle, those kind of things. And then you get into the maintenance side of it from the digital era. Do you turn a wrench anymore? Do you have grease on you? Right. Or you hitting a button on a computer and making it move.

India Birdsong-Terry (36m 53s):
So all that to be said, we realized that we had to be more competitive and the first rule of of transit is that you gotta look at the dash report. You gotta be able to see right? Right. Shout out to Greg Dash. You gotta be able to look and see where you are as far as pay. Yeah. That’s the check the box item. Right. And it’s not an easy check. Right. But you gotta figure that out. They pay. Yeah. I think we’re in the top three, I wanna say we’re the second best in the nation for pay to pay for operator in certain certain areas according to of course your market and all of that. Right? Right. So we had to make sure that that was, that was completed. Now in our agency we have union and we have also administrative non-union. So non-BAR. We had not done a compensation study for non bargaining.

India Birdsong-Terry (37m 37s):
’cause you gotta remember, bargaining of course goes every two, three years, however we contract. So you have a bite at the apple pretty frequently. And I’m talking about the hiring strategy holistically now, right? So you could have a very happy union theoretically and a miserable administrative workforce who hasn’t had that same consideration because they’re not contracted. So that’s not fair, right? You gotta make sure that, that you look at everybody. So we actually went ahead and, and made the decision to embark upon a compensation study for all non bargaining employees. We had not done that in over 25 years. Wow. That let me know that you could have someone who was here for their entire career and, and never had a market analysis completed on a formalized basis.

India Birdsong-Terry (38m 17s):
So we were, had been doing the work, right? So we weren’t too far off, but we could move some pieces around, create growth programs for different departments. For example, engineer 1, 2, 3 type of thing. Instead of just having a position and then the director, right? So people had somewhere to go and then you would, you kind of eradicate that whole, well And, what am I worth to you? Right? It says, Hey, this is what you do. Let’s look through your job description, let’s go through that. It was a little painful. Imagine. Yeah. Yeah. ’cause you’re, you’re evaluating your work. But then I think it caused us to be able to say, Hey, this is what I do for a living. I do a lot more than you realize RTA or I don’t do as much as you think IRTA.

India Birdsong-Terry (38m 57s):
And then we’re able to kind of navigate through that. So we did that, had our board involved. It was, it was a good process. Like I said, it was, it was a painful one, but it was a good one. It’s a necessary evil. And then quite honestly, mine was separated from that. Right. I’m, I’m a contract employee, like all CEOs are. Most are, but I had to take care of the people first. Right? Absolutely. And then that way it justifies the job. We also wanted to look at childcare. So I mentioned that this one is a really important piece to me because I, I go through this every day, right? , I have two toddlers that do and gotta watch those kids while I’m doing this. And , at that time, they weren’t in school yet. So childcare, I I got it . I’m like, this is tough. And if you’re a shift worker, it’s even harder.

India Birdsong-Terry (39m 38s):
So we actually are gonna be launching in March our first, I’m so excited. Our first referral kind of, well it’s a program where we will link employees up with resources for childcare. Wow. According to their needs After hours. Yeah. Oh, after hours. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So we’re working with a, with a company I won’t name quite yet ’cause we gotta launch it formally. But we’re working through them to be able to kind of say, Hey , I’m a bus operator and I start at 8:00 PM at night. Well you can go on this in this program and be able to kind of put in your needs and output a list of providers that can help you during those hours that are already licensed.

India Birdsong-Terry (40m 21s):
So it’s a great opportunity just to connect people with things, right? You make the decision, you’re the parent. We don’t sign you up, we don’t watch your kids for you. Right. But we’re giving you the resources you need to be successful here. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s one thing. We also had to look at long-term professional development, planning and mentorship. So we have the positive impact program. It’s called PIPI hate to say pip ’cause it reminds me of performance improvement program. But it’s a, it’s a mentor program, positive impact. And it’s taken off like wildfire. And we have looked toward those agencies that have done it well and emulated them and tweaked it ourselves.

India Birdsong-Terry (41m 1s):
And we’ve had a tremendous reduction rate in absenteeism and a tremendous increase in keeping people here and retaining and retention for our operators and mechanics. And they just have someone to talk to. And so there’s all kind of great stories out there. We just did a podcast with AFTA that should be rolling that out, I think in a week or two really explaining the program. And it’s been a beautiful relationship between the union and management to be able to keep people here. And then one more thing, I have the little brochure. I know you can’t see it on the forecast, but it’s our refer and earn program. And basically it gives you up to $500 for referring someone who stays for at least a year

Billy Terry (41m 45s):
As an operator

India Birdsong-Terry (41m 47s):
For skilled trades. Okay. So they have certain, yeah. So operators one of them, but they have certain trades that are hard to find so that you get paid incremental incrementally as your referral employee stays with us. So we want you to Stay with us. So you re refer somebody who’s not your cousin, right? Let’s say your neighbor or whoever is, and they, they come on board with us and they pass, they, they pass the, the skills test and they get a job offer. You get paid, they pass probation, you get paid, they pass the six month marker or year mark you get paid. So it’s a continual kind of investment where now you’re becoming a inadvertent ambassador for them to say, Hey man, how you doing?

India Birdsong-Terry (42m 32s):
You doing okay? You keeping up with it whether you are interested in their success or not, you wanna get paid and we want you to Stay with us. So it’s a

Billy Terry (42m 39s):
Little, little incentive. Yeah. There you go. So having said that, India, I want to get into some, some environmental questions, but, but first, do you think that these targeted changes under your leadership from taking a look at hiring practices to advan the mentoring program, advancing people when they’re in the door, how do you think that’s impacted RTA as an employer of choice in the Cleveland area as compared to 20 years ago? What people thought of the RTA as to as to now of being an employer of choice in the region? What, what, what are your thoughts?

India Birdsong-Terry (43m 19s):
Well, I hope that it’s causing people to look at us as more than just a bus company or a rail company. That they’re looking at us as an economic driver that we actually connect people with social services, , we’ve got an ambassador program now. We’ve got social workers that work for us, call ’em Crisis intervention Specialists. They actually go out along with a transit police officer when needed and just canvas the system. And if somebody needs help and they’re unhoused and they need to find a bed and they’re riding our system and won’t get off, there’s a reason for that. So we have to be sensitive to that. And I’m starting to hear outside of our agency through political leaders, or nonprofits, a matter of fact, I was in a meeting the other day and they’re like, Hey , the mission for Cleveland the City Mission actually referred you guys to US or referred you all as an option.

India Birdsong-Terry (44m 13s):
We hadn’t had that experience before. Wow. They’re starting to see and say, Hey, rts probably got a program for that or let me check. And another thing, I think we’re starting to see success by way of the people that were getting in the door. So a lot of the positions we had a really hard time filling before. We’re starting to get quality employees that, that want to be part of the change and they want to just be part of the excitement. I’ll say a lot of that has to do with our branding. So shout out to Natoya Walker Minor, who is over our, our marketing and external affairs. They’re doing a yeoman’s job of just making us look good, but telling the truth, , and I always tell them, I said, don’t apologize for things unless you deserve it.

India Birdsong-Terry (44m 54s):
And that’s okay. But you gotta make sure that we, so if we make a mistake and we have a delay, we explain to the customers what the problem is and how we’re going to fix it. We don’t just give them free rise, right? Because that doesn’t fix the problem. We don’t want it to happen tomorrow. So that creates that trust from the community to say, Hey, they’re gonna be a little bit more honest with us. And not to say we weren’t before, but I think that’s the implied action that you have when someone is trusting in you their life line. So if it , if we control whether or not you get hired or fired because you can or can’t get to that job appointment on time, there’s a nervousness that comes with that. We have to understand that part. And then one other thing really quickly is the diversity of our teams I think is improving.

India Birdsong-Terry (45m 38s):
We have a, a still a, a long way to go in certain areas of the business, but we have employee resource groups. We have four right now that are active. We have one for our veterans that’s emerging. We have one for women, female employees that’s, that’s hit the ground running over the last couple years. Got the LGBT community that is up and running and Latino community that’s up and running as well. So that’s really helped, I think, be able to have those hard conversations and make people a little bit more compassionate. Right?

Billy Terry (46m 8s):
And, and, and those are people who probably serve in various roles within the agency. A part of you’re a veteran, but you may be an operator or you may be a supervisor or you may be Right.

India Birdsong-Terry (46m 19s):
Right. Yeah, it, it it’s everybody. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You throw your title out the window when you’re in one

Billy Terry (46m 25s):
Of, when you’re in your groups. Good. Yeah. So India, let’s, let’s take a, a few more minutes together and rightfully so, we are all as a nation trying to move towards more environmentally friendly mindset, right? And that manifests itself a number of different ways, right? So for as a transit agency, can you maybe give us a, a, a brief overview about how RTA is a, is a approaching its role in being a good environmental steward, whether it be facilities rolling stock or, or let me, let me pause and say this and some of the challenges you talk about being honest and some of the challenges about being that good environmental steward.

India Birdsong-Terry (47m 9s):
Yeah. That, that’s a major concern that we have here at RTA. I don’t think that we have cracked that nut quite yet. It’s on our, our plan for this year and next year to really kind of deep dive into it. I will say that my plan is to, part of the plan is to create a sustainability department, and that should be in the works for, for later on this year. So we’re actually working on creating job descriptions for that area right now so that we can actually lean into that because I think we’ve done a lot of good things through campaigns, right? So whether that’s being lead certified on a building, right? Or having solar panels on a bus stop and managing our paper usage and all that.

India Birdsong-Terry (47m 50s):
And we have CNG compressed natural gas for the bulk of our vehicles in addition to diesel. We, we’ve not kind of bust into the electric fleet. And I think a lot of that takes planning and quite honestly, it also takes the manufacturers to be able to work with us to make sure that we have the parts and deliverables on time. So we’re working through that and we’re, we’re on a couple committees through APTA and, and the like, but I think the sustainability part of it is what’s to come for us and to really make that part of the, the fabric of RT and not a fleeting campaign, right? So we’re doing great work individually on different projects, but I still think we have a ways to go to make sure that we can actually lead the charge on that,

Billy Terry (48m 32s):
A very targeted approach to it being multifaceted, like you said, spread throughout the agency. That that’s great to hear. That’s great to hear. I’m curious, India, you came, so Chicago, Nashville, Cleveland, many distinctions between those regions, but any, any similarities from the different places that you’ve worked in transit?

India Birdsong-Terry (48m 56s):
I think they’re all blue collar cities within reason, right? I think they’re, is a certain grit to those cities that they’re leaders in their, in their state either by previous population or, or economic drivers. Cleveland, for example, was the top of the heat. And now I think we’re trying to get back there as far as population, but the Chicagos and Nashville and, and any other area that I’ve, that I’ve worked in always has a certain grit to it. They have a kind of like togetherness that is, it’s tough to replicate and I think they’re always underdog cities, if I can say that. And so they’re the cities that are always trying to either stay on top or compete with the New Yorks and the lass and the so, or the Atlantas and so on and so forth.

India Birdsong-Terry (49m 38s):
But they have their own identity. So I, I’ll say this in closing for that question, Cleveland has its own identity. Cleveland is not trying to be Columbus or Cincinnati or Dayton or Akron or whoever else. The same way that Nashville’s not trying to be Memphis, right? And Chicago’s not trying to be anybody else. I think they’re comfortable in the city’s identity, but there’s always a little work to do to get people from other places to recognize that that diamond and, and that creates a little bit of a drive that, that I’m attracted to. So it’s, it’s probably, it makes a lot of sense why I’ve chosen those places. Are those

Billy Terry (50m 17s):
Absolutely all wonderful places, wonderful food, each of them. So in India, people are gonna flock to Cleveland for the APTA 2024 rail conference. Give us, give us a 32nd, what do they have to look forward to, not only when they come to the conference, but a around Cleveland when people come there in June for the APTA Rail conference.

India Birdsong-Terry (50m 41s):
So I’m gonna make a shameless plug to, to ask that you guys play our, our minute video. I think it’s a minute and a half or so. I’ll send it to you if you need it at the end of this. That would be a great way to kind of show you better than I can tell you. We have a, a, a promo video that, that we’ve released through afta and it really just embodies the spirit of the city. We’re ready to, to kind of reintroduce ourselves to, to the industry. We really haven’t been out there in the limelight since BRT came online about 15 years ago. So I think we’ve got a lot of new leadership in the city that is raring to go to make folks understand that Cleveland is really a, a city with a great heart and it’s really a, a beautiful city.

India Birdsong-Terry (51m 22s):
So we’re super excited. I have also asked APTA to make sure they come back to us in about another four years when we have our new rail cars. Right. And so we’ll have a rags to riches story for you guys.

Billy Terry (51m 33s):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I don’t think it’s a shameless plug by any stretch, but I’m, I’m gonna make one too. And just to inform everybody that the Impact Transit and Community Conference is actually hitting to Philadelphia in October of this year. a little bit about Philadelphia India. Evan went to school there, so we absolutely would love to have you come and join us in Philadelphia if you can and share some of the wonderful work that you’re doing. It has been an absolute pleasure and an honor talking with your cousin, and we appreciate you. I am certainly sure. I will see you very, very soon. Thank you so much for joining the podcast, India. Thank

India Birdsong-Terry (52m 8s):
You. Thank you. It was a pleasure.