Metro News Release
For immediate release: May 28, 2009
John Catoe named nation's top public transportation manager
Complete overhaul of the transit system, leadership on national stage sets precedent
Metro General Manager John Catoe has been named the nation’s 2009 top public transportation manager by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). The annual Outstanding Public Transportation Manager Award goes to the top manager in North America who has made outstanding contributions to the public transportation industry. 
“I congratulate John Catoe on his tireless efforts to advance public transportation, here in the Washington Metropolitan area and around the country,” said APTA President William Millar. “With 30 years of experience in public transportation, John has a stellar track record of strong leadership and innovative performance. He has worked to improve public transportation at each of the public transit systems he has been associated with and has also worked to nurture the next generation of leaders.”
“To be selected as the 2009 Outstanding Public Transportation Manager means that John Catoe is the ‘best of the best’,” Millar said.
Metro Board Chairman Jim Graham announced the award at a Board meeting today (May 28). “When the eyes of the world were upon us five months ago, when the biggest event in this city’s history put us in the spotlight, when the most historic Inauguration took place, when 1.5 million people needed to get around this city and this region, on that day, January 20, 2009, this general manager led this transit system in a nearly flawless performance. It was perhaps this agency’s finest hour,” Graham said. “But his career is about more than one day. It’s about 30 years of service to the public transportation industry. I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate a remarkable man who has changed the culture of Metro.”
Catoe joined Metro in January 2007, and the first weeks on his new job were brutal. In the span of six weeks, four pedestrians were fatally struck by Metrobuses and a train derailment caused 20 people to go to the hospital. Two months earlier, two rail employees were fatally struck by a train.
Catoe immediately focused on a complete overhaul of the transit system with the goal of operating Metro in the most efficient and cost-effective manner without sacrificing safety or service for customers.
Within four days of taking office, he announced his plan to create a corporate culture built on a solid foundation of safety. Safety committees were established at all of the Authority’s work locations, making safety the responsibility of each employee.
He purchased a bus simulator for driver training and established a mentor program for new bus operators. Bus street supervisors used radar guns to monitor bus speeds. More than 3,200 bus operators were trained to understand traffic from a pedestrian’s perspective through the “Street Smart” program that he established.
His hard work paid off. In 2008, there were no work-related employee fatalities and no Metro-related pedestrian fatalities. Additionally, the number of workers compensation claims was reduced by 10.2 percent in FY2008, and in the first half of FY2009 (July-December 2008) they had fallen by 17.4 percent.
The attitude toward safety was just one component of the culture that required change. For more than 30 years, Metro had been building a transit system. Catoe knew the agency needed to devote more attention to operations and customer service as it prepared for the future.
Within six months of his arrival, he eliminated departments that did not directly contribute to or support the new mission of service delivery. He cut 10 percent of the non-operations staff. The cuts and program changes helped Catoe avoid a fare increase and deliver a budget in FY2008 that focused on safety and quality service.
In developing the budget for FY2009, Catoe had to prepare for a projected $109 million deficit. He was direct with the Board and customers and told them Metro needed a fare increase to fund the current level of service. But he came to the table with an innovative way to erase the deficit and keep the fare increase as low as possible. Metro could raise fares in the last six months of FY2008, and then bank the surplus to fund FY2009 operating expenses.
For the remainder of the year, Catoe worked with the Board to implement the concept, and, as the agency is nearing the end of FY2009, data shows the concept was successful. With a 3.58 percent increase in ridership in a year during which fares were raised, the agency collected enough money to finance FY2008 operations and supplement FY2009 operations. In addition, Metro came in under budget by more than $13 million in FY2008, and is expected to be under budget again by the end of FY2009.
As the country’s financial outlook took a turn for the worse in the fall of 2008, Catoe’s national leadership was critical. Insurance giant AIG lost its triple-A credit rating, putting more than 30 transit properties with nearly 100 leaseback transactions at risk of losing as much as $4 billion in funding. Catoe went to court, led a group of chief executives in the transit industry to meet with legislators on Capitol Hill and helped prevent a financial domino effect that would have crippled the transit industry.
Perhaps nothing better illustrates Catoe’s abilities as both a manager and a leader than Metro’s performance for the 56th Presidential Inauguration in January 2009. Metro provided an unprecedented 17 hours of rush-hour service on its rail lines. Metrobus ran express service along more than 20 priority corridors to augment the rail system. MetroAccess offered the necessary transportation to help fulfill President Obama’s vision of making this the most open Inauguration in history. Hundreds of Metro staff from support offices volunteered to supplement the thousands of front-line workers that day, which became the highest ridership day in Metro history.
Congresswoman for the District of Columbia, Eleanor Holmes Norton, described Catoe’s performance the day after the Inauguration: “Metro employees and their leader, General Manager John Catoe, were the ‘unsung heroes’ of the Inauguration. They gave their best and then some,” Norton said. “Metro employees did not flinch at a challenge beyond that faced by any public transportation system in the country, but simply kept on going beyond the call of duty.” She said Catoe deserved credit for “creating a new model for handling unprecedented crowds.”
This is the first time in 20 years that a Metro General Manager has won APTA’s Outstanding Public Transportation Manager Award. Carmen E. Turner, Metro’s General Manager from May 1983 to December 1990, won the award in 1989.
APTA will present the award to Catoe in October at its annual meeting.
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Media contact for this news release: Angela Gates for Metro: 202-962-1051 or Virginia Miller for APTA: 202-496-4816
News release issued at 12:14 pm, May 28, 2009.