An Inspirational Opening Session at the 2024 APTA TRANSform
10/10/2024
The Sept. 30 Opening General Session of APTA’s 2024 TRANSform in Anaheim, CA, took inspiration from southern California’s entertainment industry. View a video here.
From a high-energy compilation of movie clips that celebrated a successful year to a keynote presentation by an Academy Award winning actress that showed public transportation’s far-reaching role, the message was clear: APTA members achieved a great deal in 2023-24 because they were ready. Now the industry must be ready again to seize bigger and broader opportunities.
APTA President and CEO Paul P. Skoutelas welcomed more than 3,100 attendees by asking, “Do you remember ‘Infrastructure Week’? We are in the midst of an ‘Infrastructure Decade’.”
He said public transportation has had another remarkable year of rebuilding and modernizing infrastructure; expanding transit networks; and creating accessible, equitable, and sustainable mobility that is driving the national economy.
“As proud as we are of this past year’s work,” Skoutelas added, “our work is not done. The year ahead will bring challenges, but also many exciting opportunities.” He reminded the audience that regardless of the outcome of the November elections, “our mission remains more important than ever, and we must be ready.”
Outgoing Chair Michele Wong Krause summarized her “calls to action” and APTA’s successes during her tenure, including:
- Launching an advocacy / communications campaign to “Rethink Public Transportation” as a catalyst for economic growth.
- Increasing the focus on building the next generation of skilled transit employees through APTA’s first-ever Workforce Summit.
- Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with the release of APTA’s Transit Equity Report, the successful completion of the Racial Equity Commitment pilot program, and plans to make the program permanent and more broadly inclusive.
“As APTA’s first board chair of Asian descent, this last issue is especially important to me,” she said. “We can’t talk about diversity without being diverse.”
Wong Krause also noted that during her first week as APTA chair, she asked Immediate Past Chair and President of the Chicago Transit Authority, Dorval R. Carter Jr., to lead a Bus Manufacturing Task Force, whose recommendations would strengthen bus OEMs, identify best procurement practices, and streamline standards and guidelines.
She also secured consensus on updated APTA by-laws for governance and committee operations, an initiative that began three years ago.
A moving, biographical video introduced Incoming APTA Chair MJ Maynard, CEO of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC), who described her intension to advance specific issues in APTA’s Strategic Plan.
First, Maynard said “Adapting to the way our customers use technologies in their daily lives is key to ensuring we remain relevant and relatable.” She pledged to support working closely with technology companies to share best practices, technical expertise, and innovative ideas.
Second, she called championing investments in a future ready workforce” a foundational pillar of what we do. “Our ongoing collaboration with workforce partners ensures that we can meet the evolving needs of the industry while providing meaningful employment and career-development opportunities for individuals across the nation,” she said.
Third, she urged attendees to challenge outdated perceptions of what we do and how we do it by building partnerships with diverse organizations that benefit from public transit. “If you have a transportation problem in your community, you have an economic problem in your community,” she told attendees.
With APTA’s unified, three-legged membership—Transit CEOs, Board Members, and the Business Community—she said, “We can ensure our industry receives the recognition it deserves as part of our economic ecosystem.”
Maynard echoed Skoutelas’s optimism about the future, saying, “We have demonstrated that it is not the obstacles, but rather our reaction to them that determine the story’s outcome.”
Presenting sponsor, HNTB Corporation, was represented by Veronique (Ronnie) Hakim, senior vice-president. She shared her organization’s mission to improve communities with safe, equitable, and environmentally friendly mobility solutions. “Mobility matters,” she said. “If you take anything away from this morning’s remarks, it’s that. We make a difference in the communities in which we operate.”
Board Chair Tam Nguyen and CEO Darrell Johnson of the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA), TRANSform 2024’s host agency, warmly welcomed APTA and highlighted their recent transit investments. Johnson described how OCTA is the “first large transit agency in the state of California to offer permanent free fares to youth 18 and under.” The agency has a focus on access to education and is partnering with all nine area community colleges to offer free rides to students who present their student IDs.
As chair of APTA’s Business Members Board of Governors (BMBG) Ray Melleady, EVP for Safety & Survivability Corporation, explained how the business group promotes educational activities, including sponsoring nationally known speakers on topics that are becoming increasingly relevant for transit agencies.
He then introduced the keynoter, Mira Sorvino, an Academy Award-winner, documentary filmmaker, and lifelong champion for social justice.
Sorvino told attendees about her work as a social activist advocating for stronger protections against sexual harassment and human trafficking.
She talked about her personal journey from becoming a #MeToo figure to meeting victims of abuse as the ambassador for Amnesty International’s “Stop Violence Against Women” campaign and as a United Nations Good Will Ambassador for the Office on Drugs and Crime.
Her detailed, graphic, and emotional stories illustrated the need for every organization to become aware and involved in the global fight against human trafficking.
View a highlights video of the 2024 APTA TRANSform here.