Mass Transit MARCH 2017 | MassTransitmag.com | Mass Transit | 11 Community Relationships Nelson knows the community well, as he’s one of the few in the industry that stayed in the community he grew up in. He got out of college and started in commercial insurance, writing insurance for small and medium-sized businesses. Th en in the early 80s during the farm implement meltdown, the major employers closing down had a trickle-down eff ect. “When you work in a commission based world and you’re writing more cancellations than new policies, the economics of it suggest you need to broaden your horizons a little,” he joked. One of the clients was the transit authority, which had recently built a new maintenance facility. Nelson said, “Th e guy called me back about two months later and asked, ‘Are you interested in a job outside of insurance?’ “I said sure, I would take a look.” He added, “I thought I would do that for a couple of years.” Nelson started in September 1983, moved up to assistant general manager a year or so later. When he was contemplating a job change, leaving the industry, his boss called him in and said he was leaving and was going recommend Nelson for the GM position. “Timing is everything,” Nelson said. Back at that time, transit was focused on providing service to those that had no choices, said Nelson. However, he said MetroLINK was shift ing to transforming into something completely diff erent, back when the federal government started investing in transit and the locals started investing in transit. “What we did as an agency,” he explained, “we don’t have yellow school buses in two of our major cities so we expanded the concept of transit trippers. By that you’re now grabbing a generation that wasn’t familiar with transit and bringing them into the transit world. “Th ey started having a much higher comfort level and you can almost see that evolution … acceptance of transit was much diff erent.” Building acceptance in the community is something that doesn’t come easy and to further that, Nelson said they had to get involved. “Chambers of commerce are sometimes under-valued in people’s minds,” he said. “I got deeply involved in our chamber of commerce. Volunteerism is critical so if you’re volunteering in diff erent community groups, people see you, hear you diff erently. “Become a part of that community and slowly but surely, you get invited to conversations that you get to play a bigger role in.” He continued, “When you’re around long enough, you start to understand who in the community are actually making things happen and it may not necessarily be that elected offi cial.” He emphasized, “You can’t sit behind your desk and think someone’s going to knock on your door; it’s not going to happen. “I make my staff get involved, too. Th e more people you can have integrated into a community, the better off you are.” He explained that sometimes it’s even organizations that don’t have anything to do with transit; you start collecting a new group of people that have diff erent perceptions. Nelson said, “We have two distinct groups out there, the users and non-users. Th e non-users have to be as knowledgeable of the system as the users.” Partners in Technology A shift in perception from non-users was really apparent when they got their fi rst compressed natural gas (CNG) buses. Walking a trade show fl oor, Nelson saw John Deere exhibiting and stopped by to see what they were doing exhibiting at a transit conference. Back in the late 90s, early 2000s, John Deere was having to look for the diesel output exchange for off -road vehicles, they were getting credits for building CENTRE STATION is the signature hub of MetroLINK, providing connections with nine routes. Mass Transit GENERAL MANAGER Jeff Nelson has been with MetroLINK since 1983.
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