Saturday, January 24

Bus & Paratransit CEOs Committee Meeting

Rail Standards Policy & Planning Committee Meeting

CEOs Brunch

Rail Transit CEOs Subcommittee Meeting

Registration

Welcome to Santa Monica Reception

Mix and mingle with CEOs, executives, and guests in a relaxed atmosphere.

Sunday, January 25

Registration

President’s Breakfast for Newer CEOs

Get to know your colleagues and learn more about APTA’s resources for your agency.

Have you started a new position as a public transportation chief executive in the past year?  If yes, you are invited to attend this breakfast session centered on your new responsibilities. 

Host:

William W. Millar, president, APTA

Facilitator:

Jeanne W. Krieg, regional director-VI, APTA, and chief executive officer, Eastern Contra Costa Transit Authority, Antioch, CA

Continental Breakfast 

Opening General Session

Come hear what is in store for the seminar and what’s happening at Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus system.

APTA’s Transit CEOs Seminar officially begins with the opening general session.  Join your colleagues for an overview of the seminar’s educational sessions and events that will offer new perspectives on leadership.  You’ll see the host’s farsighted video, The Bus of the Future, and hear more about Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus.

Welcoming Remarks:

Beverly A. Scott, Ph.D., chair, APTA, and general manager Metropolitan
Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, Atlanta, GA

William W. Millar, president, APTA

Stephanie Negriff, co-chair, APTA Legislative Committee Authorization Task Force; vice chair, APTA Bus and Paratransit CEOs Committee; and director, Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus, Santa Monica, CA

General Session: Decision Making in Increasingly Uncertain Times

Overcoming “Decision Traps” to Become a Better Leader
 
Decision makers may be open to new thinking or trapped by the same reasoning patterns. Explore decision traps ─ natural biases such as over-confidence and framing bias ─ and an ideal group process.  Take away ideas for your next senior management meeting.
 
Presenter for this morning’s next three sessions:

Jim Austin MPA/MURP, director of executive education, Decision Strategies International, Inc., Chicago, IL

With over 25 years in executive development programs on strategy, commu-nications, and organizational change, Jim Austin has helped organizations grow across industry segments.  His Masters degrees in Public Administration and Urban and Regional Planning were earned at Princeton University.  He is past chair of the Strategic Leadership Forum and was a board member of the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois and the University Club of Chicago.

General Session: Strategic Agility

Developing a robust plan for short and longer-term success

“Leading change before you have to” is one definition of strategy.  What are the best ways for your team to learn and translate that rapidly into action?  Explore a three-step sequence to leading your organization:  developing a reasonable set of strategic options; outlining a strategic pyramid for future direction; and driving change. 

General Session: From the National TransitVision 2050, Creating a Local Vision

Link to your organizational strategies.

TransitVision 2050 presents a compelling vision for the future of our industry.  What are the implications for local and regional authorities?  How can we develop nearer-term strategic directions to be on the path to 2050?  Focusing on critical elements to develop a vision, this session will examine not only a visioning process, but also how to link to your strategy. 

Lunch Discussion by System Size

Fitting the Vision to Your Organization and Metropolitan Area

Given the frameworks presented in the morning, how will you tie the TransitVision 2050 to your organization for medium-to-longer strategic direction?  Each lunch group will have a set of questions to discuss aimed at helping you adapt ideas and drive execution in your city or metropolitan area.  Then branch into a free exchange of ideas on other topics or update the group on your activities. Take your buffet lunch into a breakout room and join your peers for a lively discussion in smaller groups organized by transit system size: 

• Small systems, 100 or fewer buses
• Medium systems, 101-500 buses
• Large, 500+ buses, and multimodal systems

General Session: Chair and President’s Roundtable

Find out more about the direction that CEOs and APTA are taking.

Join APTA’s chair and president for a frank discussion on authorization of the federal surface transportation legislation and the new administration as well as key APTA initiatives.

Speakers:

Beverly A. Scott, Ph.D., chair, APTA, and general manager, Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, Atlanta, GA

William W. Millar, president, APTA

General Session: Entering a New Era – Transportation Policy, Authorization, and Advocacy

Hear about key challenges and opportunities in this overview of transportation infrastructure and multimodal policy.

Come hear an insightful, macro political and strategic discussion on where transportation policy is headed in 2009 and beyond.  You’ll learn more about how the dynamics and characteristics of transportation policy are changing beneath our feet, how policymakers are likely to respond to these changes, and how the public transportation industry can take advantage and benefit from this dynamic environment.

Speaker:

Stephen D. Van Beek, Ph.D., president/CEO, Eno Transportation Foundation, Washington, DC

Cultivating Creative Leadership, Framing Emerging Issues

Monday, January 26

Breakfast Session Sustainability Programs to Meet Concrete Goals

Explore new ideas that can help your organization grow in long-term, sustainable ways.

This session will feature presentations about successful initiatives to help spark new ideas to adapt for your organization.

General Session: CEOs and the APTA Public Transportation Sustainability Commitment

With transit’s solid, green credentials, the industry is increasingly proactive and innovative about continually improving its sustainability – a key development strategy in energy and cost efficiency and the growth of ridership and funding support.

Many transit agencies have taken on a leadership role regarding sustainability and others called for APTA to offer guidance on sustainability implementation and advocating for transit in the sustainability and climate change arenas. CEOs will describe their agencies’ actions and why they are signing the APTA Sustainability Commitment document recognizing initiatives and encouraging continuous improvement at all levels of sustainability implementation.

Moderator:

Fred Hansen, chair, sustainability task force and member, board of directors, APTA; general manager, Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon, Portland, OR   

Lunch on Your Own

 General Session: Developing the Public Transportation Workforce

Investing time and resources … turning talents into skills

Description: Building on APTA’s and Transit CEOs’ work in organizational culture and succession planning as well as attracting, training, and retaining employees, public transportation is becoming an employer of choice.  Partnerships -- including those with human resources organizations, labor, and educational institutions -- and comparable pay scales, work hour shifts, increasing job responsibilities, and more have been integral in workforce development.  Now this industry is taking all aspects of doing business on an ascent to the next levels.

General Session: Trends in Labor Relations

Management report of transit industry issues

Attend this session to hear from a leading industry consultant about labor activities; issues in negotiations such as wages, health insurance, absenteeism, and cost of living; courtroom judgments and more over the past year.  

Presenter:

Thomas P. Hock, Esq., principal, Professional Transit Management Ltd. Cincinnati, OH

Tuesday, January 27

Breakfast Session: Best Practices & New Public Transportation Programs

Listen as your colleagues describe programs that can help your organization achieve and maintain top performance.

This session features presentations by CEOs who met success with their initiatives, projects, programs, and new perspectives that may open new doors for you.

General Session: Who’s Looking?  CEO Compensation Packages

“Need to know”

What are the top five qualities that transit boards are looking for now in a chief executive?  How do CEOs research comparable remuneration and benefits?  What are your top priorities for your next contract?  To strengthen your position, APTA can now summarize compensation packages from systems that are similar in characteristics to yours from the findings in the 2008 Transit CEOs Compensation Survey.  Learn more about how to make the most of the compensation package you have now.

Moderator and Presenter:

Doran J. Barnes, vice chair-human resources, APTA, and executive director, Foothill Transit, West Covina, CA

Presenters:

Al Engel, principal, Al Engel Consulting, and financial advisor, Morgan Stanley, Blue Bell, PA (invited)

Gregg Moser, Krauthamer & Associates, Chevy Chase, MD

Concurrent Workshop: Working with an Executive Coach

Maximize your strengths and leadership skills.

About 80 percent of the Fortune 500 companies use executive coaches for the personal and professional development of their executives and managers who tended to improve working relations with direct reports, boss, and peers, improved teamwork, increased satisfaction and productivity.  Allow yourself to be introduced to coaching by a colleague and a master certified coach (by the International Coach Federation) who has experience with 250 executives at clients such as FedEx, Fidelity Investments, Hewlett Packard, and eBay.

Presenters:

John Inglish, general manager/chief executive officer, Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake City, UT

Andrea Sigetich, MCC, president, SageCoach Inc., Bend, OR  

Concurrent Workshop: Engaging Your Legal Counsel

Involving legal counsel in planning and development as well as in traditional roles – a roundtable discussion 

In this roundtable discussion, you’ll hear from an in-house attorney reporting to the CEO, one who reports to the board, and one from a law firm.  The group will discuss anything you want and highlight the best ways to work together and how involving your lawyer early in planning and development processes can prevent a host of challenges.

Facilitator:

James LaRusch, chief counsel and vice president-corporate affairs, APTA

Speakers:

Tiffany Lorenzen, general counsel, San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, San Diego, CA

Kenneth Scheidig, general counsel, AC Transit, Oakland, CA

David J. Miller, partner, Hanson Bridgett Marcus Vlahos & Rudy LLP, San Francisco, CA

Lunch on your own

Santa Monica Sustainable City Tour

Visit the many sites of sustainable development in Santa Monica as well as the transit mall and facilities.

Eno Center for Transportation Leadership Workshop: Entering a New Era – The Business of Transportation

Building on the session “Entering a New Era…” this workshop will introduce lessons from other industries that had entered new eras and altered the way they do business. The discussions will include technology, healthcare, benefits, financing, policy, thinking across modes and jurisdictions, a case study review, and methods to support your staff and board members in thinking about new business models. 

Facilitators:

Stephen D. Van Beek, Ph.D., president/CEO, Eno Transportation Foundation, Washington, DC

Barbara K. Gannon, Psy.D., executive director, Eno Center for Transportation Leadership, Washington, DC

Farewell Dinner:  Going “California”

You and your guest are invited to enjoy the company of old and new friends at dinner.