All right, Paul Comfort here at the Kentucky Transit Association Trade

Show where a couple hundred people have gathered, and I'm excited today

on the Transit Unplugged to talk to two of my friends who are involved

in a transition between leadership.

Say hello.

Hey guys, Dan and Mike, and we're gonna be talking to them today about

transitioning kind of the top job.

The transportation director for GRITS.

Which is a big transit agency here in Kentucky.

I did have grits this morning for breakfast, but that's

not what we're talking about.

So we're gonna talk about how they are making the transition.

Dan is leaving this Friday and he's taken the last few months to transition to

Michael who's gonna talk today about how they did that transition, how it works,

plus a little about their background.

I think you'll find it's a fascinating episode of Transit Unplugged.

And we're diving into our conversation with Dan Lanham

and Michael Hughes from GRITS.

And if you're listening and you can hear some background noise.

That's 'cause we're on the trade show floor.

It's one of our fun live podcasts.

We're doing it from the TripSpark booth.

Thanks for being on the show, guys.

Well, thanks for having us Paul.

It's exciting and it's an exciting time for me because I'm gonna transition,

and it's an exciting time for Michael because he's transitioning too.

Yeah, man.

And, you know, we started off together when I went to

GRITS 19 and a half years ago.

Michael was there.

He was just a puck.

He was a young man.

But I told him, I said, "I'm gonna work with you and make sure that

you're ready to make that step when the time comes for you." It's funny,

we worked together for about six years.

He went on to be a director in another program, then came back to Owensboro

and was a director of our fixed route service there for six or seven years.

Then he went into private business.

And then when I started planning my retirement, I called him up and I said,

"Hey, what are you doing?" And he said, "Well, I'm kinda looking for something

now." And the timing was just perfect.

Michael, tell us a little about your story.

Well, you know what's interesting, Paul, is I started in public transit in 2004.

And a couple years after that, Dan came on board and you know,

Dan and I are about 20 years apart and he came from the construction

industry is what he came from.

And, you know, we hit it off immediately.

We worked great together and like he said, in 2010, I made my way to

Paducah for the transit authority.

There was the executive director for a year, then it came back to

Owensboro, ran the fixed route service.

Did that for about four and a half, five years.

And then, believe it or not, I got into the construction business.

He's like the son, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

So I spent about almost about 10 years in the construction business.

And what's very ironic about this whole story is Dan's almost right

exactly 20 years older than I am.

Our birthdays are about three months apart, but he was my age currently

today when he took this rollover as the executive director, as I am today.

So here we are exactly 20 years later, pretty much to almost

the date and I'm taking over.

So it's just ironic how things in life work.

It is, and that's what I wanna talk about.

It's a great setup, guys, you know, I did a keynote speech this morning.

I talked about five traits of transit leaders and one of 'em was competence.

Making sure that when people get promoted to a position

that they're prepared for it.

Too many times, people get given a job and they're not ready and it's like we put

'em out on a limb and then we saw it out behind them if they are not ready for it.

But you all have done something very unusual, I think, which is take a

multi-month process in addition to the time you spent there earlier.

Tell me, Dan, about the process of when you decided you were gonna retire.

Walk me through that and what made you think of bringing Michael back and just

walk us through and then I'll ask you the same thing from your perspective.

Well, I actually told the agency I was gonna retire about a year and a half ago.

So you gave him plenty of lead time?

I gave him plenty of time.

Because we've grown a lot.

We start off with about a $3 million a year budget.

Now we're at 25 million a year.

And, although I went there with no transit experience, it's not the same

animal it was all those years ago.

So I was concerned.

I mean, I've got a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and sleepless nights invested,

and I wanted to make sure that there was somebody that was taking over that could

take the reins and do a good job with it.

So I started kind of sorting through people in my mind, and Michael and I

have stayed in touch all these years.

We'd go have lunch together and talk to each other on the phone

and I was hoping maybe the timing would work out even though he was

moved on to a different industry.

So when it came time, I contacted him and said "Hey, you know, here's what's

happening. He said, well, I'm kinda looking for something right now." And so

I needed an assistant director to come in.

He came in-

How long ago was that?

About six months, I guess.

Six months or four months, Michael?

And, so the timing was perfect.

I couldn't be happier, more excited, more proud that he's gonna take my place.

'Cause I know he is gonna do a great job and I'm not changing my phone number so

he knows how to get in touch with me.

And, and you're done on Friday?

We're talking on Wednesday.

You got two days left in this gig and then you're done.

I got two days left.

I was gonna leave a little earlier in the month, but,you know, I've

been involved in this organization.

We're at the Kentucky Public Transit Association.

Yeah.

Yeah, for for 19 and a half years, and I wanted to come back and

say goodbye to all my friends.

Yeah, that's good.

Alright, Michael, tell us from your perspective how this

all worked, this transition.

And then I wanna unpack what the actual process is that you've

used to kind of transition all the responsibilities over to Michael.

You know, Paul, in this industry, and Dan has always said this, if you took

everybody in this country that knew about public transit in the transit industry,

you couldn't fill up a high school gym.

And that's true.

There's not a lot of us in this industry that understand the business.

So, you know, anytime you're looking for, you know, management or director in this

industry, you know, you start looking at your network, look at the people that you

know, people that's been in the industry.

You know, and I always had in the back of my mind that I,

someday I would come back to this.

I've always enjoyed public transit.

It's been a great industry.

As you can see, people in this industry, such as this association

conference we're having this week.

You know, we're one big family.

Everybody works together, everybody talks together, tries to understand, you know,

how can we make our agencies better?

Everybody synergizes what they try to do.

So, you know, it really worked out for the both of us, so to speak.

The transition period's gonna be easy.

I know it gives Dan a peace of mind knowing that he's gonna walk out and it's

not gonna be a disaster, or someone's not gonna have to figure out what to

do every day, you know, because a lot of the processes are still the same.

Some things have changed, some things have not.

So it's really easy for me to come in and just kind of float

into things and take off with it.

So it's gonna be a good transition period.

So when he called you, you knew you were coming in basically for

a short period of time to be the assistant moving, into the top job.

Is that right?

Yeah.

And you know, it's interesting that you say that 'cause.

You know, when Dan first called me and said, "Hey, you know, the assistant

director position's come open, and by the way, I'm retiring, you know,

here in a few months, so we need to get you in here." And I'll be honest

with you, Paul, I struggled with it.

And, and finally one day, I called him and said, "Hey, you at your office." He said,

"Yeah." I said, "I'm gonna come by." So I closed the door and I said, "Everything

off the table with agency you work for.

I need some fatherly advice." You know, because I always looked at him and

stuff like that, and I said, "I need you to talk to me like I'm your son.

What would you do?" Because I was really struggling with it, you know?

What were you struggling about?

I was just struggling with just coming back in the industry, coming

back as an assistant director.

Because you'd been in construction.

I'd been in construction side and, you know, I've had my

state retirement, it was there.

I knew I needed to finish that up.

So I, you know, in my mind I was just struggling with the right decision to

make and I just asked him, you know, all things aside, put this, the agency

aside, I need some fatherly advice.

What would you tell your son?

And so we had that discussion and here I am, I'm sitting here today.

And, I couldn't be more happy either.

It's just this whole entire timing has worked out perfect for everybody.

That's wonderful.

Alright, Dan, now unpack the responsibilities that you have as director

and how you have transitioned them.

'Cause you told me the other day, " Paul, I haven't gotten any

emails." So they're already making the transition in their mind.

Obviously the staff is, tell me about that process.

And what did you learn and what would you do different or whatever.

Being a director of a program the size that we are now.

Yeah.

Tell us about your agency the size.

'cause we haven't gotten into that yet.

We are a broker provider in the Midwest part of the State of Kentucky.

Okay.

We cover about 22 counties.

We're responsible for about 2,500 trips per day using our own vehicles, and

plus, using 12 or 13 subcontractors.

So it's a pretty good size animal.

And, we got about 110 drivers of our own, about 105 vehicles.

So, it's a pretty good size problem.

Yeah.

But I was on vacation with my wife one time and I'd gotten about four

phone calls in a row and she said, "Can't they run that place without

you?" And I said, "I sure hope not."

But, the transition really has been easy.

Michael and I, you know, we have a relationship and I knew

he knew what he was doing.

I just tried to explain, here's where we are on this, here's where we are on that.

'Cause when you let go of something like that, there's a lot of stuff in process.

Yeah.

And so I've had to try and explain the process and where we are and

what I thought the future was.

But other than that he's picked up and took off running.

He didn't have to, you know, somebody from outside the industry or whatever

would have to learn even the terminology.

Right.

So let's talk about that for a minute then.

What's the value when you move to the top job of having somebody that, now he's been

outta the industry for a little while, but he worked at this agency for six years.

He had it already kind of in his blood, right?

Oh, absolutely.

And that's what has made the transition so easy.

I was just terrified I was going to end up with about two or three weeks

to try and teach somebody here's the bus and what it looks like.

Right.

And, but you know, he knew all that we had worked together and most

of the staff after 19 and a half years has turned over, you know.

He still knew a few of the folks and it's been a really easy transition.

That's good.

Michael, tell us about it from your perspective.

What exactly has happened?

I'd like to like, make a template for people.

So do you feel like you're prepared and if so, what did

you guys do to become prepared?

Yeah, I mean, I feel like I'm prepared and a lot of it, as we talked this

morning, in your speech, you know, a lot of it is life learned experiences.

That's right.

You know, just the experience that I have grown in the industry since

2004, you know, especially going to Paducah and then coming back to

Owensboro, running the fixed route.

So, you know, not only the ADA paratransit side of it, but the

fixed route side that I know as well.

So, you know, it's been my lifelong experiences that

make this transition easy.

You know, it's like I talked to you earlier, you know, I'm concerned right

now I'm gonna have to hire an assistant director and I would prefer to hire

someone from within the industry versus someone from outside the industry.

Yes, I'm prepared to teach somebody and groom somebody

to learn like I have learned.

But we'll see what that looks like.

Again, with the transition with us it's gonna be seamless and it's, you

know, it's good for our customers.

It's good for the agency.

There's a lot of other people that, other stakeholders involved in this.

Not just us personally, but you know, our office staff, our

customers that we serve every day.

You know, we don't want them to be, you know, to feel any of this whatsoever.

Right.

Seamless, right.

Yeah.

This transition will be completely seamless for everybody.

So, when Dan brought you in, he brought you in as kind of the number

two person, assistant director.

So what responsibilities have you currently had and

which will be new on Monday?

You know what's interesting, Paul is in 2004 when I came to this agency, I

was hired as the assistant director.

And, I came back here a few months ago as the assistant director once again,

almost 21 years later to the day.

That's wild.

Yeah, so, you know-

Lateral move.

Yeah.

Lateral move.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

So, you know, my responsibilities here recently, of course, have been, you

know, mainly dealing with most of our subcontractors, contracts with them.

Okay.

All that sort of thing.

Of course now you know, I'm gonna be responsible for everything.

The drivers that you, your employees.

That's right.

And the budget.

That's right.

My employees, budget.

I am a numbers guy.

I enjoy numbers, I enjoy budgets.

I've had a lot of experience in that.

So yeah, now I'm gonna be responsible for everything.

However-

Have you already had some training?

Has Dan showed you: here's the budget, here's how all this works.

Absolutely.

Okay, good.

Absolutely.

You know, but what I've gotta make sure of is I've got a good team underneath of me.

Yeah.

'cause Michael can't do everything and Michael doesn't wanna do everything.

You know, I, I wanna make sure I have a good team.

Everybody does what they're supposed to do.

My philosophy is let's work smarter, not harder.

Let's make this work seamlessly for everybody.

So, I'm looking forward to it.

It's gonna be a challenge.

You know, I know the growth that we have seen in this

industry since I started 2004.

It's just, it's tremendous.

And Dan has made his mark on it.

So now it's my turn.

You know, I'm looking to the future of what's it gonna look like in

the future, you know, what can I do to make this thing better?

And, uh, what's it gonna look like when I get ready to retire?

And then hopefully I can groom somebody to take the reins and I can

walk away and feel good about it.

That's good.

When we come back after this word, we're gonna talk to Dan and Mike about,

their journeys and how they got to where they're at and what Dan expects to do

on the golf course or wherever when he's retired, right after this word.

Thanks for listening to the Transit Unplugged Podcast.

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You can find out more at transitunplugged.com Now back to

Paul Comfort for this edition of the award-winning Transit Unplugged Podcast.

Alright, we're back at the Kentucky Public Transportation Association's Conference

in Lexington, Kentucky, and I'm with my friends Michael, who was taking over

as the transportation director from Dan, here at GRIT's transit service.

Dan, what's grits stand for other than my breakfast?

Well, yeah.

I have people who've said to me, does that stand for grannies

riding it to town safely?

But it does not.

That's funny.

It's Green River Intra-county Transit System.

Okay.

All right.

The Green River runs through that part of Kentucky, almost through every county.

Oh, I gotcha.

So, people think of us, we actually live in Owensboro, Kentucky, which

is on the Ohio, but the Green runs all through there as well.

Okay.

Ties into the Ohio.

Ties into the Mississippi.

But I like that, granny riding into town safely.

There you go.

That's a good one, man.

That's funny.

Alright, so you wanted to tell me just a little bit more about

unpack the exact process you used to kind of get Michael ready.

Well, like I said, the timing was just luck probably as much as anything

because, I needed an assistant director, he was looking for something.

I called him up and said, "Hey, I want you to consider this, to apply for it." So

the agency set up the interview process.

Michael went through the interview process.

They had several applicants, but he stood out because of his

experience and his personality.

He's got the right personality, the right experience, the right

connections with people in the state.

So he was selected.

Once he got selected, then I started working on, okay, here's

the budget, here's what we have.

Took him out, showed him some of the new features on vehicles, 'cause

he hadn't seen that in a while.

We have a couple of regional offices, went and visited with the people there.

Michael's great about walking up to people and he sees in the hallway

saying, "Hey, I'm the new guy, Michael Hughes." And so he got to know the

people, got to know the budget, got to know the process that we're doing

now, that some things are a little bit different and, got familiar with the

agency and how it's operating today.

That's good.

Yeah.

And Michael, when you went through all that, what surprised you?

As you went through the training that maybe you weren't used

to, Oh, that's interesting.

Well, you know, Paul living there in Owensboro, of course

everybody in Owensboro knows GRITS.

GRITS has always been a staple of the community.

You know, and I've known that the agency has grown tremendously.

Used to, when I was there early on, in early 2000s, everybody knew everybody.

We probably had 40, 50 employees and everybody knew everybody.

You knew their families.

And so now it's a little more difficult.

You know, you've got a hundred plus employees there now, and it's

hard to get to know everybody.

And all the contractors you have.

Just all the contractors that we have, and I'm working right now to build

relationships with our subcontractors.

Even to the point of one night this week I had, me and Dan had dinner

with one of our subcontractors.

You know, so it's about building relationships with people.

Is what it's about.

So you know, again, it's made the transition really simple.

I love the concept of bringing somebody in and having a healthy crossover period

so that it's not, like you said you hire somebody and they got two weeks.

Sometimes people have less than that.

Yeah.

Sometimes somebody got fired and they gotta bring somebody in right away.

So this is a very nice, and I'll be interested to see, I'm gonna ask you

in a minute, what do you got planned?

But what do you got planned, Dan?

Now that you're gonna, Friday's your last day?

What's the game plan here?

I'd like to do some consulting.

I want your job.

Oh, yeah.

I think you got the best job in the world.

You're right.

But I'd like to do some consulting, if people are willing to pay me

for my opinions and my knowledge.

A lot of the lessons I've learned in transit, I learned the hard way.

Yep.

I think I do have things that could help people.

I've also got a friend in a car business and I love cars.

Always have.

And so I've been helping him

Like, do what?

Sell 'em or fix 'em?

Well, maybe that too, and you know he's a car broker basically.

Okay.

People come to him and they're looking for a certain vehicle.

He goes and finds it for him.

Yeah.

Then somebody go pick it up and that kind of thing.

And so I'm looking forward to doing some of that and-

What about with your free time?

You got any hobbies you hope to pick up or?

I play golf poorly, but I do play it and I've got a lot of good friends that

I went to college and high school with that are still around and we like to,

you know, take some day trips and stuff and go eat some good food and enjoy life.

See a few ball games and that type of thing.

Yeah.

I love that, Dan.

I think it's important that when people retire, they don't completely unplug.

Because I've heard so many people, you know, kind of your purpose in

life is wrapped up somewhat in your work, and if you just completely

unplug, you know, you kind of lose your reason to get up in the morning.

Some people say.

Yeah, I don't want, you know, after I've watched all of Netflix, I

need to find something else to do.

There you go.

All right, now let's switch over to Michael.

All right, Michael, you got the opposite thing happening.

That's right.

You're gonna have your plate completely full in three days, baby.

Tell me

about it.

I do.

Uh, you know, it's gonna be interesting next few weeks.

I've gotta get someone hired.

So yeah, I'll be kind of, you know, carrying on two or three ropes.

Like replacing your job.

Right?

Replacing my job.

So I'll have a couple ropes here to take care of, which is fine.

I can, I can handle it.

Yeah.

You know, so I've got a lot of things on my mind right now, as you can imagine.

The past several, you know, weeks and months I've just been sitting back trying

to take a snapshot of what all's going on.

You know, kind of reviewing our staff and just kind of getting some ideas

of what we may need to change or not change or what we may need to do.

You know, the biggest thing that I see, just like any other employer

is maintaining and retaining, and getting hired employees.

Everybody you talk to, I don't care what business you're in, everybody's looking

for employees and, you know, we wanna make sure that we hire the right people.

I tell people every day, this is about the mission, not about the money.

You're not gonna get rich working for me at this agency and doing

this type of work, but it's about.

It's like you said this morning, it's about serving other people.

That's right.

If you love to serve people, this is a place for you.

If you don't like serving people, you don't need to be here.

Yeah.

It's all about the mission is what this job's about.

And, you know, we wanna bring people on board that understand that

and have a heart to serve people.

And if we do that we'll hire the right people.

And, you know, we will lower our retention.

You know, we want our retention to stay high, and right now

it's not where we want it to be.

So that's one thing that's on my radar is hiring good people

that wanna focus on serving other people and retaining those people.

That's good.

That's a big priority of mine right now, is making sure we do that.

Are you gonna have like a kickoff meeting with the staff in your first couple weeks?

Yeah, I've actually already got a meeting scheduled.

We've already got that on the books for next week already.

So, I'll have a staff meeting with all of our office staff

we're working on right now.

Actually yesterday, I sent an email out to all of our staff and all of our

employees are drivers because I wanna have some meeting sessions with them.

So I put it out to them, what's gonna work?

How do you all wanna do this?

What's your opinion?

Because I am concerned about what their thoughts and opinions are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we're gonna be having meetings with all the staff as well, so they can kind

of understand how I operate and, and what, you know, my train of thought.

That's good.

Dan, I'll give you the last words since you're the man out the door.

Any closing thoughts you wanna have for, first off, let me thank you

for your service to the industry.

Well, thank you.

You and I have talked multiple times over the last few years at conferences,

and you've always got a lot to share.

You've got a great personality where we're gonna miss you, and

I hope you could stay involved.

Well, I appreciate that, Paul.

I really do.

And I've loved this industry because I always did like to be

involved in things that help people.

I've loved the people at the state that we've worked with here, and the people in

the KPTA, that part is bittersweet for me.

Yeah.

But, I do look forward to my phone not ringing at five o'clock in the morning.

Now, my favorite expression around the office, favorite three words are

"not my problem." But it's, it is bittersweet and I've enjoyed what I'm

doing, enjoyed the people I'm working with and, like Michael, I'm one of

those people who enjoys other people and he's very much that kind of person too.

And so that part I'll miss, but I won't miss those 5:00 AM phone

calls with something crazy going on.

Yeah.

Thank you both for sharing with us the transition process that you went through,

and I wish you both the best, next week.

Thanks Paul.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Transit Unplugged, the world's

number one transit executive podcast.

I'm Julie Gates, executive producer of the podcast.

Many thanks to the team that makes this show happen.

Host and producer Paul Comfort, producer Chris O'Keeffe, editor

Patrick Emile, associate producer Cyndi Raskin, and consultants Dan

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