http://theemergencyservicesshow2008.com/page/127/
Good question. Before you apply, there are a couple of thing s to keepin mind. it’s old news that the soon-to-be-departed transit CEO, has spent plenty of time lobbying for federal and state moneyy while steering preliminary work onthe billion-dollae light-rail extension and a $378 million commuter-raikl line. Plunging transit tax revenuee has made the expansion discussionm far more complicatedthan expected. Will CATS be forceed to choose one of its rail lines over the or can it find a way todo both? At the same a simmering debate over a possibls new transit tax, doubling the current one, also looms.
Some city and countgy leaders favor at least gaining the right to put the tax beford the voters by seeking GeneralAssembly approval. But a coalition of business and political leaders prefers to see new dollarss funneledto roads. Parker, seatexd in his uptown office overlooking thetransit center, cites none of thosde things during an interview a few hours after announcing he’sa headed to Texas to run San Antonio’s transift system. Instead, he describes what the gifts and burdenss are of a job that routinely consumezs 75 hours a weekor more. As with football Parker sees few, if any, transitg executives spending decades in their jobsthesd days.
At 42, he envisions anothert five years — eight, at most — befors turning to teaching transit at thecollege level. Why? Becausde the pressure, the spotlight and the worriesare infinite. What keeps Parker up at night? Plenty of things. “It is an enormously grinding job because therse are somany audiences,” Parker says, reflecting on his 18-month tenure leadin g CATS. “The transit director in Charlotte is very different from the transig director in Raleigh or even the transitr director in some other major citiees because of how it started and the attentionit Like? “Like the attention me leavinv would get.
” Here, Parker notes, the transi chief generates the same interest and scrutinyg as the police chief, the school superintendent and the city People want to see the CATS chief’a e-mail, his schedule and, most of all, his No time to complain about that, though. As transir CEO, you’re presiding over a businesw that runs 24 hoursa day, seven days a week holidays need not apply. Then, of you have the occasionaol silo collapsing alongyour light-rail line or someone crashinhg into your control box. All of whicyh pales next to the real worriesd any transitchief faces.
The doomsdag scenario is something Parke has notrouble sharing, since it has run throughh his mind more than a few A perfect safety record can be ruinedx in a blink. A bus driver can go out one get drunk and jump behind the wheel and killa family. At any In a grand understatement, Parker says, “All of thosw things lend itself to a very complex andchallengingh environment.” Applications, anyone?
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