MV Transportation is the largest American owned public transportation contractor in North America, and today we talked to its CEO and Chairman Harry Wilson.

He's not been much in the media, he's taken kind of a behind the scenes role.

We were able to bring him out for their 50th anniversary, which is today!

50th anniversary of MV Transportation today.

Some of you may know I worked for them, a whole lifetime ago, some.

Yeah, so we talked to him about what MV Transportation has been doing over the last three years under his leadership, where they're going in the future, and some about the industry and the role of public transportation contractors in our current industry, where it's headed, the investment in AI.

Congratulation to one of their founders who was just honored with the APTA Hall of Fame Award, adding in someone who's universally respected onto the MV board of directors.

All that and more on this episode of Transit Unplugged.

A special joining up with MV for a celebratory moment on their 50th anniversary today.

Enjoy.

Harry, great to have you with us today on the podcast.

Thank you for joining us on this very special occasion.

MV Transportation's 50th anniversary.

Well, thank you Paul.

It's awesome to be with you.

I really appreciate the time and opportunity to speak with you and to celebrate our anniversary together.

You know, it was 50 years ago on August 5th, 1975 that a young couple, Alex and Feyson Lodde, started with one vehicle in San Francisco and that grew through their hard work and the hard work and contributions of tens of thousands of people over 50 years into what MV is today.

And we couldn't be prouder of that legacy in history, and we're happy to celebrate it.

Absolutely, and as you and I talked about beforehand in the Green Room, I am, honored to be a little part of that history as I worked for you all for five years, helping with Leland Peterson to lead the company's largest single contract at the time at, Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority maybe 12, 15 years ago, we were running the paratransit system there.

MV has a storied history, as you mentioned, starting off, kind of like, goodwill on behalf of a husband and wife who wanted to do something for their community.

Amazing.

And look where it's at now.

it's great.

And that's, as I like to tell people, our DNA started with that, that mission of service to their neighbors.

Long before the ADA made it a requirement, they were out there helping their neighbors to get mobility and freedom in their lives and improve the quality of life.

And it's really a beautiful thing.

I just wonder if you would mind sharing some about your background, because what I've been told is pretty spectacular, and I can see why Alex and Feyson chose you to head the company.

That's what you said, I hate to disappoint you with the reality of it.

But look, I've been blessed in a, in a lot of ways, you know, on a personal level, I grew up a working class kid in a Greek American immigrant family in upstate New York.

Despite the last name Wilson, my mom, came to America 11 months before I was born, and my dad was born here to two Greek immigrants and his dad changed the name to Wilson at Ellis Island.

My dad was a bartender at my uncle's restaurant, my mom was a sewing machine operator in town.

And, was just, very blessed to be the first of my family to go to college.

Went to Harvard, Harvard Business School and then developed my business career really, working to transform companies.

And I did my first company transformation when I was 22 years old.

Working with mentors who were just fantastic teachers and leaders, and built a career over 32 years since that time of, leading the transformation of companies that had run into challenges.

that career has spanned everything from working on behalf of big investment firms like Blackstone, where I worked for a number of years.

To an entrepreneurial venture where started my own firm called MAEVA Group, which is an acronym for my wife and four daughters.

And then, probably most notably, I led the transformation of General Motors on behalf of the U.S.

Treasury Department during the financial crisis.

But, if you look at that span of experience over thirty two years, I've been, you know, again, blessed to have some great mentors to learn some great leadership talents and techniques, but really kind of refine my own playbook of how to come into a company that may be underperforming or facing its own challenges and help that company transform itself to be a best in class operator.

And so when Alex reached out to me three years ago, in July of 2022, the company was having some challenges.

Had made some stumbles and mistakes under previous leadership.

And of course it was dealing with a fallout from the pandemic, which was challenging for the industry as you know, all too well, right?

And so that combination was really painful.

Alex reached out to me.

I did my due diligence.

One of the most important things I've always focused on is, do I have the skillset, the right fit to actually help change the company needs.

And is it something I wanna invest huge amounts of my life into?

Because I only do typically one of these at a time.

And so I really got enamored with the Alex and Feyson story, their commitment, the contributions they've made, the role the company plays in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people across the country, day to day.

And, that's what led me to join, with my partner in crime, Kevin Klicka.

Kevin, as you know, was our longtime chief operating officer, very successful and had retired several years ago, and then came back on the same day, August 9th, 2022, almost exactly three years ago, right before our 47th anniversary, that'd be, to really drive the transformation of MV through its initial challenges, which we solved in about six to nine months, and then really the growth we've had since that time.

For those who maybe aren't familiar with how contracting works or what a contractor does in America, in other countries, they have different models.

You know, our podcast is heard in a hundred countries.

You all work primarily in America.

Tell us about how it works in America, just generally, if you wouldn't mind.

Absolutely.

So yeah, we're in America and Canada.

The company in the past has had some international operations, but today we're America and Canada.

And we partner with a, either a transit agency or, a university or a corporation for their campus or, corporate shuttle businesses, a school system to basically outsource their transportation needs to us.

When you think about, that element, they'll outsource, could be all of it, could be portions of it.

We basically tailor our services to meet their needs.

We certainly prefer to do all of it 'cause we think we can do a better job collectively on behalf of our clients, but we'll do whatever their needs dictate.

And in exchange for that, we can deliver more efficient service, more productive service, more cost effective service, and generally, a much better service, that meets the needs and allows them to then take their dollars and spread them more effectively to serve more people.

So it's a really a win-win, proposition where our customers and passengers do better as a result, and that allows them to spend their dollars more efficiently, elsewhere.

That's interesting.

And how do you do that?

How does Harry Wilson and Kevin Klicka and your whole team come in?

Like, I used to be the CEO of a transit agency, and I believe what you said just now, because I saw it happen with my own two eyes.

I saw that we were just doing paratransit and we outsourced some rail work and some bus work, but I saw the improvement that companies like yours and Transdev and at the time First Transit, did to improve the KPIs, the outcomes of our paratransit system, creating actually one of the best in America when it comes to on-time performance and safety.

When I let you all do your job, I didn't micromanage by inputs.

We just said, here's the outcomes we want.

So as CEO of one of the largest companies in the world that provides public transportation services, what do you bring to the table to a transit agency that helps them improve service and do it sometimes with less cost?

Yeah, absolutely.

Let me talk a little bit about our overall approach and then talk about how that can be a benefit to agencies.

So our entire approach is focused on the development of our people to provide outstanding service.

When you think about why are we in business?

We're here to serve our passengers and our clients.

Our passengers want to be delivered safely, to arrive on time, and have an outstanding customer experience.

Our clients, our agency partners want the exact same thing for the passengers.

In some cases, they also want other problems solved, whether it's scheduling, software issues, other things that we help them with ZEB transition, microtransit, et cetera.

So everything we have done at MV is focused on maximizing investment in being best in class at each element of that.

So what does that mean?

It means creating an operating system and a culture.

We have the right people, in the right seats, with the right culture, and the right incentives to drive outstanding performance.

So, as an example, we have really reinvented every element of our training architecture at MV.

Our general managers go through a six week training program.

Not six days, not six hours, six weeks.

And that was not by accident.

We purpose built it from the ground up and said, what are all the skills a GM needs to succeed and what is one of the toughest jobs in American business?

Then they tailored training around every element of that, to help our GM succeed.

So we do that with not just our general managers, we do it with our divisional managers, we do it with our regional teams, our safety professionals, our maintenance professionals.

We have purpose built every element of our training based on 50 years of experience and hundreds of contracts across the country to be, you know, kind the best in class based on those learnings.

And then we take a feedback loop where every time we see an issue that could be better, we focus on implementing changes to address that to be better.

So there's a huge focus on training of our people.

We've also hired some of the best people in the business.

We've added in the time that I've been CEO over 150 people who are manager level on up from our competitors.

We've lost almost none during that period of time, like a handful.

And it's really an intention to kind of really invest in our people because we believe deeply that if we have the best people in the industry with the right incentives and the right culture, they'll succeed every time.

That culture is an essential part of it, which I think is really hard to create inside a public agency.

First we start with a servant leader mentality.

Focus on our passengers and our clients as of course our agency partners do.

We also focus on helping our people succeed and provide career paths, incentives, mentorship in a way that allows them to really develop and grow as professionals.

I believe having run lots of companies, overseeing lots of companies that have a customer service focus.

You can't be great at customer service unless you're happy day to day.

You can't be.

How can you be unhappy in your day-to-day job and treat someone as well as they deserve to be treated?

It's not possible.

And so we really focus on employee development and fulfillment so that our people show up to work, excited to do what they want to do, purpose focused and getting the training they need to be successful, in their work.

And there are a bunch of other elements to that is, you know, it's driving a culture of teamwork, driving a results orientation.

One of the things that MV had stumbled on in the past, candidly, was not being universally committed to excellence.

We had a lot of very well performing divisions.

We had some that weren't as well performing and that is not tolerable.

We have created a culture of accountability and results orientation so that all of our divisions are well performing.

And the reason for that is, if we are doing great in San Antonio, but not great in Petaluma, our Petaluma client doesn't care.

Our Petaluma passengers don't care that we're doing great in San Antonio.

They want us to do great in Petaluma as they should.

And so that focus on universal excellence, has been a kind of a hallmark of the cultural change we've been driving at MV that I think is essential to long term success.

The last two things I'd add on this, because it's just so essential to what we're doing, and what's led to our real rejuvenation renaissance is a focus on continual improvement.

We're gonna be better tomorrow than we are today.

We're constantly trying to learn, need to stay humble about what our limitations are and where we can be better.

And invest in those and address those.

And then the other is reward people for their success.

So I'm very proud of the fact that when I started, there are only about a few dozen people that earned incentives in our first year.

Last year, there were several hundred people that earned substantial incentives, all based on their performance, not because we're handing out monies, 'cause they earned it through their great work.

That benefits our clients, benefits our people.

It allows us to attract better people.

And then a related piece of that, Paul is we always say that, you have to treat the business like you're the owner.

If this was your company, your division is your business, what would you do?

And of course you wanna succeed.

Your family's livelihood depends on you succeeding.

You make do whatever's necessary to be successful at it.

And that mentality of thinking like an owner is a powerful thing that I think is not possible within an agency structure.

We preach it constantly, but not only do we preach it, we actually do it.

So we created several hundred shareholders at MV in the time that I've been here that were not shareholders before, to drive that ownership mentality across the organization, across all of our leaders to drive those results.

That's amazing.

So that's what you call the new MV?

Yeah.

And I think it's that culture, that commitment to excellence, universal excellence, continual improvement and all the things that then translates into better and better results for our clients.

That's wonderful.

One of the other interesting developments in your company I've seen recently and the new MV is Nuria Fernandez joined your board.

How'd that come about?

The former FTA Administrator is universally respected.

Yes.

Nuria is fantastic and we're honored to have her on our board.

Some of my teammates have known Nuria for many years given she's a titan of the industry and obviously, one of the most talented, most well-respected people in the industry.

I only got to know her over the last year and she had raised her hand after leaving the FTA and mentioned that she admired MV, she'd seen MV do some really great work in the past and was interested in potentially helping and joining as a board member.

And, as we spent time together and she really understood both the history and the heritage and the legacy and the culture.

That there since day one through Alex and Feyson's leadership, and then the work we've been doing to really focus on driving outstanding results.

Kevin and I have been in place.

She really got excited about it and we were very excited to have her.

So she's been a great pleasure to collaborate with and a great pleasure to have on the board.

Well, congratulations on that.

Hey, let's switch gears just a little bit, if you don't mind.

There's a lot of uncertainty in the policies, uncertainty in the industry today.

There's funding questions, the fiscal cliff that some agencies are facing, the federal support for ero emission buses, among others.

How do you as a company navigate these challenges?

Well, there's no question there's a lot of challenges facing the industry.

Given my background of working through challenging situations, I always like to think that the challenges create opportunities.

And so, I'm actually excited about the challenges because it gives us a chance to show our clients even more what we can do to help them.

And as they deal with some little unprecedented level challenges between the funding issues, the need for investment growing, and that's true for the ZEB transition.

It's true for microtransit, it's true for investments in AI that they're gonna need to make to be successful long-term.

As the funding pressure grows and the funding needs grow, that creates even more challenges.

And so our focus is really like, first we gotta be excellent in everything we do.

That's what our clients expect of us.

If we can't they won't wanna provide us business.

We wanna manage our costs as low as possible while not compromising on that service quality.

We need to stay nimble 'cause things could change on a moment's notice.

You know an election or anything.

Any one of those things could fundamentally change the outlook over the next 6, 12, or 24 months.

And really focus on delivering that quality while staying nimble.

As an example of that is we have very strong ZEB capabilities.

We manage the largest ZEB only fleet in the country in West Lancaster, for Antelope Valley.

We've got hundreds and hundreds of ZEB vehicles across the country.

So it's been a core focus of ours.

But obviously given what's going on from a policy standpoint, there are changes going on in that space.

Our job is not to, we don't control policy.

All we can do is help our clients navigate it.

And so we've really been agnostic around how that evolves.

But being able to give our clients the best advice and help and support as they navigate those challenges.

What about with AI, Harry?

What's going on with AI and is your company doing anything with that artificial intelligence in transit?

Yes.

So, I think we all need to recognize that this will probably be the most significant transformation in any of our lifetimes.

Bigger than the internet, bigger than mobile phones.

Wow, that's saying a lot.

Yeah.

And I don't say the hyperbolically like I've thought, you know, spent a lot of time thinking about this and I was, more skeptical early on.

And I've just try to educate myself, try to be humble about what I don't know.

And I've seen so many people who were super deep in the space of the best VCs in the industry who really embrace what I just said.

And that's why I, you know, kinda educate myself enough to know that.

But the reason I say it is 'cause when you think about that ability to re-engineer so many things we take for granted in our day-to-day lives, and then apply that across a continually learning platform, which is what AI is, that creates really unusual opportunities, and also unusual risks if you don't navigate it well.

And so, we're blessed at MV to have an outstanding technology team led by Cris Kibbee, our CIO, Stephanie Doughty, and a really great team, that have been working on this for the last couple years.

We've done a number of AI platforms already, which we've rolled out company wide.

We focus first on our people, because that's obviously the most important thing and everything from frontline, retention, screening, engagement, to really drive those results.

I'll give you an example.

Our turnover, was I think in line with the industry, a couple years ago, 50, 60% for driver turnover.

It's now in the thirties.

Which is just unbelievable.

And improving still.

And the reason I cite that is, well, that has so many beneficial effects.

We have more experienced operators.

They're safer, they have, they're more, tenured, they have better customer service capabilities.

And so that's just one example, but there's a number of things we've done like that, that have benefited our results, and benefited our clients.

And so now that we've had that initial success, we've really taken a step back and said, okay, let's look at every aspect of our business.

How can we apply AI where it makes sense, across that, each element to drive better results?

Of course, we have to prioritize.

We can't do, we have like literally over 30 work streams that we're working on right now.

We can't do all those at once.

We have to prioritize and, sequence them.

You know, to be successful at it, we need a great IT team, which we have to think through those issues, but then we need a culture of collaboration and teamwork because you can't just hook something up in the laboratory and expect it to succeed.

You have to develop it in partnership with our operating talent, our agency partners, our frontline employees, colleagues and teammates, and test it, pilot it, learn from it, and then improve upon and roll it out.

And so that culture of collaboration, experimentation, some we've been building over the last three years that I've been in place that now is actually primed to really, take advantage of the work we're doing on these AI pilots and, bring them out more broadly.

Well, in our, final closing minutes, I have a couple more questions I want to ask you.

One is, about our industry as a whole, and then we'll focus back in on MV a little bit.

How do you see the public transportation industry or contracting evolving over the next, say, three to five years?

Yeah.

It's a hugely important topic and, obviously given the change we talked about and the risks and opportunities, challenges that I think that'll accelerate.

I think, I saw this in the automotive industry with General Motors.

I saw this in the auction house industry.

I do think our industry will see or see more changes take place over the next 5 to 10 years, let's say, than it has in the last 50.

Wow.

And I say that, all the reasons we just talked about in terms of AI innovation, ZEB, and microtransit, et cetera.

But it's almost that focus on greater flexibility, improved scheduling, greater safety, better technology, lower costs, all those things are gonna lead towards more and more innovation.

And so it's a core focus.

When you think about, how does the industry best navigate that?

So obviously I'm a fan of outsourcing business to well-managed contractors like ourselves.

But when you think about it, there's a reason this industry has grown as much as it has over the last 50 years.

Because generally speaking, a well-managed contractor can perform better than agency and we'll be able to perform more cost effectively, provide incentives and training around service.

A cynic would say, well, you have a profit margin.

If it was in source, you wouldn't have a profit margin.

And that's true.

But the cost disadvantages associated with insourcing, far exceed that extremely thin profit margin.

As you know, our profit margins are very thin in this industry, and even a minor slip in productivity more than offsets even that.

And every independent study that's been done, as you know out there, supports this notion that a well-managed contractor will always deliver it more effectively than an agency.

So that's been true forever.

What's also been true forever, is that a well-managed contractor has the benefit of scale and experience hundreds of contracts across the country.

Not just learnings in one geography or one market, but learnings across all markets that benefit all those markets.

If it's properly disseminated.

What's really different going forward and a really important inflection point for people to think about is that on top of those things, the needs for investment in innovation are much greater now and in the future than they have been.

And AI is at the forefront of that.

If you look at the scale of the investments we have made alone in AI, there's not a single agency in the country that can afford it.

Much less then deploy it across hundreds of contracts to amortize the cost of that research and development, but also to learn from it.

Like we said, it's a continual learning platform.

Take a big market, New York, LA, Chicago, if you're only learning from things in that market, you're not learning from the rest of the country.

Whereas we have the benefit of being able to kind of learn from across the country in addition to amortizing that cost across hundreds of contracts.

So that ability to innovate, it's much more effective in the hands of a private contractor.

And on top of that, we don't need months or years to do an RFP.

We can do it in days or hours.

And so that combination of speed, effectiveness, ability to amortize over across broader platform and learn from those broader platforms means that the need for outsourcing is gonna grow dramatically.

Now you might say, because the wheels of justice turned slowly, in general, you might say, well that may all be true, but it's gonna take a while.

And that's where the cost pressures come in, because the cost pressures at the same time, I think will force people to think, okay, how do we do this most effectively?

How do we stretch our limited dollars as broadly as possible to serve as many people as well as possible?

And that's why I think, going back to your fundamental question, I think over the next 5 to 10 years, huge opportunities, huge changes.

And I think those who will navigate it best, will focus on what's always been most important is how do you serve passengers most effectively?

That's great.

Last question is, 50 years, by the way, again congratulations it's a rare milestone.

Take a quick look as to what you think about what are you most excited about, about MV's future?

And I know that's going to include what you wanna share with MV's employees, the clients, the riders as you celebrate this anniversary.

Yeah, that's a great question.

So I've had the benefit of going through dozens of these transformations over the course of my career and what I get most excited about is when it really takes root.

And sometimes it takes a while because we're a decentralized organization and there was some failed leadership in the past where people had made promises they didn't deliver on.

And I'm sure there's some people when I showed up like, well, this guy really mean what he's saying.

And, for a while they're like, yeah, he really means it.

And so, it's what we've seen is particularly the last three to six months.

The cultural change we've been driving commitment to universal excellence, all the things we've been preaching, the centrality of the passenger experience that has really taken root, and starting to accelerate.

So I believe that our team is gonna continue to improve, continue to get better.

The number of people, Paul, who have pulled me aside to thank, not me, but the company, for all the great investments we made in them and the growth that they have had as people and as leaders.

Hundreds of people have done that.

Any given week, I have a number of people who will reach out to me to thank the company for that investment.

And so now that that's really taking root, I'm super excited, not just for what we've already done, but for what that will mean going forward.

And then when I think about that, like in the context of our overall 50 year history and journey.

First, I just wanna say a giant thank you.

Everything we have today, everything we've meant to so many people is made possible only by the incredible contributions of literally tens of thousands of people over a long period of time.

Obviously you start with Alex and Feyson and their vision and their commitment and their blood, sweat, and tears, but you know, your time at MV and the tens of thousands of people who have spent time over the years.

Everything we have today is because of that commitment, especially our frontline employees and they're the heart and soul of our company and the most important numbers of our company.

And my responsibility and the responsibility of all leaders at MV is to return that favor by honoring that commitment and doing everything we can to help everybody in the company be successful so that the last 50 years as great as they've been are nothing compared to what the future holds for MV and our clients and our passengers.

That's wonderful, Harry.

again, big congratulations.

50 years is an amazing milestone for a company in general, much less one to kind of, you know, be in an industry like ours, which is very competitive.

Congratulations to you and your role and the changes you've made.

Count me as a fan.

I love the things you're doing.

It sounds wonderful, and we wish you the very best as you continue to move forward.

You and Kevin and the whole team there, your board, and thank you for being a guest today on Transit Unplugged.

Thank you so much, Paul.

It's been great to be with you.

Thanks for listening to Transit Unplugged.

I'm executive producer Julie Gates, and this episode was created by host and producer Paul Comfort, producer Chris O'Keefe, associate producer Cyndi Raskin, and podcast intern Des Gates.

Transit Unplugged is being brought to you by Modaxo, passionate about moving the world's people.

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