Earlier today, Sound Transit CEO Joni Earl named Mike Harbour, Intercity GM, as the agency’s new deputy CEO. The move comes on the heels of the retirement of his predecessor, Celia Kupersmith, who had a brief stint at ST beginning in 2010. Harbour is no rookie to the transit world, having spent 35 years between IT and a transit agency in Georgia. According to Earl, the Olympia-Thurston County Chamber of Commerce also named Harbour the 2012 “Boss of the Year.”
In addition to serving on the board of Transportation Choices Coalition, Harbour boasts a fairly impressive resume, part of which involved righting the ship at IT following both the passage of I-695 and the recession:
In 2002, Harbour led the development of a funding restoration measure approved by 58 percent of Intercity Transit voters. In 2010, 64 percent of voters approved a measure for modest service increases that are helping to fuel the Olympia area’s economic recovery.
Previously, Harbour worked eight years as general manager of the Chatham Area Transportation Authority in Savannah, Georgia, overseeing significant service expansions and a 35 percent increase in ridership. Earlier industry roles included serving as assistant general manager to Tri County Transit in Orlando, Florida; senior consultant at ATE Management and Service Co. in Cincinnati, Ohio; transit coordinator for the Mayor’s Office of Transit Administration in New Orleans, Louisiana; and director of planning for the Metropolitan Transit Authority in Nashville, Tennessee. Harbour received a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Vanderbilt University.
We welcome Mr. Harbour’s expertise in helping guide ST through an exciting era and wish him the best.
This is great news. I lived in Olympia for four years while I went to college and Intercity Transit’s buses were always clean and the service was top-notch.
They’ve had automated stop announcements for years, something that KC Metro has only recently begun to add to its buses.
I’m very excited to see what he’ll help Sound Transit do.
Metro only recently added it because the project kept getting cut in the budget, not due to lack of knowledge or experience.
ST is obviously planning a takeover of Thurston Co, which is why they are co-opting their leader!
Or else Intercity Transit has just successfully executed a coup at ST! Prepare to see ST money sunk into extending Sounder and ST Express to Olympia – oh, wait, wouldn’t that be a good thing? ;)
Yes please!
With pit stops in Tillicum, JBLM, DuPont, and Lacey? Yes, I’ll ride that ;)
A Sounder extension to Olympia would go a long way to make it useful for travel in both directions, rather than one direction only like it is today. I’m sure there are quite a few people who live in Seattle and occasionally need to commute to Olympia who would be happy to use it. Now, if only this hypothetical extension would actually run to the state capitol, rather than a deserted P&R lot somewhere in the Olympia area…
What do you think Sound Transit is saying behind closed doors, if anything at all, about the Seattle Subway effort?
“So, what do you think about that Seattle Subway?”
“Well, their prices are pretty good but the food is meh.”
“Yeah, I wish more of those Quiznos locations would’ve stuck around.”
“Me too. But Jimmy John’s is pretty good.”
“Yeah, and they even deliver!”
“We get the SS guys to dig another tunnel next to our, then when they can’t pay for it, we snap it up at 10 cents on the dollar – sell it to WSDOT as the missing lanes on the DBT, and make a killing – it’s foolproof”
This man is great through and through, I’ve been acquainted with his family for a few years now.
Mike Harbour is the best manager I’ve worked for in the past 40 years. Sound Transit is getting the very best!