Transit Agency Leader
Riding trains from the suburbs where she grew up to visit the city, LR never thought that one day, she would lead the public transit agency, SEPTA (Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority), the fifth largest in the U.S.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Leslie Richards (LR) grew up in Bucks County, a western suburb next to the city of Philadelphia.
CHILDHOOD
Like a lot of suburban kids, to LR, SEPTA meant the trains which took her during holidays and special occasions, into the city to see the Christmas light show at Wanamaker’s or the Flower Show, with her mother and grandmother.
EDUCATION
As a high school student, LR excelled in math and science – so much so that she was accepted into an Ivy League school, Brown University in Rhode Island, where she initially declared herself a math major. But before long, she realized she wasn’t quite sure what she would do with a math degree. Nor was she crazy about the fellow math majors she was meeting. She admits being a ‘nerd’ but her fellow math majors didn’t want to talk to anyone other than math majors.
LR began exploring other academic areas and eventually discovered ‘urban studies’ – a multi-disciplinary track that pulled together a variety of subjects she was interested in: architecture, art, sociology, statistics, and planning.
Following college graduation, LR moved back to the Philadelphia area and within a few years, enrolled in a Master’s program at the University of Pennsylvania, in ‘regional planning’ with classes evenly split among Penn’s business school (Wharton), landscape architecture and city planning.
CHALLENGE – BALANCING PERSONAL LIFE WITH A CAREER
Before getting too deep into her career, LR took an ‘off-ramp’ to stay home with the three kids she and her lawyer husband were raising. “For a long time, I didn’t talk about it,” LR says of the eight years she spent at home with her kids. “But I realize now it’s important to let people know you can get back into things.”
CAREER RESTART HEADS IN TWO DIRECTIONS AT THE SAME TIME
When LR returned to the work world, she essentially walked two career paths at the same time. One was in planning and community outreach for a couple of engineering firms. The other was in community service, which ultimately led her to politics: A volunteer job at a suburban township’s community day turned into an invitation to join the ‘Parks and Recreation Board’ which led to a spot on the township’s planning commission, which led her to run for Township Supervisor, which ultimately led her to run for Montgomery County Commissioner, where she and the eventual Pennsylvania Governor, Josh Shapiro, became the first Democrats to win a majority on the three-person board in more than a century.
According to LR, none of those steps were planned long in advance. Indeed, she still remembers the moment she discovered what county commissioners actually do: “I said to my husband, ‘Do you know there’s this job, county commissioner, and they do all this stuff that I love? And it’s during the day?’”
What LR had also discovered along the way was that she had a knack for the work. She enjoyed talking with people, and the jobs were mostly about solving problems – ultimately, perhaps, not so different from math.
Combining her academic studies involving urban planning with her professional friendships with politicians who need to fill leadership positions with qualified personnel, LR rose – relatively quickly – from stay-at-home suburban mom to county commissioner, to the state’s Transportation Secretary. From there, she was asked to take over leadership of the city’s large transit agency, SEPTA.
JR says she was interested in the SEPTA position because of the difference she thought she could make. “I’ve never had a job where I’ve been able to impact so many people.” To the magazine article writer who interviewed LR, this seemed a strange comment for someone who had been Pennsylvania’s Transportation Secretary but on further thought, it seemed that LR was noting how integral transit is to people’s lives. If the bus or train doesn’t come when you need it to, your personal universe is upside down at that moment.
JR took over at SEPTA in early 2020, shortly before the covid pandemic impacted the world. Yet in the years since then, LR and her leadership team have rolled out an innovative, even revolutionary new vision for SEPTA, meant to both modernize the system and make it more appealing to a greater number of people. Indeed, it’s a plan, LR believes, that will help power Southeastern Pennsylvania’s economy, push back against climate change, and increase equity for lower-income residents, all while making SEPTA as easy and pleasant to use as London’s ‘Tube’ or other great European transit systems. But of course, there are challenges.
CHALLENGES FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
Money – Emergency covid-relief funding from the federal government was helpful for the agency to pay its bills including vehicle maintenance but that source of funding was temporary. Due to projected budget losses (estimated at $240 million per year as of 2023), SEPTA will have to raise fares or reduce service or some combination of both fiscal measures.
Decrease in riders – This has two major causes: (1) people working from home following the covid pandemic; and (2) public perception of rising danger from anti-social conduct at stations and aboard the transit vehicles.
USING YOUR LEADERSHIP TO IMPROVE THE LIVES OF OTHERS
On a Saturday morning several years ago, JR was asked to pinch-hit, representing the county government at a meeting of parents of kids with physical and intellectual disabilities. “That was a life-changing moment for me,” said LR, “to see parents in our county who have children who were aging out of the system and just the stress they lived with every day. And now they were about to hit a new level of stress, where their kids would no longer be able to receive services through the school system.” LR filed the experience away, and when the PA Governor appointed her Transportation Secretary (she served from 2015 to 2019), she instituted a program that gave jobs as greeters inside the state motor vehicle offices to disabled adults. She still remembers how grateful the parents of those young adults were.
BRINGING NEW PERSPECTIVES TO AN EXISTING PUBLIC SERVICE AGENCY
When LR was being considered for political appointment to lead SEPTA, she told the politically appointed decision-makers and non-political staff that SEPTA needed a new strategic vision, laying out what it wanted to be and how it would get there. She also wanted the organization to learn from other transit agencies. “The current board of directors liked to just look at SEPTA,” she said. “I don’t think they compared themselves to other transit agencies as much as we do now. “
When it comes to reinventing SEPTA, LR has started with the organization itself. Like any large bureaucracy, SEPTA has its share of bloat, waste, and corruption plus low morale. Since her arrival, she’s overseen the creation of an Efficiency and Accountability Program that’s identified more than $100 million in potential savings, with most of the ideas coming from SEPTA employees themselves. The organization has also launched a Diversity, Equity and Belonging program to make sure its hiring practices and culture are inclusive.
CAREER SATISFACTION
A few years ago, LR was among the business and political leaders who worked together on Philadelphia’s bid for Amazon’s second headquarters. Philly didn’t get the nod, but LR learned a lot.
“It was really clear that Amazon leaders were going to make their decision based on the quality of life of their employees, and the questions we got from Amazon were connected to that. ‘How could their employees use public transportation to access parks and restaurants, to go out with their families on weekends? And could they do it in a clean way that really helps our environment and helps build an equitable future, which was really important to the next generation of employees there?’
“It got me thinking that transportation is extremely important to the success of any metropolitan area. And I firmly believe the healthier the public transportation system is in a metropolitan area, the healthier the metropolitan area is.”
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This career story is based on an article written by Tom McGrath, published by Philadelphia Magazine within its July 2023 edition plus internet research.
