FIRST TAKE In preparation for this column and for the focus of this month’s edition on contracted school
bus service, I turned back the clock to June of 2008. Much like today, that edition of School Transportation News focused on the strains being placed on private bus companies and the industry as a whole. School district budgets were being slashed, and, at the same time, fuel prices were about $5 a gallon. Tis issue arose at the onset of the Great Recession, which, evidently con- tinues to strangle student transportation operations nationwide despite some positive-leaning forecasts for the economic future. At the time, Barry Stock, then the incoming NSTA president, told me that fuel prices and school
The More Things
Change… By Ryan Gray
districts having scarce financial resources to adequately provide transportation were of the utmost concern to private contractors. Still, he concluded that school contracting was ready and able to respond to the challenge and, thus, was on the verge of significant growth. Sound familiar? Read the Q&A with Stock at
www.stnonline.com/go/800, and it’s amazing how
much the issues remain the same. Most contractors will admit that the industry has yet to fully realize a big spike in converted
contracts. In an April edition of Passenger Transport, Denis Gallagher, CEO of Student Transporta- tion, Inc., is quoted as saying that outsourced busing has grown but not by leaps and bounds, to the tune of 4 percent — at least from 2003 to 2008, or at roughly the same time Stock was pointing to increased growth. But what folks really want to know is, how much have contractors been able to grow their business over the past three years? Te jury is still out on that one. Still, as we reach the mid-point of 2011, NSTA is set to welcome
a new leader: Magda Dimmendaal, CEO of Dousman Transport Company in Wisconsin. Any other year, the fact that she is the first female president of the association would be news enough. But, as she points out starting on page 30, that’s not really important. Yes, it speaks volumes to the power and business acumen that women yield in the industry, and have for a long time. Much kudos to the Dimmendaal, Linda Bluth, Alexandra Robinson and the countless number of females at the state and local levels for asserting their leadership skills and extreme intelligence. But, Dimmendaal adds that the bigger pictures entails that even tougher decisions must be
made by the industry as a whole, especially as the school bus industry is presented with its latest crossroad. I spoke with Dimmendaal in April to get her thoughts on the evolution of the industry and the
direction it could take. As a self-admitted member of the “old guard” (she traces her roots in the industry back to 1973 when she, like many others, got her start as a school bus driver), Dimmendaal said that direction will be steered by the Gen X and Gen Y set that is beginning to assume more of a leadership role. Tere are things that can be accomplished today via technology that were undreamt not only four decades ago but even at the turn of this century. Tis month, we’ve brought together numerous topics of note for bus contractors and school
districts, alike, as they both try to figure things out. As Dimmendaal admits, the answers do not come easily. Increased contract conversions remain a top agenda item as far as NSTA and private bus company members are concerned. But with those contracts, is it a matter of more money (po- tentially) but also more problems? How are smaller contractor companies rolling with the punches amid less school district budgetary dollars and increased consolidation by their larger competitors? How do union negotiations factor into all of this? David Duke, the new CEO for National Express, has his own take on many of these same questions, the subjects of a Q&A with Senior Editor Ste- phane Babcock on page 38. My crystal ball has been known to be a bit hazy, but, when contemplating what we might be
discussing in this space four years from now, it’s hard not to think that many of these subjects will still, unfortunately, be relevant. Or will they be irrelevant? It will take much more than collective hope to ensure the road best traveled over that span
results in a much more positive environment for school busing, whether that be contractor- or district-operated. So, too, must the industry as a whole play a vital role in taking action to shape that future. ■
12 School Transportation News Magazine June 2011
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