Gilbert Blue Feather Rosas Director of Substantiality & Adaptation | Modesto City Schools in California
Prior to joining Stockton Unified in March 2012, Rosas had been a heating and air conditioning specialist since 1996 and had experience with energy management systems. During this time, an opportunity arose for him to work at the school district, which he said was closer to home. In 2019, the district asked him to develop a project
for clean mobility in schools, which was a pilot grant program run by the California Air Resources Board. Rosas said he developed it in eight days, something that normally takes three to six months. Stockton received $5 million from that grant. “But the cool part about that was that we
got it done about a year and a half before the other two [districts that were awarded the CARB grant] did,” he explained, adding that partners Center for Transportation and the Environment, Schneider Electric, Mobility House and A-Z Bus Sales were all involved from the start. By grant stacking, Stockton received a
total of $8.3 million, and with the funds built a charging center consisting of 24 chargers, four of which were DC fast chargers. “There [were] a lot of configurations,”
to do the largest purchase, 30 electric school buses, so we took the chance at it,” he said, adding that prior to his start date at Modesto in March, the district purchased the largest single order of electric buses at the time. Modesto broke ground on June 1, tearing up every- thing in the transportation yard, redoing conduit and adding solar panels. The team put it all back together in two months, to get ready for school startup. Unfortunately, due to supply chain disruptions,
Modesto won’t receive its full bus delivery this month as was scheduled. Instead, two Blue Bird buses will arrive around early November, with the re- maining expected in January. With a total of 62 buses in the fleet,
Rosas noted that the goal is to be at least 80 percent electric within the next two years. The district is hoping to receive funds from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Clean School Bus Program to do so. “That’s the hope and dream,” he said. “I
Rosas said. “It was brand new. I didn’t have any experience with electric buses prior to 2020 or grant writing experience in 2019. That was a benefit because I just looked at it and said we’re going to build this in a year. I’m a heating and air conditioning guy by trade. Those look like furnaces on a pedestal or gas pumps. We can run conduit and get it all together.”
Modesto City Schools received Blue Bird’s EV Leadership Award for its zero-emission school buses.
always kid around with people that I’m that single mom at the cash register. I waited my turn in line. I’m going to beg, borrow and steal every coupon I can to get what I need for my kids. And so that’s really the attitude, there’s a lot of funding out there.”
Modesto and Stockton are both disadvantaged com-
This was in the middle of the COVID-19 shut-down. “We ratified our agreement with CARB on May 16, 2020. We got approval from PG&E to build in September. We broke ground on Oct. 1. We had it built right after Christmas,” he added. Eleven electric school buses started arriving in March 2021. Rosas said he remembered joking with Rich DeMatteo, an executive vice president at Highland Electric Company, saying that it normally takes about two years to get an electric school bus project up and running. Rosas recalled at the time DeMatteo saying that record would never be broken. Rosas or perhaps it was Modesto City Schools leader- ship saw that as a challenge. “The school district wanted
32 School Transportation News • OCTOBER 2022
munities, he added, noting that electrifying fleets is really about providing opportunity and healthier out- comes for kids. He noted that school districts are in the right place at the right time for electric buses, as the funding is available. “I think we have to just make the most of it, maximize it,” he said. Going forward, Rosas said he would like to help electrify fleets on a national level in addition to those in Cali- fornia. “I think I’m the track star for electric school bus deployment,” Rosas chuckled while speaking with School Transportation News at STN EXPO Reno in July. “And it is really about who else you can help. …Electric school buses are a symbol of hope and a means of change.” It is this desire to face and overcome challenges that made him a rising star in pupil transportation.
Read on to meet nine other individuals who continue to go above and beyond every day.
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