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Building a High-Impact Transit Board-CEO Governing Team

Leaders of the Capital District Transportation Authority (CDTA), Albany, NY, and management consultant Doug Eadie shared their experiences in creating a strong bond between the agency’s chief executive officer and board of directors at a Sept. 25 educational session.

APTA Chair David M. Stackrow Sr., immediate past chair of the CDTA board, explained that the board originally worked with Eadie 15 years ago after hiring a new CEO.

“CDTA’s governance structure wasn’t engaging the board,” he explained. “Each committee was in its own silo with no overlap. We needed a shakeup in how to get things done.” Eadie has made several return visits to the agency, Stackrow said, “to make sure we’re still aligned with our principles.”

Eadie, president and chief executive officer of Doug Eadie & Company, opened the session with what he called “a quick tour of the minefield.” Governing is a team sport, he said, and the CEO must either take the initiative in developing the board’s governing capacity or inherit an outdated CEO/board relationship. He cited three questions as the basis of creating a more involved public transit board:

* Where should the agency be headed and what should the board become?
* What should the board’s authority be, both now and in the near term?
* How well are we performing—operations, finances and management?

“Governing is making decisions about concrete governing ‘products’ and judgments,” Eadie said, stressing that the only way a board can guarantee it will address a specific issue is to allocate funding for it.
From left, Doug Eadie, David Stackrow and Carm Basile.
Photo by Susan Berlin

He defined a “board-savvy CEO” as one who sees the board as a precious asset and works hard to create a partnership with its members, spending at least 25 percent of his time on governing and “paying close attention to what the board does and what I can do to help it.”

On the board’s side, Eadie called on instituting an accountability committee that monitors the performance of all board members: setting targets and issuing periodic assessments.

CDTA Chief Executive Officer Carm Basile, a 37-year agency employee and CEO for the past nine years, said he asks for conversations, not presentations, from board members and meets with them informally as part of his performance monitoring efforts. Basile also recommended that agencies hire chief staff liaisons to support each standing committee.

“If you, as a CEO, want to do this, you have to get good at it,” he said. “You have to want to learn and engage with your board members.”

Beyond that, Basile said, he enjoys talking about CDTA to non-riders, so they understand that the system’s services also benefit them by decreasing traffic congestion.

Eadie mentioned that he and Stackrow have co-authored a book, Becoming Your Board’s Chief Governing Partner: A Practical Guidebook for Transit CEOs and CEO-Aspirants. He referred interested people to his website.
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