STN's Presidential Series:

Elliott Says Education's Challenges
are Durham's Challenges

Early last year John Elliott, a former teacher, was named president and CEO of Durham School Services, succeeding Larry Durham, founder of the company upon his retirement. In this exclusive interview STN editor Bill Paul talked with Elliott about changes at the company since taking the company's reins. Under Elliott's leadership the company revamped itself to respond to the challenges educators face. Durham School Services provides transportation to more than 250 schools in 99 locations, known within the company as customer service centers, and operates 10,700 buses in 19 states throughout the United States.

Bill Paul, School Transportation News: Have any major changes occurred at Durham School Services since you were appointed president and CEO early last year?

John Elliott, President and CEO of Durham Transportation Services: One of the first steps we took was to engage in strategic planning. We recognized that since 1998 when the National Express group came in and made its first acquisition, companies have evolved since then but have not determined where we were going, how we were going to get there, or how we truly wanted to be perceived. There were 13 different company names and five different companies. We wanted to figure out how to centralize that; what did we want Durham School Services to look like in three years or five years?

STN: Did you complete the exercise?

Elliott: Yes and no. We put together a short strategic plan that deals with the initiatives we want to generate in 2005. We will go through it on an annual basis to see what has changed, in the environment and in our organization.

STN: So is this an annual exercise for the company now?

Elliott: I think it is; it has to be at this point. If we had had a background upon which we could build then I would say perhaps we could look further out. Though quite frankly, I don't know how you can effectively create a plan and sit at one point today and say, 'I'm going to build this plan that is definitely going to last without modification for the next 3 or 5 years without change.' That is not realistic.

STN: Can you share some of the strategic plan?

Elliott : The main thing was a recognition that as a large national corporation we had to move decision making to the level at which it is most relevant to our customers and employees. We refer to the sites we deliver service to as customer service centers. So our customer service centers become individual small companies with resources supplied by a large national entity. Our people at the sites have to be able to do what is in the best interest of our customers and employees, as opposed to having it being strictly driven at the corporate level.

STN: How much authority do you give your branch managers?

Elliott: Much more now than what they had previously. But along with the authority we've placed a great deal of emphasis on giving them the training and the tools that are necessary to exercise the authority. If you empower your employees but don't enable them, it doesn't work. Our attitude is we want our personnel to have the education to make those decisions, and we have to give the processes, training and procedures to do so.

We were fortunate that long ago Larry Durham and others had the foresight to create Durham University. That's the training entity in our organization for all of our supervisory and management personnel. We have simply expanded on it and made it more field focused for the individuals.

We've modified Durham University. It used to be for individuals who needed to be recommended. It was probably more so for management. Now, everyone at every supervisory and management level needs to participate in that portion of Durham University, which better enables them to do their job.

STN: You mentioned as part of strategic planning how you want your company perceived. Talk about that. What was goal? How do you want Durham School Services perceived?

Elliott: We said that as a company we want to provide community based transportation solutions. At the outset that means we have to be more knowledgeable about what is taking place within the school districts and communities we serve. We have to be more consultative in terms of providing recommendations and solutions for their transportation needs. You don't normally have that kind of perception if you are that large national entity you do it my way or the highway. That is probably the biggest change. That doesn't mean there won't be standards, processes or procedures because there will. But they have to be adaptable.

STN: What does that mean for the individual branch manager?

Elliott: From a customer perspective, their primary contact and the person they are most concerned with is that individual they deal with on a daily basis. What we have to do is get our general manager comfortable with knowing they can deliver the service that satisfies the customer and also satisfies the needs of the company.

We had a situation just three weeks ago, a power outage in one of the school districts and all of a sudden that school had to be closed for a period of three to four weeks. Our general manager had the latitude to make necessary calls to bring in drivers and vehicles from other communities to provide transportation service to the students from the closed school over to a different area. He had the latitude to do that because that is what was needed.

STN: Do general managers have bottom line budget responsibility?

Elliott: They do. We put together annual budgets in our company both at the corporate level and local level. But budgets are only guidelines. In reality we have to satisfy the customer in order to retain the business.

STN: In the Strategic Plan, do you get into equipment mix?

Elliott: Our customers are beginning to experience more pressure with regard to finance. That was one of the things noted in our environmental scan. We have always prided ourselves in spec'ing vehicles in excess in many cases of what the district would require. Because the district is experiencing financial pressure, we've had to go back and ask what we can do to take cost of our operation. It sometime begins with spec'ing vehicle differently.

STN: What about communications. Is that part of your strategic plan?

Elliott: I think technology has to be a part of it although I do believe we still have a long way to go regardless of the technology in communication within our organization. We do a good job of telling people when we want them to do something different, but we don't keep people informed of what is going on in the organization, both good and bad. We have good stories to tell but we don't tell them. We come up with the excuse of not enough time or it didn't cross my mind. Now we are going to change that.

STN: Contrast the corporate culture of Durham School Services under the new strategic plan with the corporate culture several years ago.

Elliott: I would say it is one that is much less corporate focused and much more field focused. I would say it is one in which individuals within the field are more comfortable with making decisions, (knowing) the decision might end up being a mistake as long as it is not something wrong. I think we are more focused on growth than we were two to three years ago. We're more comfortable that we can go where growth opportunities exist and do well for customers, employees and the company. Two or three years ago we were an organization focused on Texas westward. Now we are comfortable going east to Massachusetts and Connecticut.

STN: What are the major issues confronting the pupil transportation industry?

Elliott: I look at the challenges that face education in general. Everything that adversely impacts education

ultimately filters down to us. As districts face the issue of improving test scores, for example, what does that do to transportation? Will there be more or less emphasis on field trips? More or less emphasis on extracurricular activities such as athletics? Is the school year going to lengthen? As technology beings to proliferate will there be some much emphasis on utilization of the internet and technology that students don't have to leave home to get their education? There will always be the socialization issue, but there may be some other way to address that.

I also think that the more our customers, the school districts, come in for scrutiny and criticism of the product that education delivers, that in turns causes them to put more pressure on us as service providers. I think school districts have become far less tolerate of poor service than they used to be. We've done a good job of telling educators to give us the transportation portion of their education program because we are the experts. But if we don't perform they are less patient and will look for someone else to do the job.

STN: Any comments in closing?

Elliott: Ours is a healthy business. I think there are constituents who would be surprised and pleased to know that people involved in providing contract transportation really care about what we do, that it is not simply monetary incentive that drives what we do, but that we truly a care for the passengers we service and also the employees who provide that service.

Source: Reprinted from School Transportation News, March, 2005. All rights reserved.