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DC: Metro has a new team running its rail operations. Here's what makes it unusual.
Gridlock
Metro has a new team running its rail operations. Here’s what makes it unusual.
Transportation is an industry that continues to be dominated by men and where female leaders are still rare.
Metro's rail division is now being led by three women. Pictured from left are: Shanita Bowman, managing director for rail transportation; Lisa Woodruff, senior vice president for rail services and Laura Mason, chief of rail infrastructure, maintenance and engineering. (W. Kyle Anderson /WMATA)
By Lori Aratani
June 10 at 6:00 AM
In a memo dated late last month, Metro made it official: Lisa Woodruff was named senior vice president for rail services, responsible for overall management and planning for all of the transit agency’s rail operations. In accepting the job, Woodruff became one of the top-ranking women at the transit agency. ... But there was something else that made Woodruff’s appointment notable: She’s one of three women who now hold top leadership positions in Metro’s rail division. Shanita Bowman, who was named in the same May memo, is managing director for rail transportation, and Laura Mason is chief of the newly created rail infrastructure, maintenance and engineering department.
....
Woodruff, 56, spent nearly 30 years at Metro, starting in the transit agency’s Rail Operations Control Center, before leaving briefly last year to take a job as deputy chief operations officer at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. She was lured back last month.
Bowman, 46, has deep roots at Metro: Her mother was a Metrobus driver, who rose to be a depot clerk. Bowman remembers visiting bus depots as a young child and not seeing many women. She joined Metro in 2000 as part of the agency’s management training program. Though her background was in accounting, she gravitated to the operations side of the agency. ... “I’ve been around Metro my entire life,” she said. That includes commuting by rail and bus as a student in the D.C. Public Schools system.
Mason, 36, was recruited by Wiedefeld in 2016 to manage the SafeTrack rebuilding program. She had previously worked at Bechtel, where she spent three years on the team that built the first phase of the Silver Line, which opened in 2014. ... Her task at Metro will be creating planning and maintenance programs to ensure the transit agency doesn’t backslide on its efforts to maintain the system.
In a recent interview, the trio said their focus will be on ensuring the system is delivering on its most basic job: getting people where they need to go.
....
Lori Aratani writes about transportation issues, including how people get around -- or don't. Her beat includes airlines and airports, as well as the agencies that oversee them. Follow https://twitter.com/loriara
Metro has a new team running its rail operations. Here’s what makes it unusual.
Transportation is an industry that continues to be dominated by men and where female leaders are still rare.
Metro's rail division is now being led by three women. Pictured from left are: Shanita Bowman, managing director for rail transportation; Lisa Woodruff, senior vice president for rail services and Laura Mason, chief of rail infrastructure, maintenance and engineering. (W. Kyle Anderson /WMATA)
By Lori Aratani
June 10 at 6:00 AM
In a memo dated late last month, Metro made it official: Lisa Woodruff was named senior vice president for rail services, responsible for overall management and planning for all of the transit agency’s rail operations. In accepting the job, Woodruff became one of the top-ranking women at the transit agency. ... But there was something else that made Woodruff’s appointment notable: She’s one of three women who now hold top leadership positions in Metro’s rail division. Shanita Bowman, who was named in the same May memo, is managing director for rail transportation, and Laura Mason is chief of the newly created rail infrastructure, maintenance and engineering department.
....
Woodruff, 56, spent nearly 30 years at Metro, starting in the transit agency’s Rail Operations Control Center, before leaving briefly last year to take a job as deputy chief operations officer at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. She was lured back last month.
Bowman, 46, has deep roots at Metro: Her mother was a Metrobus driver, who rose to be a depot clerk. Bowman remembers visiting bus depots as a young child and not seeing many women. She joined Metro in 2000 as part of the agency’s management training program. Though her background was in accounting, she gravitated to the operations side of the agency. ... “I’ve been around Metro my entire life,” she said. That includes commuting by rail and bus as a student in the D.C. Public Schools system.
Mason, 36, was recruited by Wiedefeld in 2016 to manage the SafeTrack rebuilding program. She had previously worked at Bechtel, where she spent three years on the team that built the first phase of the Silver Line, which opened in 2014. ... Her task at Metro will be creating planning and maintenance programs to ensure the transit agency doesn’t backslide on its efforts to maintain the system.
In a recent interview, the trio said their focus will be on ensuring the system is delivering on its most basic job: getting people where they need to go.
....
Lori Aratani writes about transportation issues, including how people get around -- or don't. Her beat includes airlines and airports, as well as the agencies that oversee them. Follow https://twitter.com/loriara