As I believe I have explained before, I have been serving on RTD’s General Manager Transition and Executive Search (GM) Committee.  The GM Committee has been meeting almost weekly since Cal Marsella first announced his departure and has had a full agenda of activity. 

The most significant task we have completed was the appointment of Phil Washington to serve as Interim General Manager.  Phil previously served RTD as the Assistant General Manager for Administration where I got to know his high quality work through his consultation with me in my role as the Board Treasurer.  Phil has performed excellently in this role, keeping the organization focused on high performance in its day-to-day service mission and providing excellent guidance to the Board in its efforts to fulfill the FasTracks vision.  You can learn more about Phil Washington at the following link: http://www.rtd-denver.com/GeneralManager.shtml. 

The GM Committee also hired a search firm to help us recruit a permanent General Manager.  We selected Krauthamer & Associates out of a field of excellent proposals based on their experience working in the transit recruitment area.  Personally, I also felt their breadth of other public sector search experience would provide us with the widest spectrum of candidates, both from within the transit industry and as well as other individuals with desirable qualifications.  So far, I have been very pleased with the professionalism Krauthamer has exhibited in the search process and I am excited to see what types of candidates they have recruited.

As of this point, Krauthamer tells us they have received over 175 responses to their appeals for candidates, which have included direct advertising and personal recruitment.  The GM Committee will whittle this list of candidates down over the course of the next few weeks to our top prospects.  We will then subject the top candidates to an intense level of scrutiny, including exposure at a large open house gathering of regional stakeholders, interviews with a panel of  civic leaders, and ultimately a review by the GM Committee and participating RTD Board members. 

There are many other details to this effort, but I just wanted to provide a general sense of where things stand in the General Manager search process.  Please let me know if you have any insights to offer during the search process and/or if there are certain issues you want me to consider in selecting the next administrative leader of RTD.