Janice R. Thomas: Leading, Mentoring, and Real-Time Railroad Communications

In this episode, Linda sits down with Janice R. Thomas, Chief of Staff and Deputy Executive Director of External Affairs at Metra. 

With over 25 years of government and transit experience helping run the nation's fourth-largest commuter rail system, Janice shares how the high-stakes world of keeping a railroad moving shapes her approach to leadership, mentorship, and her deeply cherished roles as a mother and grandmother. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi everyone, Linda Lorello here. Thanks for tuning in to the Women in Rail podcast. This episode is a dedication to the titans of the industry. And who better to lead the conversation than Janice Thomas, who serves as the Deputy Executive Director of External Affairs and Chief of Staff for Metra Commuter Rail. For context, Metra is the commuter rail agency that connects the city of Chicago with its surrounding suburbs, spanning Northeast Illinois, and provides 38 million rides each year. Get to know one of the key leaders who works behind the scenes and on the front lines to make sure it happens each and every day. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Hello and welcome to the Women in Rail podcast. We're so excited to have you here. Thank you for having me. Today's guest has over 25 years of experience in Rail. I met Janice at the NRC conference when she was talking on a DBE panel for the interim final rule. I was very impressed by everything that you said on the panel. And I thought the first person I thought of for this podcast had to be you.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Oh, well, thank you. I really appreciate that consideration. Tell us how how you started in Rail. So I started in Rail now. Um last year was my 15th year.

unknown 1:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Um believe it or not. And I was hired as the director of the DBE department when I came to Metro. I had worked in state government. I had worked in a university. I worked for the University of Illinois. So I had local government, did higher education. Now I come to the rail industry. And wow, was that different? Because I'd never worked in that space before. And the DBE program was pumping at that time. It was, you know, certification. It was critical that people get certified. And it's for some agencies, it were taking a long time. My goal, I had done the minority and business uh certification, but the DBE certification was different. So getting up to speed on that and understanding how we could be impactful, be effective, do it correctly, certify those who should be certified, but do it within a timely fashion was my commitment. So that's how I came into the railroad through the DBE department.

unknown 2:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

And since then, of course, my career has blossomed. Now I am the Deputy Executive Director of External Affairs and Chief of Staff. And under that umbrella of external affairs is the DBE program, but it's our capital delivery program, our planning, our grants, marketing, media, customer service, community relations, government affairs, all those areas fall up under external affairs.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Wow. You wear a lot of hats. Yes, ma'am. I was gonna ask you about your title because it's very, very long. Tell us a day-to-day, like what's a typical day for you.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

So I wake up every morning about four. Generally, I try to be in the office by 6:30. And I love when people ask me what time you have to be at work. And so sometimes I'll do this. Yesterday I worked from home and from 8:30 until 3 o'clock, I was sitting basically in the same spot in my house, meeting after meeting. So my day is filled with a lot of uh meetings.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

What is a fire to you in a in a day at Metro?

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Um we have over 243 stations in our system. So we have a lot of mayors, a lot of managers, a lot of elected officials on a federal level, local level. When they have an issue, a concern, that's the fire for my community relations team. Because now we need to understand what why they have a concern. We need to identify the individuals that need to immediately drop everything and respond to this concern. So those are fires that happen. You don't you don't know that it's happening. One of their constituents could have sent them an email about something. They could need something that we need to clean up, something we need to address. Those are the types of fires that we want to answer immediately and address. Why? It's about maintaining good relationships with those individuals because they're sitting in places and we need them when Metro's name comes across to say Metro's response, if they do a good job of taking care of their communities where they provide service. So with that, we know that the different departments that may need to respond need to instantly give us an answer so that we can provide this information out. Now we have on operations, they have fires every day and they just treat them like they treat them. When you have a rail incident, they know how to immediately jump in and handle those situations. When you have weather impacts on the train, we know we have the communication plan. How do we instantly put that out so the customers know the train is going to be delayed today? Are the trains going to be a null and you need to seek another alternate form of transportation? How do we communicate that in real time? So we have over the years, we just understand how we need to jump in and respond to those types of situations. The fires I'm talking about are those things that would have a negative impression on a customer. If a customer had a bad experience, if an elected official has to call us about addressing something, we want to respond to those things in real time. If we get this directive, like when the directive came down about the interim final rule, everybody's running around, what's going on? We got to do this. We got to quickly write this letter, get it out there, let the vendors know that effective today, this is what happened. You're no longer a DBE. It's those types of fires that you have to know how to call people in the room, have a quick meeting, say, this is our strategy, let's get it going. When we're gonna have it, we need to have it done by the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

So it really goes back to perception too. Yes. Just a matter of how how Metra is viewed, how you're viewed and your employees are viewed.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

That matters because if they think that you can't get things done or think that you don't care, that goes a long way in the wrong direction. Right. You want them to think that you are responsive. That not only we say we provide on-time, efficient service. So we tell our customers, Metro will get you there, Metro is the way to fly. Along with that, we also say we care about our customers. We care about the communities where we are going through where we're providing service. So when there's an issue or concern, you have to also show that same care by addressing it in real time. That everyone knows real time we want to address it when we have a concern. It is an opportunity for us to continue to show the public that we care and to show that we are responsible. I really believe in pushing when someone has a, I don't like to call them complaints. I call them a concern is the opportunity for us to send a message that we care and we're gonna address that situation. That's a that's a lovely way of putting it. I also do a lot of these kinds of things, not necessarily podcasts, but a lot of panels, a lot of workshops, a lot of mentoring.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

So my days are busy. I know how that is. Yes. Sometimes I bring my office to the outside just so I can get a little bit of fresh air.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

I need to learn how to do that.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Yeah, I think for myself, I I put focus time into my schedule and and I say, we're not booking any time in the focus time. And then I take that time to either do emails or you know, meditate because sometimes I just, you know, the stress of everything is just. How has that changed you as well as other people that you mentor?

SPEAKER_01 8:04

So, mentoring to me is something that I'm very passionate about because as I was coming up through my almost 28 years, I did not have mentors. I did not have anyone that looked at me and extended a hand to help me up. I had to do a lot of stumbling and learning on my own through trial and error. I did not have anyone that would offer me that opportunity at the table or that could give me an opportunity to show my worth. So as a result of that, I now being in the role that I'm in, I think it's my responsibility to be intentional with helping others. So mentoring comes when someone acts me to be their mentor. And that means that I am personally going to take time to be committed to helping this person with their growth and development, understanding their mission, where they're trying to go, and how can I impart some assistance to them on that pathway? Um, so it's an intentional thing that I do. I just don't do it to do it because people are looking for help. They're looking for guidance, they're looking for direction, they don't know what to do. They see you in your roles and they say, Wow, I can't, I'm I'm never gonna be able to accomplish that. And sometimes people walk up and ask me that question. It's not a fairy book story that I can tell them. It was a lot of hard work, a lot of stumbling, a lot of praying. You know, I'm a I'm a God-fearing woman and I God is a part of my life. So I try to make sure that I'm helping others when there is an opportunity for me to do that.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Thank you. When I mentor, I I also think about having someone advocating for you as well when you're not there. Yes. My grandfather, my dad, my uncles, they were all of my mentors. And along with everyone who worked for us, because I had to learn. I didn't know anything. Um I knew what we did as a business, but I didn't know how to build track or you know, how the office worked and and all of that. So, really throughout my career, I tried to learn from each person that I was with at the time. Laborers, operators, foremen. It's definitely, I think, an important part of when you get to a certain level, you need to give back.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Yes, that's important to giving back. And it's important to have people speak well of you when you're not in the room. Yes. Those kinds of relationships, it's important to have relationships too, because you never know when opportunity is gonna come. And most of my opportunities came to me, not because I was advocating, but it was because I had my head down and I was doing the work, and someone said, That is the person you need over there on your team because she's gonna make sure to get the job done. So I see mentoring in different um aspects. It's not only taking the time to listen and help someone, but it's also taking those individuals under your umbrella and saying, you know what, she can do this, she can handle that responsibility. Give her an opportunity. That's great. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

I always think of our daily lives having like we have buckets. So like we have a family bucket and we have a work bucket and our self bucket. And how do you manage your buckets?

SPEAKER_01 11:38

So I've learned the importance of managing my time when I'm not at work. When I'm at work, I'm in the work zone. When I walk in that building, I'm on metra's time, and I'm in Metro's zone. When I leave out of that building, I have to leave Metra there because now I have to prepare myself for when I go home to whatever that is. Right now it's my awesome granddaughter who's four years old. Her name is Zora and she lives with me. Uh, she and my daughter. So to go home and to be disconnected from work so that I can be present there for my family and my friends is important to me. So I know how to take vacation and leave it work at work. This is what I say. If I can't take time off without having to check in every day, then I need to come back and do an assessment of who's here on the team. Exactly. Because you have to shut off work so that you can refresh yourself. So it's about being intentional. And you and you know this too. You have to be intentional, just like you are with that focus time. Now I'm better at taking time when I'm out of the building than I am when I'm in the building. So I've learned over the years the importance of just checking out and putting things in the proper buckets, as you say.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

This is work, this is my family, this is my friends. Did I need my me time, girl? I like to shop. I, you know, I love shoes, clothes, perfume, spa, you know, hair, nails, feet. There are things that I don't let interfere with that because this is what I gotta do for Janice. Yeah. I gotta have my Janice time.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

It's definitely important. I think sometimes um I'm a mother of three. Okay. So, you know, putting yourself first is probably the last thing you do most of the time. But uh I've I've noticed that I'm a better mom when I do take time for myself. And then I'm able to do more with them and enjoy more things because I've had that time to myself.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

You can't let people make you feel bad about taking time. You know, I like to get in my car, turn my music up loud, and just take a ride sometimes, you know, just to take a break from it all, just take a walk, you know, not be responsible. And that's what I tell my family and my friends. Another thing I hate to do when we are going to dinner, please don't ask me where we're going. Please. I don't want to make the decision. I'm you make the decision. Right. And if you make a decision I don't like, I'll figure it out. But it's good to allow others to to make those decisions and be responsible because I'm making decisions all the time. Yeah. You know, another thing I want to do when I'm not at work, I don't want to be talking on the phone. Right. You know, text me.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

How do you manage that? How do you how do you manage like people all if calling you, text messages? How do you turn that off?

SPEAKER_01 14:31

So I also learn that it's okay not to answer the phone. And if it's something urgent, they're gonna leave you a message, they're gonna text you or they're gonna call back. So if I I if I'm watching a movie or watching a TV series or just spending time with my family, then that can wait. Just like when I'm at work, my family will not bother me unless it is an emergency. So you see what they're doing? They're giving me the time to be all in and committed to work. So when I'm with my family, I can't let other things interfere because I don't let my family interfere when I'm at work. So then it's the it's the same respect that I give work, I give them my family when I'm with them.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Do you use that as part of your mentoring when you when you when you mentor others? You teach them how you do that?

SPEAKER_01 15:18

You have to be able to, I like categories categorizing it. You know, some people call it work-life balance, and then you say, What the heck is work-life balance? You know, you work is a part of life, and you have to work so that you can have something to balance, you know. But I tell people that you have to be intentional with priorities, putting things in the right uh perspective, in the right order in your life, and you have to take time for yourself because you know what? If something happens to me today, Metro will mourn a little bit, but they're gonna move on and post the position and feel the position, and there it was. So when you have an opportunity to spend precious moments with your children, my children all grown now, and I have grandchildren. But when you have, these are the years that you can't have do-overs, right? You won't get them back. So you have to be intentional with that, and you have to know that it'll be okay. You know, today I was just sitting at a uh uh panel and someone sitting next to me was like, I keep on, I keep trying. I said, Tony, I put that phone in my bag, it'll be all right. It was there when I left, and it'll be that amount. Right now, I need to give my time and attention to this event that they invited me to.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Yes, exactly. Yes. What inspires you in your work life and your personal life?

SPEAKER_01 16:43

I'm inspired by doing things. I'm inspired by the challenge of uh getting a job done. I'm inspired by the fact that as a woman, as an African-American woman, in a space where there has not been a lot of people like myself, uh, making sure that I am leaving a legacy that I am doing what others thought would never be done. So that inspires me to make sure that my work speaks for something. Today, someone walked up to me and they said, I just wanted you to know that you actually live what you talk about. And they said, 10 years ago, when her boss, the company she worked for, was going through something, how you were just so nice and so encouraging and so helpful to me. Um, so it's those kind of things that inspire me. If I can help someone else along the way, that inspires me to be able to give of myself to help someone know that you can make it through today. This is it, it may not be going the way you want it to go today. You know, the sun don't shine every day, but you look beyond the cloud and you can see that there is some sun that's just hidden right now and that you can get through it. So I'm inspired by my ability to be able to help someone know that you can make it through. That's that's great. There's always tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Wonderful, wonderful. Um your scope is so broad at your job. Um, how do you figure out what's the most important thing you need to do versus something that can wait until tomorrow?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

So it's about what's going on. You know, sometimes there's fires. So when there's a fire, then that automatically moves to the top of the list. It's uh sometimes it's just you just got to figure out how to get it all done. You got to touch it all today. Delegate. I can't do everything. As a leader, it is important that we understand the importance of delegate of delegating. That comes with trusting the individuals that you have on your team to know that they got it, they can get it done, and they will check in with you if they need some more clarity. So for me, it's about knowing those areas that I need to give more time and more of my attention to, where I have some areas, they are self-sufficient, they run well. Even with those, sometimes it's like you check in with them and say, hello, how are you doing? So I'll have days like that, but it's about what's going on, what's the priority for today, what's the urgency for today? What is that thing that we just need to get done? And I don't like on the ride over, the uh gentleman that would drop me off, he asked me, because in the car, I did like five phone calls. He says, How do you keep up with all of it? I said, Well, one thing I do is if I can do something immediately, I go ahead and do it. If I can delegate something, I said, You see, I didn't do everything. I made a call to delegate something to someone else. I do that. I move it off my plate so that I can move on. Because if you don't be organized, and at the end of the day, if it's something that I just didn't get done today, I write me a note and I know I need to take care of it. Or I'll send it to Lori, my assistant, and say, please make sure I follow up on this the next day. Those are some things that I do to make sure um that I stay on top of what those priorities are. And they change, as you know, priorities change from day to day, right? Yep. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah. Take us back to a single moment when you chose to go into the rail industry. Like what what what made you decide to change your career path?

SPEAKER_01 20:23

So it wasn't me. It was I was at a vendor fair. I worked for the University of Illinois at Chicago, and I was at a Vendor Fair. And uh next to me, the booth was the Metro Recruiter. And he was recruiting for several positions, but one of the positions was the director of the DBE department. So um, after standing there all day, we're interacting, having conversations, he could hear what I was talking about because at the university I oversaw or I implemented their minority and female business enterprise program. So he says, You should apply for this job at Metro. I said, Oh no, I'm not applying for that. You know, that's a political job. And he says, No, it's not. Honestly, it's not. You should apply. So he nagged me all day. I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to stay on over here. Then he calls me, he follows up, he insists he doesn't give up. So I applied for the job. I interviewed, and that's how I ended up um working for Metro. It wasn't intentional on my part. I never in a million years thought that I would be able to work for Metra because I thought we had to know somebody in order, you know. Yeah. And he says, no, it's it's not that type of atmosphere. Yeah. I applied and I was successful, and the rest is history, as they say. Do you still keep in touch with this gentleman? He actually left from being an HR recruiter and he went to be a uh uh conductor and now an operator. So I see him sometimes when you know I pass my. Cross. So he works for Metro, but he works in a different capacity.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Wow. That's great. Yes. Uh, let's let's go back to DBE. So I don't know if you know, but my my Delta Railroad was a DBE company. Okay. Um, my grandmother was the CEO. She ran the business for like 30 years. Okay. Um, brought us from nothing to multi-million dollar projects. Okay. She was a mentor for me. And she taught me that uh hard work, dedication, and realizing that all people are always watching. Yes. That, you know, what you do matters. After we graduated from the program, it was one of the proudest days she had because, you know, she made, she built this business and it got so big that we were able to graduate from that program.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Your grandmother did what the program was intended to do. There are so many that don't want to graduate. They are fearful, they're afraid. They think that their business won't continue to be successful if they graduate. So it did my reason why I was smiling when you said that. I was like, wow, she did what the program was intended to do. Um, I am always one of the questions that I was asked when I was asked to be the chief of staff uh first before I was deputy executive director. Um, you you know you're gonna have to give up DBE. And I said, taking my passion away. It's just how I did it. You I said, oh no. And I said, okay. I said, okay, I'll be, I can, I can step away from that because I knew I had prepared someone that would be able to take the program over and move forward. And reason why I felt that way, these small businesses are sometimes not sure. They're a little lost and confused, intimidated in this process, and they need to know that someone cares about what it is that they're going through. Just because you're a business owner don't mean that you know everything. And I admire the business owners because what a business owner is basically saying, they're gonna take on the risk, and they're gonna not know for certain that the check is coming, that the opportunity is coming, and that when they do the work, they're gonna get paid on time. And then they're gonna take on responsibility, hire other people, and be responsible for them and making sure that they can take care of their families and everything. Whereas for me, I get I get up and I just go to work. So I admire entrepreneurs because you're brave and you do things that I'm not that brave to do. And that's why, again, the DBE program is important, it is necessary because just face it, we don't live in a world where everyone feels that everyone should have the same opportunities. So the DBE program says to the primes, you have to be both responsible and responsive. There's a goal on this project. There are DBE firms that have been certified and they can perform a commercially useful function on this project, and you need to identify them. Who are you going to utilize on this project in order to meet the goal? Right. So it is it's still a conversation we have to have. And we cannot back down. You all can't back down, even if you graduated, and you but you know why? It's more important for you to still be a champion because you can tell the testimony of what the program did, the opportunities that it provided you to have, and the life that you're able to live, and not only you, all the others. Right. This is why your voice matters. Yeah, because you are living testimony of what success looks like when you are a DBE and when you graduate. You can go on and continue to be successful. People need to hear and they need to see that testimony.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

I also think that there needs to be some central catalog or something that's maybe federal because you can't find DBEs the same way every time. Like if you're working in, you know, Illinois, there's one database to look in. If you're working in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, there's another database to look in. There's not one central place that you can get all of that information.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Years ago, I'm not as hands-on with it like I used to be, but I thought one of the directives from the FTA years ago was to have a central database. I think it's a good idea that, you know, as firms and businesses and those advocacy groups get together and talk about, they should talk about a central repository.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

On this podcast, I always want to ask: what is advice that you would give to women in rail, women in rail now and women in rail in the future?

SPEAKER_01 26:54

I would say be your genuine self. Don't let anyone force you to feel intimidated, to feel like you don't belong. You are there because you have earned the right to be there. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Stand for something, and you will never have to worry about falling for nothing. Because you know why you are there and you know what you bring. And always I say each one has responsibility to teach one as we reach out. As you rise, you continue to lift. And don't take down. Don't worry about the fact that it may be all men in the room and one woman. That's not important. I'm here because I have a voice and I have something to add, and I'm gonna make sure that we get this task done. That's what I offer the ladies. That's just be who you are. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Thank you so much for coming and sharing your experiences and and everything you've learned throughout your career.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Thank you for having me. I think this is awesome, and I was just glad to receive the opportunity, and I'm glad to be the first. Yes. All right. Thank you. Thank you.