It Takes a Fleet to Maintain the Fleet
By Jessica Ravitz
Michael Cordeiro has nothing against motherhood, but he wishes pregnant women prone to nausea wouldn't ride his buses. And don't even get him started on teens and their incessant graffiti.
Half the repairs made by staff at the East Oakland operational facility of AC Transit deal with vandalism said Cordeiro, a veteran supervisor.
Such are the difficulties of the more than 500 men and women at AC Transit who battle to keep the fleet of 815 buses clean and running.
"We're a 24-hour operation, seven days a week," said Joe DeProspero,
chief maintenance officer. "There are no locks on the doors at our division."
Spread among four operational sites and one central facility - a 200,000 square-foot
structure covering 10 acres in East Oakland - the maintenance team handles everything
from the technical to the grotesque. They rebuild engines and repair radios.
They reupholster seats, fill fuel tanks and replace broken windows. And, more
times than they'd like, they face messes that most people would run from. "Everyday,"
Cordeiro said, "there's something on a bus that's blood-borne related."
While the cleaning jobs are far from glamorous, they do come with a full bodysuit,
matching gloves, and can be the stepping stone to more appealing jobs. Jawaine
Johnson was hired as a janitor 22 years ago. Before settling into his current
position, where he manufactures small components like alternators and hydraulic
pumps, Johnson climbed the ranks to become a transmission mechanic at the central
maintenance facility, where the most difficult repairs take place.
"The folks in the transmission shop think they're the hoity-toity group…the
brains of the outfit," said Henry Bustillo, a maintenance administrator
who oversees training. "I guess it has something to do with the intricacy
of their work."
"Yeah, but if you ask the engine guys," Johnson said with a dismissive
laugh, "they'll say the same thing."
In 1991, Johnson entered the inaugural class of AC Transit's heavy-duty coach
mechanic apprenticeship program, the first of its kind in the nation. To date,
154 employees have completed the four-year program, which combines evening classes
of eight training modules with frequent evaluations and hands-on work experience.
The pioneer program was a collective effort forged by agency officials and the
Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 192.
"Between the two, they realized that in order to get our agency to a place where it would be successful, we needed to upgrade the skills of folks," said Bustillo, who has been with AC for 28 years.
This approach seems to have paid off. For one, the buses live a long and full life. While the federal government estimates an average bus will have a life-span of 12 years, the mechanics at AC Transit regularly get nearly 20 years out of their buses, or approximately one million miles, said spokesman Mike Mills.
But what really makes Mills' heart swell is that, for the fourth year in a row, AC Transit won the overall prize for driving and maintenance at the 27th International "Bus Roadeo," held in Las Vegas in September. The competition, a feature at the American Public Transportation Association's annual meeting, pitted some 52 bus agencies against one another.
The troubleshooter for AC Transit's maintenance team, Eduardo Vilarreal, graduated with Johnson from the first apprenticeship program. Taken through a series of timed scenarios, Vilarreal had to identify the defects in, for instance, a vehicle inspection, an engine and an airbrake board. This was his fifth and last year competing, he said. It's not that he stopped enjoying the challenge, he thinks he's done what he set out to do, with the help of a great team.
"When you can look at someone and know what they're thinking, that's hard to beat," said Vilarreal. "And to win top honors, that's what everyone looks for."
Not so for Felicia Westhalcomb. For now, she couldn't care less about being decorated with honors; she just wants to park buses without hitting anything. The mother of four was wrapping up her two weeks of service employee training, and will soon be driving coaches through washing racks before parking them in the crowded lot of the Hayward operational facility.
"If I hit anything, I'm out of here," said Westhalcomb, who donned the white jumpsuit that gives away all rookies in the yard.
She then repeated the mantra of her instructors, reminding herself not to rush and to always take her time. And before being whisked off with her fellow trainees, she added for good measure, "With God's grace, I'll be OK."