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Recently at the October All-Employee meeting, someone submitted this comment: “Not a question, just feedback in the meeting. I love the attitude of gratitude! What a nice change.” As many of us celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow and reflect on the things in life we are grateful for, this comment resonated with me about the culture we have here at STA and how so many of you reflect gratitude through your own attitude and actions.

For example, on Monday we will officially launch our Opportunity Fare pilot program. This reduced fare program is aimed at low-income riders. Staff have been working diligently since the Board approved this fare program back in July to make applying for this fare as low barrier as possible. We want everyone to have a good customer experience. A new reduced fare application is going live in conjunction with this that will make the application process easier for all our reduced fare customers. These changes are based on feedback from you – the employees of STA who interact with our customers daily. You genuinely care for our riders, and your feedback has helped us hopefully make this a successful launch for these customers.

So on this Thanksgiving, I have gratitude for you and your desire to make things better and help us achieve our vision of connecting everyone to opportunity. The name of this fare category was intentional; opportunity is defined by Oxford as a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something. It’s not lost on me that December 1 also happens to be #RosaParksDay, and the 70th anniversary of the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus. I have so much gratitude that one small act of defiance ignited a movement – yet another set of circumstances that made it possible to connect everyone to opportunity.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and yours, and an extra special dose of gratitude to those working this holiday to make sure our customers make it safely to their destination. Words cannot express how much you are appreciated.