TransLink makes changes at the top
Posted July 14, 2015 11:19 am.
Last Updated July 14, 2015 8:42 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Some big changes have been made at TransLink today, with the firing of two top-level executives.
Doug Kelsey, who is the man in charge of the Expo and Millennium line SkyTrains, is no longer there.
Executive VP Bob Paddon has also been let go; his position has been eliminated entirely.
Jordan Bateman, who led the “no” campaign in the transportation tax plebiscite, believes the firings are all because the public sent a message that they wanted change.
“This is an organization that’s now going through a major house cleaning, thanks to voters telling them to fix TransLink. We came in with a completely full executive suite of people who would run TransLink for several years. Now, at the end of the vote, most of them are gone,” says Bateman.
“I’m hoping that new people come in and do things differently. Clearly, you can’t teach these old dogs new tricks. The public was demanding something of them that they weren’t prepared to – or able to – deliver for whatever reason. Now’s the time to change the corporate culture,” he adds.
Interim CEO Doug Allen’s contract is up in August; when that’s done, CFO Cathy McLay will take over until a permanent hire is made. She will also continue in her current role and responsibilities as the executive sponsor for Compass.
Mike Richard has been named acting president and general manager of BC Rapid Transit Company.
Werner Antweiler with UBC doesn’t believe the organization will be saving a lot of money with the firings because replacements will still be costly. But he does think a positive change could come in a shift in power. “There will be an overhaul in the governance structure and the bottom line has to be that the province and the mayors have to come together to find a solution that’s viable and that supported from both sides.”
“[It] needs to be a model where the province and the mayors work together to find solutions and currently we’ve always had a situation where either the mayors were controlling it or the province and there has been too little co-operation,” he adds.
Although it faces other issues such as SkyTrain disruptions and the roll out of the compass card, he doesn’t think these are major problems in comparison to how TransLink is run.
