 Aloha. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii, Moving Hawaii Forward. I'm Tim Appichella, your host. Today, we will talk about rush hour traffic during the hours of 6 to 10 in the morning. Our gridlock is due to the fact that everyone is trying to get on the road at the same time, trying to either get to work or to school. The question is, should employers or the University of Hawaii have an obligation to be part of the traffic solution? Since 1991, Washington State employers were asked to do just that, be a part of the traffic solution. The Washington State Commute Reduction Law was passed by the legislature to address major employers in the state who employed over 100 full-time employees and those employees that arrived to the work site between the hours of 6 and 9 in the morning. Today's show will look at what employers have done over the years to address and improve rush hour traffic. With me today, representing one of those employers is Mike Wash, director at the Boeing Company. Mike, thank you very much for coming on the show. I appreciate it. It's my pleasure, Tim. Thanks for having me. Mike, you've been with Boeing for quite a few years and in the past, you actually were responsible for the Boeing Commute Program. And a part of that was handling everything from all the program elements to interacting with the legislature, to interacting with all the jurisdictions in the various cities where Boeing had its sites. So let me ask you the first question. Boeing's been at this for a long time, involved with employees' commutes to all the Boeing sites, be it down in Renton, where the old Boeing warplanes were produced or up in Everett, where the 777 was produced or is still produced. Would you tell me a little bit of history in its Boeing Commute Program? Sure, Tim. So Boeing actually started our first vanpool rideshare program right after the United States entered World War II. And the reason we had to do that was at that time, most of the men were away fighting in the war, and most of the employees in our factories were female. And due to the scarcity of fuel and a lot of other factors, they set up the very first vanpool program. So it was actually set up in 1941 and became the forerunner because even after the war ended, people liked it. And so we always had a pretty core group of employees who wanted to keep that program alive. And it stayed along for probably, well, through the 40s and 50s. And then into the late 60s, it became a little more organized. And in the 70s, we actually bought our own fleet of vans. And they were assigned to employees based on where they worked. And a van captain would be appointed who would be responsible for driving everybody to work. And it remained pretty much intact through the late 80s when the Boeing company wanted to get out of the maintenance of that fleet because it was pretty labor intensive. And we actually granted the remaining 99 vehicles to King County Metro. That's wild. So before the Washington State enacted the Washington State Commutrip Reduction Law back in 1991, you guys had a 40 to 50 year head start on them. Well, it was out of necessity. We needed to keep the military aircraft coming out of the factories at a furious pace. And we also had to keep our female employees happy and showing up to work rested and ready to go to work and hit the ground running because, as you can imagine, work was pretty intense back then because it was a national effort to win a war. Right. But one of the things that we learned even back then is they arrived better rested. It saved them money. And they hit the ground running as soon as they got through the gates of the factory. So that mindset really, really stayed with us pretty much forever and is still here today. Yeah, you just hit on a really important point. In fact, I was leading into my next question to you is that when you're in gridlock and you're by yourself, you know, it's kind of assumed that you have the radio on, maybe you're listening to music. And, you know, for whatever reason, some folks out there thinks that could be rather relaxing. But really, it's really stressful because you have to, you know, step on your break at a moment's notice. And that's not relaxing. That's the stress filled for the entire time you're on the roadway bumper to bumper. So the fact that people were arriving to work and building planes that won the war probably had a chance to either take a little snap before work or just relax or do whatever. Well, they did Tim. And in today's modern world, it's even more remarkable because what they tell us is that while they're in their van or their car pool or riding the bus or riding the train from South County all the way up, you know, to Everett, they have a chance to get in their laptop and work on email and, you know, relax on social media, check up on Facebook, do things that they can't do if they're driving because they don't have to concentrate. That's a good point, Mike. Okay, let me ask you this. Well, you just mentioned some of them, some of the positive impacts of the Boeing program. Did you see other positive impacts that the Boeing transportation program had with its employees? I think some were financial, but other maybe intangible aspects? Well, we did. And it actually created a situation where we built upon the things that they told us that they wanted to continue, which we're showing off being able to, you know, not have to worry about the cost and expense of maintaining a vehicle for commuting, but also being able to arrive at work rested. So as a result of that, we started these employee service centers where they could bring some dry cleaning and drop it off and have it delivered back to the workplace. We beefed up our cafeteria system probably tenfold so that they could stay at work, get a nutritious meal at reasonable cost, and not even have to leave. And all of those things are things that they told us that they wanted to augment the commuter assistance program. And those things are still in existence today. They're working quite well. So I didn't even know that. I didn't know that as a part of your regular commuter reproduction program. That sounds like something that Boeing took the time and money to expand upon. And I don't remember you guys counting that for official recognition. We didn't. It's an evolution. The bottom line is if they show up to work and they're well rested and they're eager to put in a really good productive day at work, we win as a company because a happy employee is a more productive employee. Well, let's talk about employers and kind of the nature of this show. And that is employers involvement with trying to be part of the solution with gridlock and particularly gridlock during the rush hour. Back in 1991, Mike, as you well know, Washington State was trying to address the Federal Clean Air Act. And rather than employ impugnative measures against employers, particularly those that had more of an industrial nature behind them, they addressed the other part of the equation. That was what were the emissions from automobiles. And so as a result, in 1991, Washington State passed the commuter reproduction law. And the law, as you know, Mike, was addressed for to address those employers that employed 100 employees or more full time that arrived the work site between six and nine in the morning and arrived 52 weeks out of the year minus vacation. So remember those days, Mike? And what was your recollection about what Boeing was doing just before the implementation of the law and then when the law was enacted by the legislature? Well, it's interesting you brought that up because we started our subsidy before the law was enacted because even back in the late 80s, there was some talk that something was going to be formalized. And you don't ever want to be the holdout for something that's good for the region. And, you know, since Boeing had already had its vanpool fleet, we were used to doing stuff that helped our employees. But we really honestly didn't pay much attention to what it did for the region. And what it did was it took cars off the road. And that just speeds up everybody commute time. So, you know, it's not only a good idea for our employees, but it's also a good idea for the company because being such a large employer, we can get blamed for a lot of things. And why be known for being part of the problem with traffic congestion when you can be a huge part of the solution? So in 89, there was a young gentleman, a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young professional named Robert Throckmorton, who approached me when I was named as the first Boeing commuter assistance program manager. And he suggested that we think about a subsidy. And so what we did before we actually formalized it is we picked a couple of bus routes from South King County up into the Seattle area. And we offered them a temporary subsidy for six months to see what would happen. And Bob said, we've got to provide bait. And I said, well, what do you mean by bait? We're giving them a subsidy. And he said, no, no, we need to give them food. And I said, like, what? He said, well, they're going to be getting up early to get on these buses. So we bought a whole bunch of donuts. And Bob and I went down to the Kent Space Center at about four o'clock in the morning and we had a full bus. And we didn't really know what to do because we ran out of donuts. And I said, you know, Bob, I think we've got something here. It built and built and built. And we kept up the donuts and the temporary subsidy for a couple of months. And then finally we thought, okay, we've got to formalize this. So I was able to sell it to my superiors and they thought, let's continue it on a test basis. And then the company bought it off and went company-wide in 1990. And we started off with $15 and then it grew to $25 a month subsidy. And then I guess because the state was impressed with some of the efforts we had made, Booth Gardener named me to that commuter production task force. Yeah, I remember that. So, Mike, what I'm hearing here is that potentially the improvement of traffic here on Oahu specifically in Honolulu may be the power of Malasada's. Pay us three people. Maybe some spam with Subi. Four in the morning is a little bit too early for me, but maybe not for some others. But well, Mike, let's talk about some of the basic elements of commuter production law and some of the obligations that employers technically were required to participate with. And that was number one, to appoint an employee transportation coordinator. Someone who is identified at the work site is to be the focal person of employees' questions or comments about commute and or their transportation benefits. They were required to create a program that addressed a number of elements. Initially, it wasn't many, but Boeing already had theirs in place or some of them in place that would provide incentives and incentives enough for the employee to consider leaving the car in the driveway and getting on public transportation or carpool or something like that to avoid that single occupancy vehicle trip on the freeway. They're also required to advertise the program once a year. And I know you guys did a lot of work marketing your program. Marketing is never a task that's ever completed. It's ongoing. And I know Boeing spent a lot of time and resources doing just that. And then last, some of the basic things they required to do is every two years, and this was a big issue for Boeing, every two years they're required to survey all their affected employees that arrive between six and nine in the morning. You remember those days, Mike? I remember them very well, like they were yesterday. Which one was the particular challenge? I'm going to guess it was trying to survey. I think at the time in 1991-92, Boeing and just in the Puget Sound region had somewhere upwards to 105,000 to 107,000 employees that didn't include contractors. Yeah, actually it was closer to 200,000 back then. It was incredible. That's a lot of surveys. Yeah, well the reason why we couldn't survey at that time was because of our union rules. Every person who would be taken away from their factory job or their guest job would have had to have filled out a cell call card and had a job number to charge to. And that's just the way that our relationship with the unions worked. And so we realized it would have been cost prohibitive to actually open up everybody to fill out a survey. So we lobbied the local municipalities to allow us to do alternative data. And I remember I invited them all in to our own internal commuter committee, and they all sat around the table and we discussed what we were going to do. And we had to make sure that we proved it to their satisfaction that it would in fact provide useful data. And they agreed that it would. And a lot of the reasons why it would is because we had so many people that the sample size was valid. It probably would be a lot harder if you have 25 employees, but we had six figures worth of employees. And so they bought that off and then that worked for quite a while. And then later on the company figured out a way to actually do a survey and they do that now. But that was a major hurdle. And I think that that was a real feather in all of our caps, you know, Boeing's other private employers and also the public transit agencies for putting aside the expectation that we had to do the survey and understanding that we had some unique challenges in allowing us to do alternative data at that time. Right. Okay. Well, hang on to that thought. We're going to take a quick break. And then I want to address some of the value of establishing a baseline of what employees are doing. And then after the efforts of a community trip reduction program, getting either alternative data or survey data to see how you measure progress. So we're going to be right back. I'm Tim Apachele, your host, and this is Moving Hawaii Forward. Aloha. My name is Carl Campania. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers. I hope you join us as we take a deep dive into biofuels in Hawaii over the coming weeks and the alternative fuel supply chains necessary for the local and global transition towards transportation fuel sustainability. We are going to invite in and we will have significant interviews with various stakeholders, including our producers, which are our farmers and our scientists, our conversion technologies, including Tara Viva, who we'll see in two weeks, as well as our consumers. Within there, we're also going to have the investor groups necessary to make sure that this can advance. So I do hope you join us as we explore our deep dive into biofuels in Hawaii. Welcome back. I'm Tim Apachele, and this is Moving Hawaii Forward. Today we're talking about employer programs and how they are trying to help reduce and be part of the solution to traffic problems here in Honolulu. With me today is Mike Wash. He's director of the Boeing Company. And Mike, we were just talking before the break about surveying employees or gathering alternative data. I know that was a real pain for all employers in the Seattle Pew to Sound area and even across the state in the Spokane area. Do you think ultimately that was a worthwhile effort? And was there something to be gained from all the data? Well, there was, Tim, because we needed to establish a baseline. And one of the things that gave us a bit of a head start was because we did start our subsidy earlier in 1990. And so we had done our first baseline survey in 90, not an employee survey, but I guess you would call it more of a site-by-site transportation audit to see who was either getting a bus pass and getting it subsidized, who was in a van pool, who was in a car pool, and then assess that against the site population and their shift. The bulk of the people, even to this day, are still on first shift, which is going to start anywhere from 5.30 in the morning up to 9.30 in the morning, depending on your individual micro shift within the first shift. But enough of that technical crap, the bottom line is we had to give them data that made sense and was valid. And we were able to bring them in, and we sat down and had a very long, very heated session. I mean, it did become a pretty heated session because they wanted it done one way, and we couldn't do it that way. So we had to approach them as partners. And being the largest employer in the region, people tend to call us the 800-pound gorilla in the room. And I wanted to make sure that we didn't maintain that reputation because without King County Metro, without Kitsap Transit and Community Transit and Pierce Transit and all of our partners, we would not be successful because we had to do a lot of specialty bus lines. In fact, we had a lot of them with King County Metro. We called them custom buses back then where we would have a population that needed to get from their home turf to their work site, and we would pay Metro under contract a certain amount of money to make sure that those buses operated depending on Boeing's site needs. And they did it. Yes, we had to put a little bit of money up front, but if we didn't have the partnership, they wouldn't have even attempted that. So I think that it really is important to keep in mind that the public and the private sector have got to work together because if they don't, then everybody's hackles get raised and people go back to their office and they think they're not listening to us. And that's the worst thing that could happen because you haven't taken anybody out of traffic that way. Well, Mike, you're raising a really great point because I'd love to see employers get more involved with programs such as what Boeing has or Microsoft, all the major employers in the Puget Sound area, Seattle area. There seems to be a reluctance of the legislature to involve employers. I'm sure they think that they have enough to do as it is, and adding one more regulatory act to their plate would probably be maybe it's going to be excessive. But that was the success of community trip reduction that still continues to be the success of community trip reduction law is they cooperate a partnership between the agencies that are required to implement it versus the employees that are required to adhere to the law and without that partnership and assistance from folks from all the different agencies and grant dollars from various agencies. I'm not sure the program would have been successful. I remember back in the early nineties, there was something called Reg 15 in California that had very strict regulatory mandates to all employers in California. And it was a horrendous law involved financial penalties of twenty twenty five thousand dollars. I think there was even mention of jail time for CEOs that failed to comply with the law. And it was a nightmare. And ultimately, President Clinton repealed that law. And so it was amazing that community trip reduction law was passed in legislature, given the horrible experience in California. Do you recall the the days when it was just coming out that the legislature was going to pass this law that would affect not only the Boeing company, but every other major employer in the future sound area? I do because I got a lot of calls from people at other companies around here. In fact, I got mildly headhunted by Microsoft to go over and start their program. I declined, which was probably not a smart move in my part because I would have been retired as a multimillionaire stock option guy. But after 30 years at Boeing, I'm glad I stayed here, too. That's good. You know, one thing that happened to him is when I was named to that task force, I really to this day consider it a real feather in my company's cap in my personal cap. And in people like yourself, who I work with on the public side, because we never approached it as an adversarial relationship. I mean, really, that's a silly way to go because we all live here. And you know, the people living in the Honolulu area and all over Oahu, they all live there, but they have to work together to solve that problem because I know what that traffic's like. I've driven from Makakilo to Waikiki. I know what that nightmare can be like, but people have got to talk, they've got to come together and they've got to find a mutual solution. And the employer can play a huge role. And they've got to find that that gentle balance of, you know, public help, public specialists who can work with the employer in the employer's language, because I bet people approach me with, you know, a verbal hammer and tell me that I had to do stuff. And I worked for a pretty cranky old guy, if you remember Mr. Alan Ashworth, and he would not listen to them. And so I'd say, okay, well, Alan, let's try this. And I basically had to go rogue a few times and try some stuff that he may not have liked. And maybe he's even listening to this. I think he's about 88 years old now, but he's probably listening. So when we started that subsidy and then we started the custom bus lines, we started getting some local notice and a couple of awards. And then we got something to brag about. It's like, see Alan, this is a good thing. And then he loosened his grip and let me have the free reign to work deals with you and Throckmorton and other people to get more people out of their cars. And then when I was appointed to that task force, you know, people made a couple cracks up front. They thought I was going to walk in there as the Boeing guy and start telling everybody what to do. And I remember one guy said, you know, we're going to knock you out of your ivory tower, come out down off of your high horse. But to make a lot of stories short, after two years of that, they nominated me to run the policy and guidelines subcommittee. And it was a 23 person task force, 17 of those people were on my subcommittee. And then they gave me an award in, I think 99. I remember that I had a flight. And for my work, helping the state, you know, mitigate traffic congestion. So that's something I'm really proud of. And if there's one little sound bite I could give, that would be to make sure that you've got people over there in the public sector who can work with the private sector in their own language. Go after them with a verbal hammer, go after them with partnership and with a real willingness to help them solve the problem. Glad you gave that sound bit because I'll never forget on some administrative executives from EPA came up to me and said, how is it that you are approaching these employers and getting the successes you are getting with trip reduction? And my answer was very, very simple. It's about establishing trust that as an agency, be it my agency or any other public transit agency, we're not there to hit the employer over the head with a regulatory hammer, but it's establishing trust and being involved as a partner as we all move forward trying to reduce traffic. And that's a point I'd love to make to the legislature here in Hawaii, to the city and county, to the mayor's office is that we can make a difference, but we can't go about it in a regulatory heavy handed methodology. Has to be cooperative and quite frankly, both sides have to see it's in their best interest to employ some of these strategies. We don't have a lot of time left, Mike, but I'm just going to go down a very quick cursory list of what employers can do to help their employees make the commute a lot easier and or just leave their car in the driveway. As you've already said, Boeing Company has offered subsidies for transit, for the bus, for rail, for van pools. Employers could also offer subsidies for car pools. That may not be tax deductible, but it's actually, I think it is now in Washington state. I think they are now looking at car pools. Employers can make subsidies available for those who bike to work, who walk to work. They can provide a program was called Guaranteed Right Home. And I think Boeing did this, Mike. I think you guys partook in this, where you ensure in a given calendar year that employee may be eligible for a taxi ride home. Just in case if one of the children were called sick and they have to go to the doctor and we have a parent at the company that says, I need to get home. And I left my car in the driveway. So what do I do? Well, I'm going to get a guaranteed ride home via a taxi ride. So there's guaranteed ride home programs. There's something that Boeing put, participated in. And I think you guys removed thousands and thousands of trips off the road. And that was a telework community program. You want to step in real quick about that, Mike, and tell me about that? You bet, because I myself participate in it. I'm an executive in this company. And every Friday I work virtually from my home office to reduce two trips to and from work that day. So even though I'm not actively engaged in that program anymore, I still do my part. You know, Tim, the funny thing is, is that if an employer engages in a community production program for their people, their people are going to have three benefits. They're going to be happier and less stressed. Let's roll that into one benefit. They're going to be more productive and they save money. But the employer has an enhanced reputation, because now they're seen as part of the solution and not part of the ongoing problem. Good point, Mike. I mean, it's such a win-win. It's almost silly. That's a great point, Mike. We've got about only about a minute left. And I'm going to ask you the question. Here in Hawaii, things are different. You know, we don't have a regulatory hammer to employ. And thank goodness we don't. Do you think there would be an advantage for employers here in the Honolulu area that would either on a voluntary basis or even regulatory? How do you think they would perceive the state and the city asking them to participate in efforts to reduce traffic? Well, if they were asked, they would probably have a favorable reaction. If they were told, they would probably have a negative reaction. And maybe they should be given an opportunity to step up to the plate, because the state may be surprised at how many of them want to comply. Think about it. I mean, the traffic over there is getting worse every single day. And if a company had, let's just say there was a voluntary program and the company could have a sticker in the front window of their office that said, we're part of, you know, Honolulu traffic reduction or whatever it's called. It's almost like being a green company in the Pacific Northwest. It's something that they can point to and say, look, we're trying to help the situation. We're not part of the problem. We're trying to be part of the solution. It can evolve. It can start up voluntary and then it can become regulatory or at least voluntary with some measures so they can see the actual progress. Yeah. I think that's a good point, Mike. And I appreciate your time today. That's all the time we have for today. So, Mike, thank you. And I appreciate the Boeing company taking the time out to appear on this show. That's Moving Hawaii Forward. I'm Tim Apachella and I'll see you next Tuesday.