保罗•汉密尔顿

保罗·汉密尔顿是故意上公共交通的——但这并不是事先计划好的. The moment that changed the direction of his professional life happened at 20 years old, 当印第安纳大学, 布卢明顿大学二年级的学生在校外宿舍里闲逛，登记下学期的课程, seeking just one more elective that would provide enough credit hours to retain his student loan. 汉密尔顿 found himself in the business school line where he was presented with an option that met on Monday and Wednesday afternoons: T300 – Introduction to Transportation. 他报名参加了.

“我对班上提出的任何问题都持开放态度，”汉密尔顿说. “我不是勉强参加的. 那是我最喜欢的课程.”

领导汉密尔顿第一堂交通课的魅力教授, 乔治Smerk, 是该领域受人尊敬的领导者，也是全国知名的学者, writing some of the earliest books on the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, 也就是后来的联邦运输管理局. 斯默克也成了汉密尔顿的导师, putting “the idea into my head that public transportation is something I might want to do with my life,汉密尔顿说.

在学习了三个学期的交通运输之后, 汉密尔顿心里想, “除了这个行业，我不可能去别的地方. 我喜欢这个.”

汉密尔顿, RTD的辅助交通服务高级经理, says he is a person of many interests who has “a handful of things that really interest me.他说，他和一个朋友去跳蚤市场，有人告诉他, “保罗, 你带太多东西回家了. 作为一个农民，他有一个谷仓，有很多地方可以储存它, 我可以告诉你，这是我妻子很久以前建议的, 选择一两个你真正关心的事情, 然后收集这些.汉密尔顿认为这是明智的建议.

专业, his interests include transit – an industry he entered in the mid-1980s – and food service. 年轻的时候, 汉密尔顿 worked at two major grocery stores and loved engaging with customers while sampling produce, 手里拿着削皮刀. 他说，他很乐意在退休后回到这样的工作岗位.

工作之余, 汉密尔顿 has long been interested in large-format photography and has photographed live music performances, 包括西南偏南, the internationally known conference and festivals for which he volunteered for many years. 他还喜欢长距离骑自行车. 当他到家时, 他说, “there is nothing bad in my head that day that hasn’t been worked out on the bicycle trip.”

汉密尔顿 grew up in Kentucky and carries a wanderlust that came from moving around often as a child, 父亲是海军，经常出海. 因为他的父母靠军事收入生活, 他说, they didn’t have a lot of money to spend – but they could afford gas and inexpensive motels. 假期时，他的家人开车到全国各地旅行, 包括落基山脉和埃斯蒂斯公园. 作为一个孩子, 他说, “I did not know how stereotypical it isn't for people not to have seen much of the country.”

汉密尔顿’s fondest memories from childhood include debating his mother on various topics while she prepared dinner, 换一边运动, and watching his grandfather converse with strangers as though they were dear friends.

Life experiences have affirmed that “we’re all more similar than we are different,” 汉密尔顿 said. “If you talk with people long enough, you’re probably going to find something that you both agree on. 如果你能在与人交谈时专注于这些事情, 你总是会和他们相处得更好.”

汉密尔顿’s career in transit began after college graduation – and after he and his wife moved to a Navajo reservation in Arizona for a student teaching appointment she received, bringing 汉密尔顿 out west for the first time as an adult and showing him how beautifully remote the region was. 实习结束后，他们回到了印第安纳州, 汉密尔顿去了五月花运输公司工作, 在美国各地运输货物. The logistics of moving things instead of people work more or less the same way as a transit agency trying to build a network of fixed-route buses that serve people within its service area, 汉密尔顿所观察到的.

他喜欢和公司的司机聊天, 其中一人试图用“如果”的问题来测试这位相对较新的员工. 汉密尔顿把话题转回到车手身上，问他会怎么做. 他说, “你知道吗?, 这么多年来我一直在搬运货物, 从来没有人问过我这个问题,’”汉密尔顿回忆道. 他的回答很好. And that was the point: that it was important to him that someone took the time to listen. And from my standpoint, you might learn more if you listen than if you do all the talking.”

汉密尔顿 thinks about the relevancy of this anecdote as it applies to advocacy groups that transit agencies work with. “我们不可能解决所有问题, 我们不可能一直让每个人都开心, 但如果我们倾听, we may find opportunities to point to successes by seeing things that they suggest and realizing one, 我们可以做到, 和两个, 这将使我们的系统更好,他说. “第三，我们应该这么做.”

在五月花公司工作之后, 汉密尔顿接到了另一位导师打来的改变他一生的电话, Schauer彼得, 汉密尔顿参加过的研究生讲习班的负责人. Schauer referenced a conversation the two had had in which 汉密尔顿 spoke about his love of the West – and asked whether 汉密尔顿 indeed was interested in returning to the region. “当然，”汉密尔顿告诉Schauer. 然后，他给了我一份工作描述，让我去风河保护区, 怀俄明的交通系统刚刚启动.汉密尔顿在那里待了七年.

汉密尔顿称他在保留地所做的工作是他最自豪的事情, 我带着一份服务计划草案来了，而且没有公共汽车, 司机或路线. “不仅是启动和运行它很有趣,他说, “但这很有趣，因为我知道这个系统幸存了下来, 它今天仍然存在.”

从那里, 汉密尔顿前往德克萨斯, 他在奥斯汀附近的一家乡村交通公司工作, oversaw the shuttle system at Texas State University in San Marcos and managed paratransit service for Capital Metro in Austin. 他于2018年加入RTD，担任副公交服务高级经理, 监督包括Access-a-Ride在内的选项, a shared-ride public transportation service intended for those who cannot use RTD’s fixed-route bus and light rail services.

谈到他做这项工作所感到的满足感, 汉密尔顿说, “这项服务一直不仅仅是为了运输. I don't know anyone, including myself, who doesn’t also see it about a daily connection with people. 我们经常是客户的社交生命线，也是他们的交通提供者.”

He thinks about paratransit as more than the civil right that it is – he sees it as “transporting solutions that involve people.” Providing grocery delivery to Access-a-Ride customers during the pandemic is one example. Another is a recently announced pilot for on-demand service through collaboration with Uber.

“If we can make our service better for our riders, we have happier riders,汉密尔顿说. “他们会更爱我们, 必要的时候他们会利用我们的, and we’re going to be there for them more often because we have more money to do more.”

汉密尔顿 says his experiences in life and work have shown him to be resilient and a problem-solver. Challenges lead you to become resourceful and self-taught out of necessity, he notes. He worked with smaller transit agencies that were within close range of bankruptcy and successfully sought funding to keep the system running. 当组织能够独立运作时, 他说, 你可以指着那个说, 我们都帮助实现了这一目标.”

汉密尔顿 notes that his professional worlds have not come together – except in one way he has noticed. 在运输和食品服务行业, 他说, 他观察到人们淡化了某些立场. “不存在‘只是一名车手’这样的事情，”汉密尔顿强调说. “这可能是一个切入点, 也适用于一些较小的交通系统，比如我来自的那个, 有一天你可能会成为经理, 第二天你可能就是调度员, 司机, 助理技工.

“你做任何需要做的事，因为这就是你应该做的.”