Derrick Wojcik-Damers is the new general manager of Twin Transit. He started in his role on Monday, Jan. 8.
Twin Transit’s new general manager plans to bring his big city experience to Lewis County to continue the transportation agency’s mission of serving all demographics of the population.
Derrick Wojcik-Damers started in his new role on Monday, Jan. 8.
Born and raised in Chehalis, Wojcik-Damers graduated from W.F. West in 1993 and later moved to Denver, Colorado, where he obtained his degree in business administration from the University of Colorado.
He worked at Denver’s regional transportation district, progressed through the ranks and then in 2016 became the senior contractor services technician for Transdev.
Once he learned about the opening at Twin Transit after former general manager Rob LaFontaine accepted a position at Intercity Transit in Olympia, Wojcik-Damers applied, hoping to move back to Lewis County.
His Lewis County roots provide him with a unique perspective on the population, while his time in Denver provides expertise on a large urban transit system. Recognizing the Twin Cities are vastly different from the sprawling city of Denver, Wojcik-Damers said he understands that not everything that works there will be successful here. But it does give him the ability to bring a different viewpoint to the area.
“It’s a fresh perspective,” he said. “Sometimes big city challenges are the same in a small town.”
Wojcik-Damers never thought he’d be employed in the transportation field, but now he couldn’t imagine working in any other industry.
When he first started at RTD, it was as a bus operator. According to Wojcik-Damers, the 2001 recession hit Colorado hard. He had been working as a business analyst, but needed to find work elsewhere.
“I was just looking for a job,” he said. “Now I can’t imagine working anywhere else.”
With 16 years of experience with transit agencies, he said a perk of the job is that he never experiences the same day twice. Working with the public is rewarding, he said.
“We make a positive impact on their lives and it is entertaining,” Wojcik-Damers said.
What makes a transportation agency such as Twin Transit unique is that it serves every demographic. While some people decide to take the bus to forgo using their car, for others it’s a necessity.
Now at the helm of Twin Transit, Wojcik-Damers outlined his three major goals: to finish the development of a transit center on North Pearl Street, to continue looking into a countywide transit system and to reassess the current operations of the agency and find efficiencies.
Twin Transit has hired a development firm to design architectural drawings for the new transit hub to determine how much money the project will cost.
Two buildings on the northwest corner of Pearl and Maple streets in downtown Centralia were demolished last year to clear room for the center, which will create a unified hub for bus service when built.
The Twin Transit Board of Directors is currently assessing a variety of different ways to fund the project after the agency received less grant funding than it had hoped.
Wojcik-Damers said the completion may be as far out as 2021, or even later, but he said it will happen one way or another.
As for a countywide transit system, that will ultimately rely on a vote of the people. Lewis Mountain Highway Transit will no longer operate bus routes in East Lewis County after 2019. That will lead to a gap in service that Twin Transit hopes to fill.
“There’s a segment of the population that will not have service and that’s a concern,” Wojcik-Damers said.
Twin Transit has hired a consultant to assess the possibility of an expansion.
The agency is also undergoing an assessment of its current routes to gauge on-time performance and route efficiency. Wojcik-Damers stated he couldn’t comment on the changes that may result from the assessment because it’s still too early, but he said recommendations are expected in May.
Wojcik-Damers has an open-ended contract that will be evaluated in six months and then again one year after his start date. After that, his performance metrics will be analyzed on an annual basis.
“We are here to serve the people of Lewis County the best we can,” he said, encouraging folks to attend the monthly board of directors meetings.
