Mission: To build a well-funded, well-used and integrated transit system
Assets: More than 20 years’ experience grappling with financial issues at the GVRD and TransLink
Yield: A strong, local reputation for being a no-nonsense straight shooter
By Joel McKay
When Ian Jarvis was named interim CEO of TransLink last November, two words ran through his mind – “Holy Mackerel!”
Granted, the 55-year-old executive had been with TransLink since its inception and probably knew its books better than anyone, but trouble was afoot.
First, Victoria had taken a microscope to the transportation authority’s finances with a comptroller general report that found “significant operational issues” within TransLink that pointed to “substantial operating deficits” in the near future.
Second, the 2010 Winter Olympics were only weeks away with the promise that tens of thousands of athletes, officials and partygoers would strain Metro Vancouver’s transportation system like never before.
To top it off, there was no promise that Jarvis would still have the job a few months down the road.
“It was kind of a blur actually, right through the Olympic period,” he said. “We were very, very busy.”
Jarvis’ first order of business was to trim his executive.
That meant eliminating approximately half a dozen vice-president and directorial positions.
A year before, TransLink had come under fire when news reports revealed that some of its executives had received 90% pay raises.
The elimination of those senior positions was a decision Jarvis didn’t take lightly, but he said it was a necessary step to deal with the organization’s structural deficit.
“That was December … and then we went right into the Olympics. Virtually everyone was out of the office. This place was empty for 17 days as we pulled out all the stops to meet the requirements.”
Fortunately, an aggressive plan that asked locals to avoid the roads, use transit or carpool during the Games paid off, Jarvis said.
TransLink moved an average of 1.6 million people per day during the first week of the Olympics without any major hiccups. The success of Metro Vancouver’s transit system during the Games prompted Time magazine to call it “scarily efficient.”
“Failure was not an option,” said Jarvis.
In February, the powers that be scrapped the “interim” from Jarvis’ title and handed him the reins to steer the organization into the future.
The decision was based on his “deep and long experience” in the organization, an asset his peers are quick to point out.
“The real problem with TransLink was a finance one, a lack of funds, so I was extremely pleased when the board appointed him,” recalled former Vancouver city councillor and TransLink’s first chairman George Puil. “He’s a very astute person, a very quiet person, very knowledgeable, very thorough and to me, that’s exactly what TransLink needed.”
Former TransLink CEO Pat Jacobsen agreed.
“He is someone that you really trust,” said Jacobsen. “He always has his facts. He has [the] great sense of balance required in a tough job like TransLink … and then he’s got this big financial strength.”
For Jarvis, the appointment was perhaps the crowning achievement of a career that, if measured in time, spanned decades.
On the contrary, if that same career were measured in terms of distance it would come up oddly short.
Jarvis’ office in Burnaby’s MetroTower II is only a few blocks from where he grew up.
He was born in the mid-1950s, the youngest of four boys in a blue-collar family. He attended Burnaby South secondary, and with no small amount of pressure from his parents (he’s the only son with Grade 12) went on to the University of British Columbia for a bachelor of commerce degree.
Jarvis was shy as a young man, and it wasn’t until he became a chartered accountant and was sent out in the field to audit other people’s books that he learned the importance of people skills.
“When I was in university, I didn’t want to take any arts courses or communications. I just wanted to take economics and financing and accounting,” he said. “Then when you get out into the world, you find out what makes you successful is how you relate to people, so when I got out I learned how to work with people.”
He spent several years in private practice before he joined what was then the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD, now Metro Vancouver) in 1986. His work involved budget planning and crunching numbers, a skill he believes is crucial to any organization’s success because it “transcends all issues.”
In the mid-1990s, Jarvis was promoted to CFO, but the real test began a few years later when TransLink was created.
From its inception in 1999, Jarvis held dual roles as CFO for both the GVRD and TransLink.
But two years into the job, the shared service became too much, and Jarvis made a full-time switch to TransLink amid a labour dispute and failed vehicle transit levy.
“I came to TransLink and people said, ‘Why the hell are you going to TransLink?’” he recalled. “The reason is [two-fold]. One is transportation need, what we do has such an impact on people’s lives, and, two, is the people. We have an unbelievable organization in terms of people who are committed to plan smartly and integrate the system.”
And that’s the legacy he wants to leave behind: an integrated transportation network. That means finding consensus among a collection of Lower Mainland communities and three levels of government to ensure that TransLink’s road, rail and bus networks run smoothly.
But after five years of aggressive expansion, which included the addition of the Canada Line and Golden Ears Bridge and significant bus expansion, Jarvis said TransLink would focus on organizational issues in the near term.
In other words, money.
Although first-quarter results for 2010 turned a $10 million projected deficit into a $24 million surplus, TransLink still has a structural deficit to contend with.
Organizational issues aside, the transportation authority plans to have the long-awaited Evergreen Line to the Tri-Cities in service by 2014, even though a $400 million funding shortfall has yet to be resolved.
Still, Jacobsen, having dealt with her own funding issues during her tenure as CEO, believes Jarvis’ financial savvy and experience gathering consensus among stakeholders at the GVRD might be exactly what TransLink needs.
“The operations part of TransLink is not the challenge,” Jacobsen said. “The challenge for all CEOs … is how you knit priorities together across these political bodies. I think he will do well on all these accounts because he’s a straight shooter.”