As a child growing up on Saint Paul’s East Side, Steve Jaeger liked to imagine himself as a bus driver, using a circular piano stool for a steering wheel and his sister and her dolls as his passengers. Later in life, he didn’t have to imagine. After seeing an ad in the paper, he applied for and got a job shuttling commuters between Cottage Grove and St. Paul, traveling along Highway 61 while trying not to get caught at one of the road's many stoplights. Between those early morning and afternoon runs, he also drove school and charter buses. In 1975, after the company he was working for sold its fixed routes, he moved to the Metropolitan Transit Commission, starting what would become a 47-year career with the organization (which later became Metro Transit). Jaeger retired in September 2022 as the agency’s longest-serving transportation manager.

At first, Jaeger wasn’t sure he wanted to come to the MTC. But with two young daughters, the benefits were too good to pass up. After the change, he found himself navigating unfamiliar streets in Minneapolis for the first time. “If I lost sight of the Foshay Tower, I was lost,” Jaeger recalled. But his comfort level grew and, after two years, he was recognized as someone who was capable of doing more. With some encouragement, he applied for and was offered a role as a dispatcher at the Shingle Creek Garage (now Ruter Garage). Not long after that, he was pushed to apply for an assistant transportation manager role, a position he held at the old Nicollet, Snelling, Northside, and Heywood garages. Opportunity knocked again when a garage manager position opened. Convinced that it wouldn’t hurt to try, he applied and, to his surprise, got the job.

As a manager, Jaeger spent several years at Shingle Creek and Heywood before being transferred to South. At the time, he wasn’t especially excited about the change. One conversation with a terminally ill operator who came to him seeking faith and wisdom changed all that. “You could have knocked me over with a feather,” he said, remembering the meeting. “I said, ‘Now I know I am where I am for a reason.’” Though not every relationship was quite as profound, the opportunity to make an impact in other peoples’ lives, he said, is what sustained him as a manager over his 35-plus years in the position. To encourage operators, Jaeger liked to pull out a pair of golden handcuffs and make a point about choosing to enjoy the job instead of seeing it as a burden. “When your heads in the right place and your hearts in the right place, you don’t need these (handcuffs),” he would say.

In addition to his work as a manager, Jaeger served as an informal mentor, spent 14 years as president of the Transit Managers’ and Supervisors’ Association (TMSA), and was part of the group that provided input during the design of the East Metro Garage. 

In retirement, Jaeger planned to spend more time with family, including his wife, daughters, sons-in-law and six grandchildren, and to get more involved in church activities. Looking back, he said he was grateful for the chance to lead so many people for so long. “I’m confident that this is what I was created to do,” he said.

At Metro Transit, Dispatcher Michael Adams found not only a career, but the love of his life. It started in 2004, when a new operator named Patricia came to his dispatcher window at Heywood Garage. He struck up a conversation about her badge being crooked – seven years later, they married. “It started out as a friendship that led to love,” Adams said.  

But if it wasn’t for his brothers, he might not have met Patricia in the first place. They were also bus operators and strongly and repeatedly encouraged him to keep applying to become a dispatcher. “There wasn’t a whole lot of diversity in that position when I applied,” he said. “It meant a lot to me to become one. I’m proud to represent our family.”  

Bus operators appreciated Adams as a dispatcher. He was a calm, steady presence with a sense of humor at the start of their shifts. The demeanor came in part because Adams spent a decade as an operator himself, experiencing firsthand the stresses operators face. His advice: “You will have good days and bad days, but you can choose to focus on the good. We have more in common than we don’t have in common.”  

Through the years, Adams earned the 10-year Safe Driving, Outstanding Dispatcher, and 20-year Safe Dispatcher awards. He served at Nicollet, East Metro, Old Snelling, and finally Ruter, where he ended his 30-year career in September 2022. 

In retirement, Adams planned to spend more time with his family, including his retired wife, three daughters and four grandchildren. 

There were a few principles Tim Bell tried to uphold during his 35-year career in transit – pay attention to detail, see the good in those around you, leave the place better than you found it. During his tenure as a dispatcher, he also did his best to support the operators who greeted him each day. “The one thing I always thought as a dispatcher was that my number one job was to help operators succeed,” he said.

Tim’s commitment to his work and his co-workers made it hard for him to retire. But on his last day on the job, he had plenty to look forward to. Immediate plans included moving to northern Minnesota, spending more time with family, and traveling the country with his wife. “My stop’s come up and I’m ringing the bell,” he said. “It’s time to end this chapter and start a new one.”

Encouraged by a family connection, Tim applied to what was then the Metropolitan Transit Commission and began his career as a part-time bus operator in 1987. He enjoyed the work but, after 14 years, found himself staring at a job board and wondering what might come next. Garage Manager Steve Jaeger gave him the nudge he needed to become a relief dispatcher. With strong analytical and interpersonal skills, he excelled at and enjoyed the work. “Good dispatchers set the tone for the entire garage,” Tim said. “You can stop a lot of problems right at that window.”

Tim began and ended his career at the same garage, though its name had changed from Shingle Creek to Ruter by the time he retired. He also worked at Heywood, South and Nicollet.  

When Jay Russell began in 1984, Metro Transit operated very differently. “I drove buses that didn’t have power steering, AC, or radios,” he said. “And, if we needed to call the Transit Control Center, we’d have to find a payphone.”

Though not always easy, those 13 years as a bus operator provided the foundation for what would become a 38-year career in transit. Jay retired last week with plans to travel with his wife across the U.S. and abroad.

After his time as a bus operator, Jay became a transit supervisor. He enjoyed supporting special events, helping operators, and the sense of autonomy the work provided. “Out there, you’re a part of a team, but also your own boss in many ways,” he said. “And it’s great to be outside all day.”

For the past 15 years, Jay has served as an assistant manager in Street Operations, a fitting capstone to his nearly four decade career. “I’m proud of being able to move up in the company,” he said. “When I started, I never thought I’d be anything but a bus operator.”

When he turned 18, Tim Maloy was looking for a job. What he found was a 42-year long career at Metro Transit.

It began after following the advice to apply from his stepdad who worked as a bus operator at the old Northside Garage. When Maloy saw an opening for a vault puller, he applied, and the rest is history.

“At the time I was excited to get a 5-cent increase to 5 dollars an hour from my previous job in fast food,” Maloy said. “But what really mattered is that I had benefits. It was then I knew that if I worked here long enough, I could retire.”

As he enjoys numbers and technical problems, Maloy found his niche in fareboxes. His career began at the Old Shingle Creek garage as a vault puller for 7 years. Then, he decided to follow the vaults into the central cash room at Heywood, where he spent the next 6 years. Finally, he found his last career stop as a Farebox Technician at the Old Snelling Garage and then the Operations Support Center. Today, he retires as the Lead Farebox Technician.

“I worked with a lot of good people,” he said. “This is a great company to work for and I tell people to apply all the time.”

He is especially thankful for the benefits that kept him out of debt while providing medical care to his first wife as she battled a disease that eventually took her life.

“Transit’s been very good to me,” Maloy said. “But it’s time for me to retire.”

In retirement, Maloy plans to spend more time with his second wife who recently retired as well. They plan to travel the US with their three pugs and eventually split their time between Minnesota and Florida.

While at college, Sy Sharp had a realization. It wasn’t for him. “I couldn’t picture myself in a suit or working in an office,” he said. “In high school, I always loved working with my hands in shop class.”

After leaving college, he took a job as an orderly at a nursing home, worked at a packing house, then decided to follow in the footsteps of his father, Silas Sharp, who retired as Metro Transit’s longest-serving employee with 52 years of service. “I grew up around my dad and uncles working on cars at home, so it was always something I thought about,” he said.

In 1979, Sharp started as a sweeper at Nicollet Garage. In 1980, he became a technician, a job he held until his retirement in 2022.

His career helped him put four children through college and provided years of smiles and laughs with co-workers. “This is the best labor job I’ve ever had,” he said. “But it’s time for me to go.”

In retirement, Sharp planned to see the country driving long haul trips, to visit Europe, and to get back to playing music.

Donald Helledrung started his 35-year career at Metro Transit as a part-time weekend operator.

When he was offered full-time, he quit his job in sales and worked towards the retirement he envisioned.

“I’m a workaholic and I took advantage of every opportunity I could,” he said. “However, I never sought another position as I knew I could maximize my pension by being a bus operator.”

He’d often elect to work 16-hour days, seven days a week to reach his goals, even as he gained seniority within the union. Many operators have tried his schedule and don’t understand how he was able to do it. His strategy was simple, but effective.

“I always remember to not take the little things to heart and let things roll off me and focus on safe bus operations,” Helledrung said.

For 33 of those years, he called Nicollet Garage home and his coworkers, family. After a recent medical issue, however, he did six months of soul searching that led the 67-year-old to retire. He sees it as a farewell, however, and not a goodbye.

“We all keep in touch, even the retirees,” he said. “It’s been a fabulous ride that went by in a blink of an eye, but now it’s time for me to go.”

In retirement, he plans to spend more time with his wife, another retired bus operator, at their cabin in Minnesota and vacation home in Arizona.

In 1987, Debra Downing was expecting her second child and looking for another source of income to help put gifts under the tree. So when she spotted a newspaper ad inviting police officers to join Metro Transit’s fledgling police department in part-time roles, she applied. Downing submitted her application the night they were due and joined the first group of 20 part-time officers hired, beginning what would become a 34-year career in transit.

Downing’s career in law enforcement began in college, when she interned at the Minneapolis Police Department. She later joined the New Hope Police Department, where she spent 8 years as a patrol officer. When she joined the Metro Transit Police Department, she went from policing a six-square-mile area to traveling on buses across the region and working with officers from many different departments. “The beauty of that was that all of a sudden we’d created this network of police officers who could share information and get a lot of crime solved,” she said. Still, there were growing pains – when she was hired, Metro Transit police officers had squad cars but no uniforms and called in their locations using pay phones. On one memorable occasion, she found herself chasing a suspect in leggings, a Minnie Mouse T-shirt and a green down jacket. “At that time, we just hopped on the bus and hoped for the best,” she said.

Looking for a new chapter, Downing became a transit supervisor in 2006. The job had some similarities – transit supervisors often respond to collisions, operator assaults nd other incidents – with one key distinction. “As a supervisor, the biggest difference is that we look, but we don’t touch,” Downing said. Even so, some of her habits as a police officer remained, at least in the early days. “I didn’t hesitate to go on a bus and get someone off,” she said. “It was just second nature to me.” Downing’s time as a transit supervisor also meant diverting buses through major construction projects and support some of the region’s biggest events, like the 2008 Republican National Convention and the 2018 Super Bowl.

In retirement, Downing plans to spend more time with family, including several grandchildren, and at her lake home in northern Minnesota. “Next winter, when I’m looking out the window and seeing snow, that alone will make retiring worth it,” she said.

When Steve Wortman started at Metro Transit, he was looking for a job. He ended up finding a career.

"I wasn't planning on staying here, but after a few years, the vacation, pay, and benefits were adding up," Wortman said. "And when I compared it to other companies, the pay was always better here."

He ended up at transit because other companies said he was too young as he was under 25 years old. Forty-three years later, their loss was Metro Transit's gain.

He started at the Northside Garage, then moved to Heywood where he's been ever since. He's been a bus operator, instructor, backup coordinator, and coordinator -- where he ends his career. Throughout he's always driven a bus when needed.

"In all that time, I've seen a lot of changes from how the company operates to new clientele," he said. "And, I've helped support many big events like the State Fair, Super Bowl, World Series, Final Four, and an All Star Game."

In retirement, he plans to drive long haul buses and take vacations with his wife and grandchildren.

Dan Syverson was a truck driver in the early 1980s in North Dakota when a friend suggested applying at Metro Transit. He did, and there he stayed for 41 years, building a career that was both professionally rewarding and enough to put three children through college. “It’s worked well for me,” Syverson said shortly before retiring in March 2021. “Once you have a family and children, you have to have stability. It was good for us.”

A bus operator for the first 10 years, and then an instructor, Syverson saw Metro Transit grow up. “I have seen a lot of evolution in all of Metro Transit, from the red buses with no power steering to the buses nowadays that are like Cadillacs,’’ he said.

In 2003, Syverson switched to light rail where he learned to operate trains six months before the METRO Blue Line’s opening day in 2004, and then helped train other operators who moved over. “I was always interested in rail but never thought that opportunity would come and was happy to be part of it,’’ he said.

Late in his career, Syverson served as rail coordinator, ensuring all operator training needs were covered. Until the end, he continued to operate trains as needed.

In retirement, Syverson and his wife, Mary Jo, planned to spend more time biking, camping, and traveling, including cruising on European rivers. He also considered finding a part-time job driving a school bus because he likes children and wants to keep busy. “It’s hard to be idle after working so long,’’ he said.