Deb Conrad’s 25 years with Western Maine Transportation Services celebrated

AUBURN – More than 40 co-workers, volunteers and family members gathered at Western Maine Transportation Services in Auburn recently for a surprise celebration of WMTS customer service representative, Debbie Conrad’s 25th anniversary with the organization.

 
Conrad had worked previously as a waitress and in an insurance office, but had taken time away from work to stay home with her children. With the kids in school, she wanted some time out of the house.
 
At the prompting of a friend, she applied for a job WMTS advertised in the local paper. Conrad interviewed, and was immediately selected for the customer service/scheduler/dispatcher position, working with one other person in the office. “I never understood why they chose me, but I sure am glad they did,” said Conrad.
 
That was the first week in February of 1990 in, what was at the time, the WMTS South Paris satellite office on Main Street near Market Square. “I had no clue what I was getting myself into. I figured I’d be there maybe 5 years and that would be it,” she laughed.
 
A few years later, the office moved to East Main Street above the J.J.Nissen Bakery outlet store. Other than the location, Deb said there weren’t too many changes. Calls for rides were answered, slips written and stacked, rides scheduled and dispatched, and the ride slips collected, sorted and filed.
 
Then, in 1996, Conrad was transferred to the WMTS Lewiston office at 216 Main Street. She recalled her shock, “At first, I couldn’t believe how busy that place was. We were handling more than double the number of rides we had in South Paris, and that was a lot.” It was at 216 Main Street that WMTS first began using computer spreadsheets to assist with scheduling. Another move was made in 1997 to an office on Minot Ave.
 
“The greatest challenges have been the many changes in technology we use, but we always get through them,” she said.
 
While Franklin County and northern Oxford County operations and the WMTS administration office remained in Mexico, where they had been for a decade, in 2003 the public para-transit bus services for Androscoggin and southern Oxford Counties, and volunteer driver operations for the same areas, were combined at the rotary in Auburn, along with the Lewiston-Auburn Transit Committee’s citylinkbus service WMTS was now operating. Conrad and her coworkers also had to start working in an entirely new way as WMTS became an early-adopter of a purpose-built transportation scheduling software system.
 
The next move came in 2006, when operations for all areas, including administration, were combined to improve efficiency and reduce costs, at a new central facility on Merrow Road in Auburn.
 
Since the move to the Merrow Road facility, Deb has seen two management changes, lots of driver and customer service department turnover, and technology challenges have come at a breakneck pace, including a steady progression of new computer systems, scheduling software and upgrades and, recently, mobile data terminals for the buses.
 
One thing hasn’t changed. Conrad still greets every day and each of her co-workers and volunteer drivers with a smile, and she continues to be energized by finding ways to help “her” riders get where they need to go. “They’re really like family to me, everybody here in the office, my drivers, my volunteer drivers and my riders,” she said.
 
Along with her work at Western Maine Transportation Services, Conrad and her husband, John Conrad, have raised, or cared-for, one child of their own and an almost unbelievable 55 foster children, seven of whom they adopted.
 
Western Maine Transportation Services’ general manager, Sandy Buchanan, a 28-year veteran of WMTS in her own right, said, “Deb’s compassion is genuine. She’s hard-working and deeply caring. She’s loved by the staff, the drivers she works with, and the riders she helps every day. We know we’ve pushed her hard through all the changes of the past few years, but we’re glad she stuck with it, and with us. Deb is a truly special person and we’re very fortunate, and very thankful, to have her as part of our WMTS family.”