One word to describe yourself: Curious
Alma Mater: UCLA
Fast fact about yourself: I have a small flock of backyard chickens and each hen lays a different color egg.
What’s your best experience on transit and what made it memorable? While on a metro train in Osaka, Japan, I was a little freaked out when all the other passengers exited the train at once and I was the only one left onboard. It turns out it was the end of the line but since I didn’t read or speak Japanese, I missed the memo. Fortunately, a kind older woman (who spoke no English!) came to my rescue with creative gestures to help me figure it out. The experience left me with a sense of empathy for new transit riders and passengers with disabilities for whom riding the bus or train isn’t as easy as it might seem to those of us who do this for a living.
Alex Fay, chief commercial officer, GMV Intelligent Transportation Systems, has more than 15 years of experience inside government and as a technology executive.
Fay started his career in public service as a policy advisor within Los Angeles City government. He staffed the city council transportation and budget committees, and he served as a technology advisor to former Los Angeles, Calif., Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa during his chairmanship of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (L.A. Metro) Board.
When Fay joined GMV in 2014, he was employee No. 10 in a scrappy startup that was known at the time as Syncromatics. As head of sales and a member of the executive leadership team, Fay led helped lead the company through tremendous growth, major challenges, and an international acquisition and integration with European-based parent company GMV.
During his transit career, he has accomplished many goals, including:
- Launched an innovative car share pilot program in Los Angeles that helped build a multi-modal mobility ecosystem near Metro Rail stations in transit-oriented communities like Hollywood.
- Led GMV’s growth in North America from $4 million to more than $20 million annual revenue and more than 50 staff.
- Led the pursuit and successful implementation of ambitious transit technology projects for the city of Los Angeles, L.A. Metro, Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County and more than 50 other communities around the United States.
- Established international cooperation between GMV’s technical experts in Europe and operations teams in the U.S. to bring best in class transit technology to U.S. transit agencies. The initial effort culminated in a $16 million contract award from Westchester County, N.Y., to implement GMV’s new CAD/AVL system for larger transit fleets in the U.S. for the first time.
- Introduced transit agencies to cloud hosted Software as a Service (SaaS) 10 years ago. Fay and the GMV team built credibility for the technology and established SaaS as a preferred method for implementing transit technology projects like CAD/AVL, especially for small and mid-sized agencies with limited IT resources.
Fay has been a regular presence at industry conferences and presented innovations and pilot project results at numerous national and state transit conferences, including American Public Transportation Association’s Annual, California Transit Association, California Association of Coordinated Transportation, Southwest Transit Association and others. He is an active member of California Transit Association’s Technology Committee.
He also continues his commitment to public service as an appointed member of the Glendale Water and Power Commission in his city of residence - Glendale, Calif., where he coordinates the utility’s work on electrification of the city’s transit fleet to bring zero- emissions transit to his community.
Is there a specific experience that led you to where you are today?
Both of my parents worked for state of California public agencies for their whole careers and their work made an impression on me. Their work was important because it had an impact on people’s lives.
When I started my career in public service working for the city of Los Angeles, I saw the impact of my work in my own community, and I genuinely enjoyed the variety of topics we covered – from Airport to Zoo. However, it frustrated me that while the public sector is responsible for the most challenging functions in our society, public servants are often equipped with outdated tools to get the job done. I wanted to change that dynamic by providing modern technology to help make public service more effective.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
Motivating and organizing our team to win and execute ambitious projects is very gratifying. Whether it is a large and complex client or a novel technology, when we stretch a little beyond our comfort zone, we can make great things happen.
What’s the most challenging part of your job?
In a growing company, there’s an infinite amount of work to do - there are always more clients to visit and more meetings with colleagues than can fit in a given week. It can be challenge to sort out which things really have to get done versus which ones aren’t really that important.
For the critical tasks, the challenge is deciding which ones I must handle personally versus delegating to another member of the team and then mentoring them on how to do it well. I never want to stand in the way of a colleague’s growth and development that helps make our team more capable.
Accomplishment you’re most proud of and why?
I’m most proud of raising the bar for CAD/AVL technology in the U.S. market. The U.S. CAD/AVL industry has been pretty stale for a decade or more, and introducing new competitive solutions helps U.S. transit agencies get the best tech and customer service.
I helped our firm win a big new project in Westchester County, N.Y. – the first US transit agency to deploy GMV’s ITS Suite control center solution. The client took a risk on GMV, and we are on the hook to make sure they never regret it. Developing a deep level of trust and candor with the client team in Westchester has been critical to getting this project off the ground.
This project required intense international coordination between our teams in the U.S. and Spain. Managing the process across time zones, languages and cultures while also learning the technical details of our new product made it an exciting challenge.
Best advice/tip/best practice to share from your area of expertise?
When you’re getting ready for a big presentation, prepare more than you think you need, and then forget it all. Instead of following a rigid script, trust your knowledge of the subject matter and preparation to guide you and be open to adapting on the fly.
Being authentic in your relationships and communication is critical to connecting with people professionally and personally. I always put my clients’ best interests first, and I have confidence that approach will deliver the best results for my company in the long run.
Brandon Lewis | Associate Editor
Brandon Lewis is a recent graduate of Kent State University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Lewis is a former freelance editorial assistant at Vehicle Service Pros.com in Endeavor Business Media’s Vehicle Repair Group. Lewis brings his knowledge of web managing, copyediting and SEO practices to Mass Transit Magazine as an associate editor.
