- One word to describe yourself: Determined
- Alma mater: Old Dominion University
- Favorite book: “Oathbringer” Book Three of the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson
- Favorite TV show: "Game of Thrones"
- Favorite movie: "Guardians of the Galaxy"
- Favorite hobby(ies): "Playing games with my kids and wife, anything fitness-related, and gardening and landscaping."
- Fun fact about yourself: "I have four kids!"
- Favorite station or stop that you have ever visited or frequent (and why): The Rapid Central Station in Grand Rapids, Michigan. "It has state-of-the-art, weather-protected shelters. The BRT platform makes sure that snow and ice cannot cover the area where The Rapid's customers wait — you can imagine how important that convenience is for a place that gets a ton of snow for three out of the four seasons."
Jordan Medlin joined INIT in 2009 as an intern for its Automatic Passenger Counting Team. He was working on his degree at Old Dominion University and upon graduation was hired as an APC project assistant, where he excelled at quality control and testing and was promoted a year later to technical support analyst.
After expressing an interest in project management, an opportunity opened up for a project at Golden Gate Transit in San Rafael, California, which was already in progress. In 2013, Medlin was assigned to a project at TriMet, in Portland, Oregon, where his communication skills and focus on project management processes led to his success.
Later that year, INIT won its first fare collection project in North America at a consortium of several transit agencies in Sacramento, California, and Medlin was assigned as project manager, due to his proven accomplishments.
In 2016 Medlin was assigned as project manager for a fare collection project in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at The Rapid. In addition to his project management responsibilities, he had the additional challenge of studying nights and weekends for months to earn his project management professional (PMP) certification. He passed the test with flying colors and earned his PMP before turning 30.
Medlin was assigned to a new fare collection project for Rhode Island in 2017 and he was also promoted to senior project manager.
When not working, he’s busy with his wife and four kids.
“I started working with INIT as an intern back in 2009 with the department that deals with passenger counting. By the time I became a full-time employee I was moved into customer service. After expressing my interested in project management, an opportunity eventually opened for our project in San Francisco, California. I was nervous but jumped in with both feet. From that moment on I haven’t looked back. INIT is a great environment for growing young professionals; they provided the opportunity for advancement and I took it.”
“My favorite part of the job is interacting with the end customer for our products. Since we offer something more cutting-edge, the public is usually excited to get their hands on it. During testing we usually get asked a lot of questions and the first one is, ‘When can we start using the system?’”
“[The most challenging part of the job is] making sure that the final product meets the customer’s expectations. Although our products are relatively standardized, there are always new requirements that have to be developed for each contract. It’s therefore important to spend a significant amount of time in the design phase and really define how those new requirements should look and function.
“[The accomplishment I’m most proud of is] getting my PMP [Project Management Professional] certification. It’s been awhile since I had really sat down and studied for anything. I had to get back into study mode and balance work/family life. That was a challenging year to say the least.
“Take the time to establish close relationships with the people you are working with ― this includes on the customer side and internally. If you can communicate with people on a certain level, it helps foster a more productive environment.”
“It’s fun bringing new technology to an industry that feels like it’s sometimes a step behind. For instance, I manage the deployment of our account-based smart card systems. These systems use open APIs that can be used to easily integrate with both our competitors and partners. This is not new technology by any stretch, but it’s newer technology for our industry.”
