Thinking Transportation: Engaging Conversations about Transportation Innovations
Thinking Transportation: Engaging Conversations about Transportation Innovations
Celebrating a Lifetime Storyteller: Bernie Fette passes the baton to our podcast's new host, Allan Rutter.
This 89th episode of Thinking Transportation is a landmark event. Host Bernie Fette, who is retiring from service to the state of Texas after more than 30 years, is passing the podcast hosting baton to Allan Rutter, TTI's Freight Practice Leader. Included in his decades of transportation-related employment, Allan served as Federal Railroad Administrator under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2004. Allan interviews Bernie about his many years of experience as a journalist, media expert, podcaster, and innovative storyteller for the Texas A&M Transportation Institute regarding all things transportation.
Howdy, everyone. Welcome to Thinking Transportation, conversations about how we get ourselves and the stuff we need from one place to another. I'm Alan Rutter with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Regular listeners will recognize that mine is not the normal voice starting the other 88 episodes of this podcast. That voice belongs to Bernie Fette, who will be shifting places in our conversation today as he is the guest on today's show. After 34 years with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, Bernie will be retiring from state service at the end of August and starting his own shop in Asheville, North Carolina. If I do my job well, you're really gonna enjoy learning more about the person most in front of this podcast. Bernie, welcome.
Bernie Fette:You're in my chair, Allan <laugh>. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. Seriously though, thank you. I am really delighted that we could do this and no misunderstanding here. I know it's your chair now.
Allan Rutter:There you go. The baton has been passed. Let's do a little get to know you, Bernie. Where did you grow up?
Bernie Fette:Munster, Texas. Very small town in North Texas. You were about to say?
Allan Rutter:I know where Munster is.
Bernie Fette:Not many people do. That puts you on a fairly exclusive list. If you're not from there, you're not likely to know where it is, but it's about 85 miles northwest of Fort Worth, just south of the Oklahoma border. Very small town, so small that you can walk into just about any establishment--whether that's church, the bank--and you were virtually guaranteed to know pretty much everyone in there; and also very likely that you would be related to at least half of them. My high school graduating class was a grand total of 28 people.
Allan Rutter:Holy moly . So we're talking Single-A?
Bernie Fette:Yes, Single-A. And since you've brought up that reference, if you played high school football as I did, you played both offense and defense. You didn't really have a choice.
Allan Rutter:Yeah, boy. A graduating class that size. Yeah . The high school that I attended outside of Austin was a two A school at the time. It's now five a and previous state champion and all that kind of stuff for people outside of the State of Texas. That's nomenclature associated with the University Interscholastic League. And that distinguishes the school sizes so that similarly sized schools compete against each other.
Bernie Fette:Yeah.
Allan Rutter:So, growing up in North-Central Texas or North Texas, basically, how did you end up at Texas A&M?
Bernie Fette:Well, it's easy to end up there whenever you have two older brothers who both enrolled at that school and graduated from that school. So I followed their lead and enrolled, joined the Corps of Cadets just as they did, majored in journalism. Worked for the student newspaper for a couple of years. Great place to learn because you learn by making mistakes. And when you work for a newspaper and you make a mistake, you make that mistake in front of thousands of people. So, in addition to being a great place to learn, it's also a great place to keep your ego in check. My father started the newspaper in my hometown in 1936 and edited that paper for almost 50 years. And so I suppose that's probably where I get it, the inclination toward being a storyteller, because that's, that's what my dad was.
Allan Rutter:So journalism was the family trade?
Bernie Fette:Yes, it was.
Allan Rutter:What kind of work did you do when you got out of A&M?
Bernie Fette:Well, I worked for that same weekly newspaper with my dad and my brother for about a year, and then worked for a daily newspaper for a few years after that. So, my background is definitely rooted in the news business, both at the weekly publication rate as well as daily.
Allan Rutter:So how'd you learn about TTI and how did you come to join the agency?
Bernie Fette:Well, my path to TTI was not what I would call an intentional one. I had a really great job working in city government, public relations, and thought that it might be a good idea for me to get some varied experience by going to work as a marketing vice president at a new bank in town. It turns out that was probably the dumbest career decision of my entire life. I got laid off from that job after a year and found an opening at TTI. I thought at the time, "Hmm, transportation research, I suppose that that will do until I find something that's actually interesting." And as it turns out, it's been incredibly interesting, much more so than I expected. I've had quite a few chances to advance to other jobs to leave, including working for one of the biggest PR firms in the world. But I stayed with TTI for 34 years now. So, maybe you can see that my path to TTI was not at all intentional, but it's been a very fortunate one.
Allan Rutter:Well, the good news about making career choices when you're young is the consequences are less dire. You can sort of afford to make some interesting choices.
Bernie Fette:Yeah. Or you can afford to screw up <laugh>.
Allan Rutter:There you go. So let's talk a little bit about what being a media guy at TTI has been like, now I've only been at TTI for about 10 years, but in those 10 years I've noticed at least two big things in two buckets. One, you respond to media inquiries asking for TTI experts on transportation topics in the news, and two, you reach out to the media to help explain transportation research that's being conducted at TTI.
Bernie Fette:Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> .
Allan Rutter:So is that summary fair?
Bernie Fette:Yeah, I think that's a fair description.
Allan Rutter:So what's the overall proportion of those two directions of information flow internal to external and the opposite?
Bernie Fette:It has definitely shifted over the couple of decades that we've had a media relations effort at TTI. I'd say we do more of the responding now than we used to, but it was just the opposite a couple of decades ago, going back to the 1990s. That's when TTI was doing its first work in quantifying in measuring traffic congestion. And I remember having a conversation with Tim Lomax at the time. He was the guy leading that research, and I told him, you know, we could probably generate a lot of media interest, a lot of publicity for the agency, for the research that you're doing--which we did. And, of course, at that time that was pre-Internet. So our early years of that effort involved a lot of media outreach all over the country that was accomplished by telephone, fax machines, and overnight packages. That's how we got the reports to people is by sending them via overnight delivery. We started building relationships with newspapers and wire services when there were far more of both of those organizations and also broadcast networks all over the country. And when we had those relationships growing, we started talking to those same reporters about the other things that TTI was doing. So when there were transportation developments in the news, they would know, they could contact us for insight on those developments, whether that was a particular trend in crashes or when a bridge fell into a river, they knew that they could contact TTI and find an expert that could offer some insight and some context to whatever event was in the news. So again, when we started, we were initiating most of the contact with the media, but now it's much more the media initiating contact with us. But either way, I think it's been really important that we do respond to those inquiries from the media. Two reasons for that. One, it's smart business. I think it's an important part of how TTI can establish itself as an expert source of knowledge. It's a wise marketing strategy, in other words. And two, I really think that we have an obligation to answer questions about the work that the agency does because the money that we use to do that work does not belong to us. That money belongs to the public, it belongs to the taxpayers. And for my own brief little time on my soapbox here, I'll just say that I think that we need to be responsive to questions with that reality in mind. And since I'm on a soapbox, I'll just stay there for just a moment because there's one other thing I think that's important about this part of what we do. I think that that responsive nature is especially important with touchy subjects like climate change and how we finance, how we pay for highways. Transportation produces more greenhouse gases than any other source. And I think it's good that we talk more about what the consequences of that are for the planet that we leave behind to our children and their children and our transportation system needs work; roads and bridges need to be replaced. And sooner or later, I hope that there is more conversation, more discussion about the fact that the gas tax is currently a financing model that isn't necessarily working all that well from coast to coast. I hope that we can drive conversations in the future on important issues like those.
Allan Rutter:Well, speaking of important subjects in transportation, can you talk a little bit about how things have changed over time in terms of what kinds of topics interest the media the most?
Bernie Fette:Uh , yeah. I mentioned the Urban Mobility Report a bit earlier. And, in that same category, there's the Texas Most Congested Roadways Report, which is done also every year. One of those looks at the congestion levels at a city level. The other looks at gridlock at a more confined roadway section level. And both of those, I think, have gained a consistent following and consistent interest in the news media because they represent direct commuter/traveler experience. Gridlock, or just the driving conditions in general--but especially with regard to congestion--those are things that we all face, all of us who travel commute in a ny way from day t o d ay. Another thing that I think has gotten a lot of attention and increased amount of attention is traffic safety in all its many forms. Distracted driving, impaired driving. We have seen the crash rate and the fatality rate in this country shrink progressively over a number of years. So, in terms of how much we travel, the number of people who are getting hurt in crashes and who are dying in crashes, the rate of those conditions is shrinking, which is good news. But the frequency of those crashes and deaths continues to hover around 38-, 39-, 40,000 deaths a year. And so with statistics like that, I think that traffic safety issues in general are always going to be of interest to the news media because they're of interest to the people who are out there on the roads traveling.
Allan Rutter:Yeah, I think given the fact that so many people drive makes them experts on transportation operations and the fact that everybody else is a bad driver and but what this information provides them is a way of validating are things getting better or are they getting worse and are things safer or are they improving? The good news is we have a lot more information to provide that kind of feedback.
Bernie Fette:Yeah. And on the topic of safety, I wanna also mention the traffic safety culture study that's done by the agency every year, which I think speaks to what you were just saying about not only about what's happening out there on the roads, but what the perception of the drivers on the roads is, and the extent to which they assume responsibility for those safety conditions.
Allan Rutter:Well, let's talk a little bit about the media itself and how that's changed over time. In my own peripatetic career, I've been a consumer and a subject of transportation reporting, and I've noticed changes in both the people who are doing it and the practices in reporting about transportation and print, radio, and television. What are some of the changes in journalism in the decades that you've been watching this in terms of transportation as a subject matter, how have things changed, both in how the news gets reported and how the changes in the news business itself affect how transportation gets reported?
Bernie Fette:Well, in the industry that you and I work in and have worked in for so many years, one thing I noticed that's particularly discouraging is the loss of so many transportation reporters throughout the United States. It used to be that every major newspaper in this country had someone who was dedicated to covering the transportation beat, transportation news. And I think you can count 'em on one hand now, and that's disappointing and sad, I think, not only for people like us who work in this industry, who work in the transportation field, but it's also sad because it's a microcosm of what's happened with the entire news industry compared with the conditions, say, 20 years ago. We have far fewer reporters in this business in the news gathering and news reporting business, but they're having to cover the same volume of stories in many cases, and that means less time spent on the stories that really deserve it. It's not just the loss of transportation reporters that's alarming. It's the shrinking size of newsrooms in general. And I think it's easy for us to lose sight of why that's a big deal, because what's happened to the newspaper industry is really sad. And it's also, I think, a bit dangerous. I've always subscribed and , and you're gonna hear this coming from I think most people who grew up in the newspaper business, but I've always subscribed to the philosophy that democracy operates best in an environment where people are well-informed on the issues of the day. News organizations are becoming fewer in number, there's greater consolidation of news organizations, more broadcast outlets as an example, being owned by fewer corporate owners. And the news reporting staffs are also shrinking. So the predictable outcome, it's not at all surprising that you risk having a decline in credible news content. Several of my college professors when I was in journalism school said this, and I've heard it repeated many times since then, journalists write the first draft of history. I think it's a vitally important job, especially if we actually plan to learn from that history.
Allan Rutter:I think there's a couple of things about that, Bernie, that sort of strike me. Again, being a consumer of the product and a similar age, historically we've seen where particularly major urban areas, part of that scale of what's happening at both local TV and t he newspapers is there's a lot of competition. Y ou h ad at least two or three dailies. You had TV stations with pretty robust local reporting.
Bernie Fette:Yeah.
Allan Rutter:So, you know, part of the desire to get the news out there was to scoop the people next to you.
Bernie Fette:Yeah.
Allan Rutter:It was sort of a competitive practice. I think also one of the things I'm hearing is as the news business has changed, part of what we at TT I have to be equipped to do is to almost educate the people that we're talking to a little bit about what the industry itself is. As we talk about a particular story, it's to put it in a larger context about, and here's how the transportation world works.
Bernie Fette:Yeah, I appreciate you mentioning that because that broader context is so important, not only for the story that they might be covering that day, but for the story that comes two weeks later, two months later, and they call you back again to continue the conversation that you may have started. So, that's why I think it's so important. That's a very good point.
Allan Rutter:So speaking about this sort of news business and things changing over time, how has the pandemic changed how the media reports on transportation, or has it?
Bernie Fette:Oh yeah, definitely. And I think that the biggest example of that is found in the same technology that we started using for meetings in our line of work. Whenever the shutdown happened and all of a sudden we couldn't travel and get in the same conference rooms together. We were using Zoom or Microsoft Teams or Google Meet, whatever software, whatever platform you would choose. A couple of decades ago, a TV station or a network, when they covered a big story like our Urban Mobility Report, they wanted somebody in the studio that they could get on camera or if not in studio, they wanted to get a person on screen via satellite. And having that person's face on the screen added credibility to the news package that they were working on. But with the COVID shutdown, suddenly every interview was gonna be done via Zoom. And as those newsrooms have continued to shrink, as I was mentioning earlier, the budget constraints make Zoom a very, very affordable alternative. So I think that's probably the biggest change that I've noticed in recent years.
Allan Rutter:And if anything, that means that the opportunities for researchers at TTI to be seen, to be heard isn't restricted by how close we might be to a TV station.
Bernie Fette:Right, exactly.
Allan Rutter:So at the top, I mentioned that this is episode 89 of Thinking Transportation. You've been the host since this began. Is that right?
Bernie Fette:I have, yes.
Allan Rutter:Take me back to the conversations that led to the start of this endeavor. How was it that TTI decided to do a podcast?
Bernie Fette:Well, almost four years ago, Terri Parker had the idea that we should explore doing a TTI podcast to expand our outreach for the agency and broaden our reach to different constituent groups. So, we did our homework and talked to a lot of people who had experience in that field. I thought my role would be limited to just doing the background preparation for each episode, but then at some point learned that my bosses intended for me to be the host as well, which I did not see coming.
Allan Rutter:So, so you got volunteered for this.
Bernie Fette:I guess you could say that. I remember telling my bosses, telling Terri and Richard Cole, I don't think I'm cut out to be a podcast host. That's the reason I got into newspapers, because I would not have to be on the air. And they said, "Well, respectfully, we happen to disagree." And so there you go. We launched the show in February, 2021 with the COVID-19 pandemic in full swing. And, after a few months, reached the point in our audience reach where we were the Number One transportation-related podcast; we still have that number one spot, 88 episodes later, hopefully 89 episodes later. And just a few days ago, we hit the 25,000 mark for episode downloads. So that's how we got our start.
Allan Rutter:It's pretty impressive. And of course, the job is Big Al, don't screw this up, <laugh>. Now, starting a podcast, particularly for an organization like ours, which has, let's be honest, a lot of engineers, that's a pretty big leap. It sounds like it was. Let's try it and see if it works. What was sort of the, the backstory as you get underway doing this, how are people thinking as you're starting?
Bernie Fette:We hoped at the time that we started that this would be a way for us to showcase the expertise of our research staff by giving them a platform that would afford them more time to explore topics, to explain topics to an audience that was largely a lay audience without the time constraints that exist in broadcast media interviews or media interviews of any kind, because those opportunities have their limits in terms of space, whether it's space on a computer screen or space on the airwaves. But we hoped that that would give our staff an opportunity and a platform to explore topics that were relevant to people who travel every day or who depend on transportation for other reasons, like shipping, and to give them an opportunity for that platform so that we could more widely demonstrate and advertise our staff's expertise. And it seems to have worked out well in that regard.
Allan Rutter:So now, what's surprised you the most about this podcast as you've been doing it--both about the podcast and about your hosting?
Bernie Fette:Honestly, I'm surprised that I've hosted it for this long <laugh> because I really did think at some point we would've taken a broad look and said, "Okay, it's somebody else's turn who can take the baton now and see if we can grow our audience even bigger?" And so no pressure, Big Al, but I'm passing the baton to you. So it's your turn to help the show grow and help our reach grow.
Allan Rutter:You've talked a little bit about how initially the podcast has made an impression in terms of the transportation industry. What are some of the ways that that's affected both influence on the part of TTI and our influence within the industry? How has the podcast been a means of doing both of those things?
Bernie Fette:Well, when we started, we didn't really know what success would look like. How do you know you're winning if you don't know how to keep score?
Allan Rutter:There you go .
Bernie Fette:But a few months after we started, we learned again that we had the Number One transportation show on Apple Podcasts , more listeners than any other show on the subject of transportation. And we've been able to hold onto that spot ever since. I think that there's a couple of reasons for that. One is that, if you listen to the other podcasts, all of which are serving an important purpose and reaching a very relevant audience in their own way, I think that the quality of our production stacks up really well. And we've got Chris Pourteau to thank for that because what comes across after we do what you and I were referring to earlier as the "sausage making ," I think that the show comes across very professionally and very thoroughly and can leave a very meaningful impression on our audience. And I think that we can also attribute some of our growth to the fact that we've been able to host some very interesting guests who can talk about things to our audience in ways that they can understand and can appreciate more how the work that we do has a direct relation and a direct impact on their lives, whether they're relying on transportation to get themselves somewhere or to get the things that they need, you know, from shippers to their doorstep. We've also had some very prominent guests from outside of our agency. When you can account among your guests, people like Mark Williams, the executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation and Shailen Bhatt, the head of the Federal Highway Administration--having guests like that on your show can really help you build your show's credibility and expand your audience.
Allan Rutter:And it honestly gets back to something you mentioned at the beginning of the episode, which is our job as a public agency, how do we explain the value of what we do and the value of the subject that we're involved in? Everybody drives everybody orders stuff and all the stuff that they buy at some point or another was involved in the transportation system. So, part of our doing our job of explaining the value of the investment that people have made in our institute is telling the stories about the kinds of things we do and why it matters. Now, you mentioned that you were thinking early on, "Gee, at what point does somebody else suggest somebody else to do this? In terms of thinking about your sea legs and sort of getting comfortable with this--for selfish reasons--how long did it take until you got to the point of, "Ah, I think I know how to do this?"
Bernie Fette:Um , I'll let you know. <laugh>.
Allan Rutter:Eighty-nine episodes in...
Bernie Fette:I'm not sure that I can recall exactly when I got more comfortable with hosting duties. But you're a pro, Alan . I'm expecting that you'll be good by day after tomorrow.
Allan Rutter:There you go. Well, no pressure. Now, Bernie, you are talking to us from Asheville, North Carolina, where you have recently moved. Tell me a little bit about how you chose that particular place, how it attracted you beyond the increasingly temperate climate.
Bernie Fette:Yeah, it's 22 degrees cooler here than it is where you are. No offense, not trying to rub it in or anything. So my partner, Susan and I knew we wanted to relocate. We just weren't sure where we really liked northern New Mexico, and we were actually leaning in that direction because we were working with a realtor there in the Albuquerque-Taos-Santa Fe area. But her brother really encouraged us to at least check out Asheville. And so I thought, okay, let's visit Asheville and that'll be my due diligence; and then we can come home to Austin and start planning our move to New Mexico. It didn't turn out that way, obviously, because last July, a little over a year ago, we visited for the first time, and actually our first impression of the place was colored by the fact that our luggage was lost--and how, how an airline can lose luggage on a direct flight I'm not really sure, but it happened. So we had that experience, and the first night we were here just before midnight, had a bear just outside our Airbnb rummaging through the garbage can. But all that aside, by the second day, we were convinced that we'd found our home, and the day after that, we found our house.
Allan Rutter:Wow.
Bernie Fette:We were here for four days, and the last day that we were here, we were hiking in the clouds on the Blue Ridge Parkway and taking a break now and then to receive calls from our realtor who was negotiating the purchase price. She said she would have us under contract before we set foot on the plane back to Austin, and she did.
Allan Rutter:Wow.
Bernie Fette:So a year later, here we are. Susan's from an Air Force family,
Allan Rutter:So she's used to relocating.
Bernie Fette:Exactly. She's lived in multiple states and countries, and I, on the other hand, have lived in three cities in my life, and they have all been in Texas. So, we were both ready for an adventure, ready for a new chapter, and we do love it here--mountains, the weather, the music, there's a very easy pace and energy. To borrow a word that's commonly used from where we moved from this place is a little bit "weird." Most people will tell you that Asheville today is what Austin was like 30 or 40 years ago, and I am perfectly okay with that.
Allan Rutter:Well, speaking of somebody who moved to Austin at about that same sort of timeframe, that kind of has some appeal now, tell me what's gonna be happening in this new venture?
Bernie Fette:Well, Bernie Fette Public Relations now exists officially at 34 Wall Street, suite 804 in downtown Asheville. We are in the business--or I should say I because it's a staff of one--I am in the business of helping brands lead and succeed through the power of words, images, and audience connections. I'm doing writing in a variety of applications from web to video podcasting and brand journalism. Basically, the same kind of work I've been doing for TTI for more than three decades. I'm just doing it now as a small business person.
Allan Rutter:Well, let me ask the question you've asked us at the conclusion of our podcast over the years, what's motivated you to keep showing up for work at TTI over those many years?
Bernie Fette:I would say that there are two things. I mentioned one of them earlier when I named some of the remarkable colleagues that I've been blessed to work with. I'll add to that list. Kelly West I just mentioned, Chris Pourteau, Richard Cole, Terri Parker . I have had some really amazing experiences working for our Transportation Policy Research Center when I was able to do some work with Cathy Reilly and Ginger Gooden, who both gave me a very long leash in terms of communicating and telling stories about the work that our researchers were doing to inform the state legislature. I've been thrilled to work on a number of video projects with David Martin, Clyde, Hance, Vicky Nelson--immensely creative people who helped me feel really excited to come to work every day. The second thing that's motivated me is the reminder that we're in the public service business. George H. W. Bush gets credit for this line, but I know it's been said by many people before and since; but I associate it with him because when the Bush School was getting started at Texas A&M, you could see these T-shirts all over campus of the students who were attending classes there. And the back of the T-shirt said, "Public service is a noble calling." Very simple, very meaningful message, I thought, and I believe that it is, and that statement is something I've always had in my thoughts whenever I've advised or coached our staff on how to handle interviews with the news media to remember that because we're in public service, and I know I said this before, but the money that funds our research is not ours. It's the public's money, and we have an obligation to be open and transparent about how we're investing it. If we're investing it for the purpose of improving people's lives in how they get around and how they get the stuff that they need--which I believe we are--then I think that we should be proud to tell that story.
Allan Rutter:Well, let me ask something that was not on the list of questions, but it strikes me that would be a good time to do this. Having been at the wheel of this for this many episodes, is there anything you'd like to say to the people who have been listening as you hand the baton, or the chair, to somebody else?
Bernie Fette:I hope the conversations can continue to expand, and I hope that those conversations will include some of the topics that I mentioned earlier, the ones that in some circles can be a little sensitive, but it's because of their importance that they are so sensitive. And I hope that this podcast and the experience that you have with your guests going forward will serve to inform and expand those conversations so that we can--as a community, as a state, as a country--find directions that will benefit us and the people who come long after we're gone. Well, that's certainly a high mark to meet and... No pressure <laugh>.
Allan Rutter:There you go. Well, Bernie, thanks for allowing me to press you into doing this, which I think is gonna allow for a at least slightly smoother transition for our podcast audience. I very much appreciate it.
Bernie Fette:Thanks, Allan. It's been delightful. I really appreciate it.
Allan Rutter:People are hardwired for stories. It's how we organized and shared valuable information before we invented written language, and then expanded replication and literacy of those written words. Part of the popularity of this podcast medium is that it gives us time to share stories instead of soundbites. Bernie Fette has been helping my colleagues at TTI share stories for more than three years on this platform. Stories about what they do, what they've learned, how they've solved problems, and why any of it matters to anyone else. To our many listeners, I request your patience as I grow into this job and help the many transportation experts at, or connected to, the Texas A&M Transportation Institute tell their stories. Thanks for listening. Please take just a minute to give us a review, subscribe, and share this episode, and please join us next time for another conversation about getting ourselves and the stuff we need from point A to point B. Thinking Transportation is a production of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, a member of The Texas A&M University System. The show is edited and produced by Chris Pourteau. I'm your new host, Allan Rutter. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.