Meet our Managers

Ms. Linda Deavens
Chief Executive Officer

Ms. Deavens has served as Paratransit's CEO/Executive Director since January 1, 2008. She served most of the previous 29 years as the Deputy Executive Director of Paratransit after beginning her career as Paratransit's part-time temporary Secretary in 1979. Throughout her tenure Ms. Deavens has been directly responsible for designing, implementing, and managing all consolidation, coordination, and service expansion activities of the agency, including the successful transition of paratransit service to full ADA compliance before the statutory deadline.

Ms. Deavens has been responsible for conducting all public participation activities related to ADA service provision, including development of the ADA certification and appeals processes and policies related to riders. She has designed strategies to encourage use of fixed route transit by persons with disabilities, which are coordinated with the ADA certification process (initially managed by Paratransit staff under her direction), and which included consumer orientations to public transit, one-on-one mobility training, and fixed-route fare incentives.

Her expertise includes development of cost-sharing policies and procedures applicable to social-service agencies to prevent agency reliance on ADA complementary paratransit for agency program service delivery. Ms. Deavens has also implemented operating procedures designed to increase ADA capacity and improve productivity by reducing the consumer cancellation rate. These promising ideas were featured in the Transportation Research Board's Best Practices workshop in Monterey, California in 1997, as ideas worth replicating in other operating environments.

Paratransit uses automated scheduling software to develop manifests for its drivers and those of its taxi and van service providers. Its entire fleet is equipped with automatic vehicle location technology and Mobile Data Computers to facilitate paperless, real-time dispatching of trip data. This system is interfaced with Interactive Voice Technology to provide passenger database access to real-time data for on-line booking, automatically generated passenger phone calls providing "where's my bus" information and day-before ride reminders with cancellation opportunities all without speaking to a dispatcher or reservation agent. Likewise, similar satellite-based hardware and software is used for paperless reporting of vehicle defects identified on the road or in the pre- and post-trip driver vehicle inspections and it is interfaced to transportation and maintenance operations personnel so reporting occurs in real-time. Ms. Deavens has considerable experience successfully managing the transition to automation, including development of technical specifications, orderly implementation plans, ongoing comprehensive staff training programs, and consumer orientation services.

Ms. Deavens has served on the Board of Directors of the California Association for Coordinated Transportation (CalACT) for the past several years having held every office and is its current Chair. CalACT is the largest statewide transit association in the United States with nearly 300 members dedicated to promoting professional excellence, stimulating ideas, and advocating for effective community transportation. Ms. Deavens led the statewide effort to establish operation by CalACT of California's Rural Training Assistance Program (RTAP). Ms. Deavens was the first transit professional to receive CalACT's Leadership Award presented at CalACT's first-ever Wall of Fame Awards Ceremony in spring of 2007. Among other things, she was selected for this award because of her role in guiding CalACT through a transition of executive leadership with the departure of its long-standing executive director at a time when CalACT was rolling out a national summit a landmark event focusing on critical challenges the transit industry faces today and in the future.

Recent experience includes development of the transportation element of California's Long-Range Strategic Plan on Aging, which includes implementation of a California Mobility Council, Mobility Task Force, and establishment of Mobility Management Centers throughout California. Working with the Transportation Task Team (TTT), which she currently chairs, Ms. Deavens helped organize and participated in California's United We Ride Mobility Summit "Convening Aging and Mobility Leadership" in March of 2005. She also chaired various TTT subcommittees, including the CTSA Mobility Management subcommittee. In 2003 Ms. Deavens was invited by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Education to participate with other leaders in transportation in the first United We Ride Region IX Workshop for Coordinating State and Local Human Services Transportation building on the President's Executive Order on Human Service Transportation Coordination.

In the summer of 2006 Ms. Deavens and three other Californians formed a statewide team and successfully competed for a scholarship to attend the Institute for Transportation Coordination (ITC) sponsored by the Community Transportation Association of America (CTAA). This was an intensive training and planning forum created to enhance the capacity of communities to provide cost-effective and customer-focused transportation services by coordinating funding, information, services, and equipment. This opportunity brought additional training dollars to California to further the work of the TTT in implementing California's Mobility Action Plan. CTAA is a nationwide network of public and private transportation providers, local workforce development and human services agencies, public officials, transit associations, community-based organizations, and others working together to improve transportation access for all. Ms. Deavens is a long-term participant in CTAA activities and is recognized by its executive leadership as the "go-to person" at Paratransit, Inc. and CalACT. She has been featured in its national magazine as an early adaptor to transit technology and served as a national peer trainer in transportation management.

In 2007 Ms. Deavens was invited by the American Public Transit Association to participate in its first effort to address the broad range of mobility issues for people with disabilities, seniors, and the transportation disadvantaged through the establishment of the APTA Accessibility Standards Program. The standards or recommended practices developed as part of this national program may potentially impact all bus and paratransit, commuter rail, and rail transit operations in the United States as well as on a variety of issues with regard to policy and planning, legal affairs and legislation. This group is guided by a policy committee and technical committee, on which Ms. Deavens serves. She also serves on two of the initial three working groups: Call Center Management and Fixed Route Stop Announcements recently hosted at Paratransit, Inc. Working Group meetings are sponsored and paid for by APTA and are conducted at transit systems all across the country.

Dr. Lisa Cappellari
Data Analyst Manager

Dr. Cappellari joined Paratransit, Inc. in 2003 and has a Ph.D. in Economics from UC Davis with an emphasis in public economics and international economics. Prior to coming to Paratransit, Inc. she worked as an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. She has also worked as an economics consultant for The Results Group of Santa Rosa, CA, a firm specializing in strategy, change management, and organization development.

Ms. Marilyn Cole
Senior Consultant

Marilyn Cole has over three decades of business management experience working with clients in fields such as transportation, high tech electronics manufacturing, travel, and publishing. She founded a regional publishing company that produced both print and electronic buyers guides for the high tech electronics manufacturing community and oversaw the development of the first internet-based searchable component database for procurement and engineering professionals. Marilyn excels at creating custom data management solutions that blend the practical requirements of the end user with the appropriate technology tools. Since 2007 when she joined the Innovative Paradigms division, she has focused on assisting transit and paratransit agencies in both the public and private sector.

Marilyn developed the data management system for the City and County of Honolulu's new in-person eligibility system and from 2010 - 2011, served as the manager of TheHandi-Van Eligibility Center, overseeing all aspects of the ADA paratransit eligibility process for the island of Oahu. She continues as a technical advisor to the project. Marilyn's experience includes coordinated transportation planning, leading to the implementation of mobility management programs. She continues to assist the City and County of Honolulu with its Mobility Management Program and is developing custom data management solutions for projects with the Spokane Transit Authority and the newly formed CTSA in Stanislaus County.

Mr. J.D. Culver
Manager of Mobility Options

Mr. Culver joined Paratransit in 1983 working his way up in short order from driver to leader of Paratransit's nationally-recognized Mobility Training Program. Each year his staff trains nearly 600 people with disabilities to safely utilize fixed route transportation in the Sacramento region. Over 30 local agencies serving clients with disabilities have become regular consumers of Mobility Training due to Mr. Culver's marketing efforts. Each trainee's transit mode choice is monitored regularly to demonstrate the remarkable success of this program. To his credit, nearly 70,000 trips a year that would otherwise have been taken on complementary paratransit in Sacramento have been successfully diverted to fixed route. This program is funded with local resources and competitive grants written by Paratransit. Mr. Culver's efforts at getting people with disabilities to give fixed route transit a try have yielded an annual savings to Sacramento Regional Transit and the community of approximately $1,600,000. These mobility management services are currently being marketed by Paratransit's Innovative Paradigms division to other communities within and outside of California. Mr. Culver not only manages Paratransit's program, but also that of San Jose for the Santa Clara Transit Authority (VTA) and that of Stockton for the San Joaquin Regional Transit District (RTD).

Ms. Ninh Dao-Dickinson
Chief Operating Officer

Ms. Dao-Dickinson came to Paratransit in 1983 at age 19. She was a Vietnamese immigrant participating in the Asian Job Resources' Summer Youth Program. Ms. Dickinson demonstrated exceptional skills in paratransit operational functions and quickly rose through the ranks, handling steadily increasing responsibilities. She was ultimately promoted to the position of Director of Transportation Operations. In this capacity she manages the day-to-day operations of the Call Center, Customer Service, Dispatch Center, Scheduling Center, Training Center, and Support unit staff and their first line supervisors and managers. She has assembled and trained a multi-lingual team possessing skills to operate Paratransit's sophisticated computerized scheduling technologies and the ability to provide exceptional customer service to Paratransit's elderly and disabled consumers. She specializes in managing the introduction of new technologies within Paratransit's transportation and maintenance operations, ensuring that the operating protocols between work units are synchronized, adhered to, and achieve multiple objectives that yield efficient service to Paratransit's various consumers. Typical technologies include automated real-time scheduling systems, in-vehicle dispatching systems (mobile data computers equipped with GPS and satellite tracking devices), wireless GPS/AVL-based vehicle preventive maintenance inspection devices that interface with vehicle maintenance software, and automated telephone system technology. Her staff prepare and provide a variety of information useful to management and decision making of the organization's leadership group and Board of Directors.

Ms. Tiffani Fink
Grants and Procurement Manager

Ms. Fink joined Paratransit, Inc. in 2012 and is the Grants and Procurement Manager. She received her B.A. in Political Science from UC Davis and has a Certificate in Transit/Paratransit Management from Pepperdine University, Graziadio School of Business and Management. Ms. Fink serves as the liaison for all grants related work including preparation, submittal and reporting for various State and Federal funding programs. For procurement related activities, she oversees the development of the procurement process for Paratransit, Inc. purchases in accordance with FTA procurement requirements and serves as the project lead for development of bids and specifications for vehicle procurements and infrastructure upgrades. These activities will include the implementation of a Compressed Natural Gas fuel path: from bus procurements, to fueling station development and key upgrades to our maintenance facility.

Prior to joining Paratransit, Inc. Ms. Fink has developed an extensive background in transit and transportation management, operations and funding with 12 years experience in key positions with state and local agencies. Passionate about her work, Ms. Fink is an active member of CalACT, CTA and WTS and was the past Treasurer of the Board of Directors for the California Transit Insurance Pool.

Mr. Sisto Garcia
Transportation Operations Manager

Mr. Garcia joined Paratransit, Inc. in 2010. He has an extensive transit and management background spanning more than 21 years and beginning in 1989 in San Diego when he worked for Dave Transportation as a fixed route vehicle operator. In 1996 he went on to work for North County Lifeline Community Services, a nonprofit agency providing services similar to Paratransit, Inc. At Lifeline he held many positions, including vehicle operator, dispatcher, trainer, and road supervisor. In 2006, he expanded his skills and became a school bus driver for Metropolitan Area Advisory Committee Project Head Start Program. He also worked at Del Mar Fairgrounds and Grand Pacific Charter Bus Company as driver and shift supervisor for special events. He holds the following certifications: First Aid/CPR, California School Bus operator, Passenger Service and Safety Training, Passenger Service and Safety Train-the-Trainer Program, Safety and Security Manager Program, DMV Employer Testing Program Examiner, Kinedyne Mobility Aid Securement and Occupant Restraint, and Q'Straint Wheelchair and Occupant Restraint systems. Mr. Garcia is a nine-time State Champion for the Driver Safety Bus Roadeo sponsored by the California Association for Coordinated Transportation, and has consistently ranked in the top three on State and National competitions for the past 15 years. In 2011, he bested the nation's top Paratransit drivers at the Community Transportation Association of America's National Bus Roadeo in Indianapolis and was also named by Q'Straint/Surelok as the nation's first-time recipient of the Otis Reed National Driver of the Year Award. As the Transportation Operations Manager for Paratransit's Training Center, Mr. Garcia oversees the DMV Employer Testing Program, road supervision program, and is responsible for the development and expansion of the learning experiences of all new Vehicle Operators, teaching them the ropes about everything we do and making them feel truly welcome in their new jobs. In addition to training, he also manages all safety, security, and environmental compliance activities required of Paratransit by various government regulatory agencies.

Ms. Mary Harding
Transportation Operations Manager

Ms. Harding came to Paratransit in 1985 as a driver for the Senior Nutrition Program. Similar to other members of the leadership group, she worked her way through the ranks by assuming increasingly responsible duties within the transportation operations unit. She currently serves as a Transportation Operations Manager responsible for managing the Scheduling and Call Center. Ms. Harding manages the scheduling staff whose duties are to maintain subscription trip demand and to optimize the daily demand response routes to make them as productive and realistic as possible before the day of service. This entails planning and scheduling approximately 2,000 trips a day. She also oversees the call center. Ms. Harding has earned the respect of her peers and subordinates through her expertise, compassion for what we do, and her uniquely keen sense of humor.

Ms. Janice Howes Labrado
Transportation Operations Manager

Ms. Labrado is a Transportation Operations Manager and started her work with Paratransit in 1987 in various capacities within Transportation Operations and our former Planning and Development Unit. She is responsible for Paratransit's Customer Advocacy unit, and oversight and management of Paratransit's Consolicated Transprotation Services Agency (CTSA) agreements. She is also in charge of the collection and reconciliation of all statistical data related to Paratransit's multiple services and programs. Ms. Labrado works closely with Paratransit's Information Systems Department to ensure the integrity of a wide variety of ever-expanding statistical data used to responsibly manage Paratransit's resources and to respond to the requests for information made of Paratransit by various funding agencies. Development of Paratransit's Customer Advocacy Department has been one of her most noted achievements - she puts the customers first and provides a level of transparency that is unprecedented in paratransit operations, making routine reports to the Board of Directors and answering all queries made of Paratransit by its customers. As a CTSA Paratransit is charged with coordinating with human service agencies to ensure their transportation programs remain viable and are efficient and effective. She has solidified working relationships with senior leadership of these agencies, negotiates annual cost-sharing agreements, develops improvements to their transportation programs, and acts as Paratransit's primary liaison with these agencies and various advocacy and advisory groups.

Ms. Labrado obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies, concentrating in the Social Sciences from California State University, Hayward. She has received a certificate in Transit and Paratransit Management from the University of the Pacific, Eherhardt School of business.

Mr. Jesse Isaacson
Information Technology and Network Manager

Mr. Isaacson joined Paratransit in 2010 after graduating from UC Davis with a B.S in Computer Science and Engineering. He is responsible for the development, procurement, security and maintenance of Paratransit's transportation, maintenance, accounting computer network, telephone system, facility monitoring systems and various other computerized and electronic systems essential to the operations. He manages Paratransit's multi-queue automated call distributor system, radio and telephone recording system, voice-mail system, and Automated Booking and Cancellation Telephone System. Mr. Isaacson and his programming team develop in-house software applications where inadequate or no commercial solutions are available to meet the needs of Paratransit.

Mr. Philip McGuire
Chief Executive Officer (Innovative Paradigms Division)

Philip McGuire founded Paratransit, Inc. in 1978 following a six-month community organizing effort. Bringing together the leaders of many of the most influential nonprofit organizations in the Sacramento area, McGuire guided them in the crafting of the business model that characterizes Paratransit to this day. His effort was encouraged by a lack of focus on transportation services for seniors and disabled in the community at that time. Creating a nonprofit corporation dedicated to transportation was the logical direction at that time. Within months of its founding, Paratransit served as a model for the State legislation that created the concept of the Consolidated Transportation Services Agency (CTSA) that has served as the platform for human service transportation coordination to this day.

Mr. McGuire began his transportation career in California as a transit planner for the Sacramento Regional Area Planning Commission (now SACOG) in 1973 after completing a Masters Degree in Urban Transportation Planning at the University of Iowa. In 1974 he joined the Sacramento Regional Transit District as a transit planner and marketing manager. Among his accomplishments at RT was directing the creation of its Careful Coach service for the disabled. This early effort at providing door-to-door service for disabled individuals provided him with a perspective on this vital service that would be interwoven through his career. He left RT in 1977 to establish a consulting practice emphasizing marketing and governmental relations.

In early 1978, Mr. McGuire began his work to create Paratransit, Inc. Bringing together local community agency leaders, he refined a business plan to create a nonprofit agency to operate service for the elderly and disabled and finally personally filed to Articles of Incorporation creating Paratransit, Inc. on July 20, 1978. Many of the community leaders who supported creation of the agency served as Incorporating Directors for the new organization. He served as the agency's first Executive Director until 1981. Many of the human service coordination activities that characterize Paratransit today were initiated during those early years. These included the maintenance program for local agencies, coordination of agency services through such things as vehicle sharing, and vigorous pursuit of creative funding sources. These programs have been greatly expanded by Paratransit in recent years.

Mr. McGuire worked for Laidlaw Transit as National Marketing Director in the 1980s establishing that company's transit contracting practice. During his tenure, he was instrumental in obtaining a number of transit operating contracts for the firm and establishing it as a major competitor in the industry.

In 1991, Mr. McGuire joined DAVE Transportation as Vice President and Regional Manager. With responsibility for 18 operating locations throughout Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and Utah, he introduced a number of business practice refinements to the firm including a new budgeting system and a greater understanding of paratransit operations.

He left DAVE in 1994 to establish his own consulting practice serving clients throughout California and the Northwest. Many of his clients were nonprofit corporations. Building on his expertise as the Founder of Paratransit, Inc., his nonprofit clients entered into many new business functions with his assistance. He was lured out of his consulting practice in 2001 with an offer by Coach USA to manager that firm's operations in the Western US. With locations from Chicago to California, Mr. McGuire directed the fastest growth surge in the company's history and built it into one of the most prominent firms in the transit contracting industry. In 2003, Coach USA was sold to First Transit at which point Mr. McGuire returned to his consulting practice.

A major new dimension to McGuire's consulting practice this time was the addition of temporary management engagements to his portfolio. He was retained by a number of organizations to run their operations for periods of six months to over a year. In this role, he served as Executive Director of two nonprofit corporations and as Executive Director of a newly created public transit agency.

After many discussions with the senior managers at Paratransit, Inc. Mr. McGuire returned to the organization in 2006 to build a consulting practice and to expand the agency's operating presence outside of Sacramento. He became the CEO of the new Innovative Paradigms Division of the agency and greatly expanded its presence in consulting including temporary management. Current consulting assignments include work with the City of Vallejo to create a new transit agency, work with the San Bernardino Associated Governments (SANBAG) to create a new nonprofit transportation coordination agency much like Paratransit, Inc., and work with the City of Honolulu to create a Mobility Management Center to oversee a broad range of community transportation projects.

Ms. Linda Parker
Chief Administrative Officer

Ms. Parker has been with Paratransit since 1996 after serving as an assistant vice president and branch manager with Sacramento Savings Bank. She has held several increasingly responsible positions in Paratransit's transportation operations unit, its planning and transit development department utilizing her management, organizational, and customer service skills. Ms. Parker is responsible for developing and managing federal grant applications for Paratransit. Ms. Parker was named Chief Administrative Officer in January 2012. In this capacity she is responsible for coordinating and overseeing administrative functions, supervising support staff, coordinating scheduling and planning activities, meetings, and oversight of the Worker's Compensation Program and Drug and Alcohol program. Ms. Parker is also the Assistant Secretary to the Board of Directors.

Mr. Steve Robinson-Burmester
Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Robinson-Burmester joined Paratransit, Inc. in 1991 and has an MBA from the UC Davis Graduate School of Management in Management Information Systems, and a BA in Psychology (with a Statistics minor). He has more than seven years experience with the following firms: UC Davis (as an internal auditor), Hewlett Packard (as a systems analyst), and with both Ernst & Young and Smedley, Munn, and Company (as a manager in their respective microcomputer consulting divisions).

Mr. Richard Rosebush
Division Manager, Destinations Mobility

Mr. Rosebush joined Paratransit in January of 2012 as the Manager of Destinations Mobility, a new division of Paratransit, Inc., a new business dedicated to providing affordable wheelchair accessible vehicles and equipment to individuals with disabilities, the elderly and agencies throughout California. Mr. Rosenbush has an extensive business and management background spanning over 25 years. He was one of the founders of Freedom Driving Aids, Inc., a company that built vehicles for the disabled in Michigan. As co-owner and managing director, in 1988 he introduced the concept of bringing to the market vehicles with specialized conversions already done and ready for immediate sale. At the time, the industry was a build-to-order model and had a delivery time frame of 60 days. In 1990, he introduced the first five mobility vehicle stores with inside showrooms-the first of its kind. While at Freedom Driving Aids, he also managed and trained the sales force, developed its used vehicle program for wheelchair accessible vehicles, and shared in the responsibilities of operations management. Prior to his employment with Paratransit, Inc. Mr. Rosebush was in senior management at a company that manufactures and sells vehicles for the disabled. He worked in developing the business models for its store division and was instrumental in designing its marketing plans. Additionally he managed the company's used vehicle purchasing. He is known for being a visionary in the mobility industry.