Carol Staats is the RideProvide Program Manager, some of you may know her from talking to her on the phone when trying to schedule a ride or may have even seen her around town in one of our RideProvide cars!
Q: What attracted you to this job?
Carol: My husband (laughs), so I can live with my husband. We had a long distance relationship while we were dating and our first year of marriage was long distance too. I owned a home in NE Pennsylvania where I was also working. We spent six months trying to sell the house during the housing crash. Then I started looking for a job because I wanted to either have a job or sell the house before I moved. It took me close to six months to find the job, I did not want just any job, I wanted the right job. One day I answered an ad on nj.com, got an interview and the rest is history.
Q:Why is transportation important for you?
Carol: Transportation is important to me because people need to get out and about.
Q:What is a favorite thing about your job?
Carol: My favorite is our riders and the service we provide to them. As one of our riders said, Ride Provide “helps me stay in my house. “
Q:Tell me something about your commute.
Carol: One way bike commuting, early spring and early fall, it’s about 12 miles. I do one way for two reasons:
- Length of my work day
- I like my car at the office, if I need to do a ride during the day, I can use my car
In an average week I am saving almost 50 miles/ week!
My bike commute is wonderful, most people are very courteous, I’ve had a few problems but mostly it has been nice. Bike commute and biking for pleasure are completely different. When I bike to work, other people are driving to work so I try to be as careful as possible and try to be very courteous to the drivers, it works both ways. That’s how I look at it. You know, we’re all just trying to get to work or we’re all just trying to get home.
Q: What was the best moment of your life?
Carol: Best moment of life: I feel like I am very blessed person and I’ve had a lot of great moments, great memories; I don’t really feel like I can just choose one.
Q: Do you have a favorite transportation/commuting story?
Carol: Not necessarily about my commuting but … I have been to Europe two years in a row and I think they are so far advanced on their means of transportation. I believe public transportation is much to use and much more accessible in Europe. They also have a lot of bike commuters and even parking lots for bikes.
I think that, in some instances we have things to learn from how they handle transportation in Europe. They have a lot more bike lanes and the drivers are very much aware of the bike riders on the road and it’s not the occasional cyclist that you see here. There are a lot of bike riders on the road over there.
The cars are much smaller than the United States. I think it’s neat that there’s a lot more bike sharing too.
Q: What is your favorite commuting app/gadget?
Carol: Audio books for commute, so hooked on them. I rarely listen to the radio, for over a year I have been just listening to my audiobooks and then I don’t care if my ride home takes an extra 5 or ten minutes because I’m into the story.
Pet Peeve:
Carol: chaos and disorganization
Q: What do you like to do in your spare time?
Hike, bike, read, kayak, I like outdoor adventures.
Q: What is your favorite food?
Carol: Anything with pesto, pesto on pasta, pesto on grilled chicken, BLT, pizza pesto dip…anything with pesto
Thank you Carol for sharing!