One of the most trans­for­ma­tive, dynam­ic, and capa­ble civic lead­ers the Pacif­ic North­west has ever seen will soon be step­ping down, leav­ing behind a great lega­cy, but also giant-sized shoes in need of filling.

Joni Earl, six­ty-one, has been at the helm of Sound Tran­sit for near­ly a decade and a half. Under her direc­tion, ST went from rud­der­less, dys­func­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion to mod­el pub­lic agency in the span of just a few years.

Sound Tran­sit CEO Joni Earl speaks at NPI’s 2013 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala. (Pho­to: Lin­coln Potter/Samaya LLC for NPI)

Today, to the con­ster­na­tion of Tim Eyman, Kem­per Free­man Jr., and their ilk, Sound Tran­sit rou­tine­ly deliv­ers projects on time and under bud­get. It is build­ing a rail spine for Puget Sound that will ulti­mate­ly link togeth­er dozens of cities and hun­dred of neigh­bor­hoods, includ­ing NPI’s home­town of Redmond.

The first seg­ments of that rail spine opened in 2009 as Cen­tral Link and Air­port Link. They will be fol­lowed next year by Uni­ver­si­ty Link and Angle Lake Link.

Along with the rail spine, Sound Tran­sit has devel­oped a com­muter rail sys­tem (Sounder) and large net­work of Express bus routes to give the peo­ple of Puget Sound more options for get­ting to and from work. Rid­er­ship on Sound Tran­sit’s bus­es and trains has soared over the last few years and shows no signs of stop­ping. It will see a large jump next year when Uni­ver­si­ty Link begins fer­ry­ing rid­ers between down­town and the Uni­ver­si­ty District.

At the time that Joni became chief exec­u­tive offi­cer, Sound Tran­sit was in dire straits, strug­gling to get its fis­cal house in order, in dan­ger of los­ing fed­er­al match­ing funds for light rail con­struc­tion, fac­ing mul­ti­ple law­suits from tran­sit oppo­nents, and watch­ing its pub­lic sup­port with­er away.

When Joni came in, she changed all that. Work­ing togeth­er with for­mer King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Ron Sims, she sta­bi­lized the agency, got it on a steady foot­ing, and set about doing the work that Sound Tran­sit was cre­at­ed to do. Now, more than a decade lat­er, as she pre­pares to leave, ST is fir­ing on all cylinders.

Joni will be great­ly missed as Sound Tran­sit CEO. It’s hard for me to imag­ine Sound Tran­sit with­out her. In so many ways, she per­son­i­fies the agency.

But, as Joni her­self would tell us, a strong, healthy orga­ni­za­tion works to elim­i­nate sin­gle points of fail­ure. Sound Tran­sit has many oth­er fine, tal­ent­ed peo­ple work­ing for it, includ­ing peo­ple who have worked for and along­side Joni for years, which is one rea­son why the agency has­n’t skipped a beat despite Joni’s recent absence from the office. (She has been gone since last April on med­ical leave).

I have no doubt that the val­ues and best prac­tices that she instilled while ST’s leader will remain even after she has depart­ed as CEO.

This region owes Joni Earl so much. She is a per­son­al hero of mine and I will be for­ev­er grate­ful to her for her ser­vice and leadership.

Sound Tran­sit Board Chair Dow Con­stan­tine says that Sound Tran­sit will launch a nation­al search to find the best per­son to suc­ceed Joni after she retires.

“Joni has pro­vid­ed vision­ary lead­er­ship since the for­ma­tive years of Sound Tran­sit,” said Con­stan­tine. “From the deliv­ery of Sound Move to the suc­cess of ST2 to the plan­ning for ST3, her work is remak­ing our region around reli­able mass tran­sit. Her suc­ces­sor will inher­it an able, pro­fes­sion­al, well-respect­ed organization.”

“The Sound Tran­sit Board and staff have tack­led huge chal­lenges and have suc­cess­ful­ly pro­vid­ed the first mass tran­sit sys­tem in our region,” Earl said. “I am so proud of what they have done. It has been both a priv­i­lege and an hon­or to serve as CEO of Sound Tran­sit. Now, as the agency pre­pares for Sound Tran­sit 3, it is time to hand the reins over to the next staff leader.”

Sound Tran­sit is cur­rent­ly led by Act­ing CEO Mike Har­bour, who is Ear­l’s deputy. Har­bour does not intend to be a can­di­date for the job of CEO.