Growing up in St. Paul’s East Side, Jeff Gauthier and his grandmother would regularly visit his grandfather Lawrence, an MTC operator, for lunch between trips. His dad Fred also built a 45-year career in bus maintenance. So it’s unsurprising that when Gauthier was encouraged to make a career in transit he heeded the advice. And while he wasn’t sure how long he’d stay when he began, he wound up spending 42 years in bus maintenance, working on at least seven different types of buses as technology continued to evolve over the course of his career. “I never knew how long I’d be here, but once I got in and started seeing the work people did, had a steady check and good insurance I figured, ‘I’m going to stay right here. This is perfect,’” Gauthier said shortly before his retirement.

Gauthier’s career began as a Cleaner at the old Snelling Garage. He worked for a few years as a foreman for Metro Mobility, but spent the majority of his time as a Mechanic-Technician tearing apart and rebuilding motors. And he never left his hometown. After the old Snelling Garage closed, he continued and finished out his career at East Metro. But Gauthier still saw plenty of change over his four decades in maintenance. Troubleshooting went from an intensely manual process to one based primarily on computer programs. Engines became progressively more complex and powerful. And the environment he and his fellow mechanics shared became markedly better. “When I started, we were working in what was really just a dingy old streetcar barn. It would rain and the manhole covers would come up,” he said. “When I got to East Metro, it was like night and day.”

Looking back, Gauthier said keeping up with those changes, and the satisfaction he got from mastering a new skill or repairing a bus, were what kept his interest over the years. Friendly co-workers and a supportive workplace made it all that much easier to stay. “It’s hard to leave a place like this, because everything’s been so good,” he said. Even so, Gauthier decided it was time to say goodbye, retiring in January 2017. In retirement, he plans to continue building his business repairing small hoists and to finally take his fishing boat out of storage.

As a little kid, Rick Carey loved taking things apart and putting them back together. By middle school, he’d already decided he wanted to be a mechanic. And he always worked on his and his family members’ vehicles. So it was only natural that he’d go to vocational school, apply for work at what was then the Metropolitan Transit Commission and build a 36-year career in bus and rail maintenance.

Carey’s career began at the old Snelling Garage, where he quickly moved from a Cleaner to Helper position. He later worked as a Mechanic-Technician at the old Northside, old Nicollet, South, Shingle Creek and Heywood garages. During his time in Bus Maintenance, Carey enjoyed heavy hoist work – replacing trailing arms, changing rods and pulling wheels – and getting vehicles in top condition.

In 2003, Carey transferred to Metro Transit’s fledgling rail vehicle maintenance department, working as a Quality Assurance supervisor and traveling across North America to ensure vehicles being made for the Blue Line and Northstar Commuter Rail Line were built correctly. “I was probably flying more than anybody in the company at that time,” Carey said. “I was gone every single week.” In 2006, Carey initiated the first overhaul program for the Bombardier light-rail vehicles, also known as Type 1. He later worked in the Central Corridor Project Office, where he helped lead the purchase of 59 Siemens vehicles for the Green and Blue lines.

Shortly before the Green Line’s 2014 opening, he moved into another new role as the Assistant Director of Rail Vehicle Maintenance; he become the Director in 2015, overseeing a department with 65 technicians responsible for maintaining a fleet of 86 light rail vehicles. Carey said he had always enjoyed being an “informal leader,” and that assuming more responsibility gave him an opportunity to bring people along toward shared goals. “I always wanted us to do the best job we could,” he said. “That was the satisfaction I got from the job – working with a big group of people able to keep things running.”

After 36 years of service, Carey retired in January 2017. In retirement, Carey looked forward to enjoying time with his family, including wife, Karen, three children and seven grandchildren. He also hoped to spend more time working on his hobby farm, hiking, camping, canoeing, snowmobiling and four-wheeling.

Jeff Zabel’s father and godfather each worked as mechanics at the Metropolitan Transit Commission, and he’d learned first-hand how to repair cars growing up. So when he graduated high school and considered his options, pursuing a career in bus maintenance was an obvious choice. He applied and spent the next four decades repairing buses – at one point literally taking his father’s job in the radiator shop after he retired.

Zabel’s initial years were spent at the Shingle Creek, old Northside, Nicollet and South garages, where he rose from Cleaner to Mechanic-Technician. After moving to the Overhaul Base he eventually settled into the Body Shop, where he spent more than half of his career repairing coin-operated fareboxes, applying trim, fabricating panels and working on special projects like the specially-decorated holiday buses. He also became handy with a sewing machine, repairing seats and, later, using the same material to fashion hundreds of on-board trash bins. Toward the end of his career, Zabel experimented with the undercarriage of the flexible section on 60-foot buses, creating what he expects will be a more widely-used and durable protective cover.

The ability to try new things, take on different jobs and learn from his fellow co-workers, Zabel said, is what kept the job interesting throughout the years. It also made the years go by quickly. “It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long at all,” he said as his retirement date approached.

Zabel retired in January 2017 with more than 40 years of service. In retirement, he plans to spend time catching up on his honey-do list, gardening, fishing and being a grandfather. Zabel’s immediate family includes wife Mary, son Pete, who also works in Bus Maintenance, daughter Heidi Peace and granddaughter Jade Peace.

James Schlafer wasn’t entirely sure what it would be like helping customers plan trips over the phone. But he’d spent his entire life biking and taking transit around the Twin Cities and had several years of experience as a telemarketer, providing what might have been the quintessential background for a job in Metro Transit’s Transit Information Center. It worked so well, in fact, that Schlafer ultimately spent more than 31 years as a Transit Information representative, becoming the department’s longest consecutively-serving employee by the time he retired in early-2017. “I’m pretty good at sticking with things,” Schlafer said wryly shortly before his retirement.

By his retirement, Schlafer had assisted up to 1 million callers over an estimated 3 million hours on the phone. The job was far from routine, though. Throughout his career, Schlafer challenged himself to look for solutions that weren’t immediately evident, mastering the quirks of local address systems and developing personalized mental shortcuts that helped him decipher the vague outlines callers sometimes presented him. “You get to know what people mean, even if they don’t really know what they mean,” he said. Schlafer’s intense study led to an encyclopedic knowledge of the transit system, at one point giving him the ability to place more than 120 routes on an unmarked map by memory. While technology eventually gave Transit Information representatives more immediate access to online trip planning tools, Schlafer said his intuition and knowledge base continued to be useful throughout his career. “Even if I didn’t have a computer or all these resources I could find out pretty accurately where someone was and still help them,” said Schlafer, known to callers as “Mr. James” throughout his career.

Schlafer took pride in proving the breadth of his knowledge, often telling self-convinced callers they’d owe him a Dr. Pepper if he could persuade them they were mistaken. “There are lot of people out there who owe me Dr. Peppers,” he said. That didn’t mean he wasn’t patient, though. In fact, Schlafer holds a likely record for the Transit Information Center’s longest phone conversation, a two-hour, 17-minute marathon call with someone looking for help getting around Burnsville and Eagan. “Usually, I try not to be on the phone long enough to have to be patient, but in this case all I could do was humor them for a really long time,” he said.

Approaching retirement, Schlafer said he would miss being a resource to his co-workers and answering what seemed like unsolvable puzzles. But he planned to have an active retirement, spending more time biking and taking daily hikes with his wife Diana, completing the Superior Hiking Trail, making photographs, writing music and participating in Mensa, a high IQ society.

After serving as a Marine in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam conflict, John Mattson thought he’d go back to school to study engineering and science. But in 1975, on the recommendation of a friend, he applied for a job at Metro Transit, where he could put his “backyard mechanic” skills to use. He spent the next decade working as a cleaner, fueler and helper at the old Northside and old Snelling garages before moving into Facilities Maintenance so his days would have more variety. As part of a small and mobile facilities team, Mattson spent time at several garages. Eventually, though, he found a home at South Garage, where he spent the last 25 years of his career. Though he could have gone elsewhere, Mattson said he took pride in making South the best it could be. “I’ve always considered this my baby and the place where I belong,” he said. Mattson took particular pride in keeping the garage clean, well-ventilated, and lit and battling blizzards that nearly buried the garage during the winter months. Mattson retired in April 2016 with plans to spend time golfing, watching and photographing birds, and monitoring osprey nests along the St. Croix River.