Gloria Hunt was running her own cleaning business when her mother-in-law suggested applying for a job as a bus operator. Growing up in Fridley, her only experience with transit was the occasional bus trip to downtown Minneapolis to visit her grandmother. But with kids at home, the benefits were appealing. Hunt also came from a family of motorheads, and had some experience driving large campers and motorhomes. So she applied, and was soon offered a job as a part-time operator out of the Ruter Garage. “She (my mother-in-law) thought it’d be a good fit and turned out she was right,” Hunt said. “I liked it from the very beginning.” Hunt enjoyed the work so much, in fact, that she made a 30-year career at Metro Transit.

In the beginning, Hunt maintained her cleaning business while working part-time as a bus operator. Eventually, she traded those long days for a full-time role at Nicollet Garage. But her schedule now challenged her in other ways – as a newer operator, Hunt worked many nights and weekends. Often, she was the last bus to pull in each night – ending her shift just before 3 a.m. Although the late nights could, at times, be tense, Hunt said regular customers would come to her defense. “I had a funny sort of relationship with them,” she said. “If anybody on the bus gave me a hard time, they were there to protect me. They’d say, ‘Leave her alone. She’s one of the good ones.’” That support, along with friendships at the garage, helped Hunt picture herself building a career in transit. “I had times where I thought, ‘How am I going to do this for the rest of my life?’” she said. “But the good days always made me feel better about the job, and I didn’t hang onto the bad stuff long. You just had to shrug it off.”

In 1997, Hunt took the next step in her career and became a part-time instructor – something she’d thought about when she’d gone through her own training seven years earlier. While she liked the idea of helping people, Hunt said she quickly realized that “just because you can do something doesn’t mean you can teach it.” “When I look back at when I first started teaching to now I wonder how anyone passed,” she said. “But it got better with time.” Hunt used what she was learning to help craft the department’s training manual – a guidebook that put lessons in an order that seemed to make the most sense for both teachers and students. In addition to teaching hundreds of new bus operators, Hunt spent many years conducting CDL tests for the state of Minnesota. “I think I’ve done that longer than anyone else in the state,” she said. “If I didn’t teach someone how to drive, there’s a good chance I may have tested them.”

Hunt retired in April 2020. In retirement, she planned to spend more time gardening, traveling and camping, and spending time with her children and grandchildren.