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The manager assigned to oversee the customer service initiative left Metro in January and was not replaced. Instead, the duties were added to those of Deputy General Manager Gerald Francis, who oversees daily rail and bus operations and a host of other key areas.
Catoe made radical changes to his leadership team, and "anytime you put a new team together, you have to develop working relations and make adjustments to style, and you need to develop trust," he said. "That's improving every week."
He will probably to make more agency changes after an outside expert completes an assessment of the operations staff, which includes bus, rail, MetroAccess, training, planning and scheduling.
Advancing an agenda at Metro is not easy.
The politics of Metro's governing board means working with 12 officials from three jurisdictions, a job Maryland's Porcari described as "an exercise in personality management."
Metro's bureaucratic culture is also famous for resisting change.
When Metro ran a pilot program in the fall teaching basic Spanish phrases to bus drivers, it was well received by drivers. But the program took several months to launch because human resource managers were worried about public reaction at the height of anti-illegal immigration sentiment, sources said.
To encourage creative problem-solving and good customer service, Catoe has boosted employee recognition. He spotlights individuals at board meetings and at monthly lunches he hosts. One recent lunch group included a track employee who helped riders even as they yelled profanities at him and a retired mechanic who made parts for old rail cars because manufacturers no longer do.
But in early December, Catoe took a different approach.
Frustrated by "a slowdown in progress," he warned 70 managers that all employees, not just those in operations, need to improve customer service and system reliability.
"Sometimes to move forward and progress, we have to break out of our comfortable ways of doing business," he said, according to a copy of his speech. "Some of the things that we may have been doing since the beginning of time may not make a lot of sense when you step back and think about it."
It's all right to take risks, he told them, "as long as the goal is to improve service." He urged them to remember their duties at all times.
