Business Spotlight
This week marked the first day of summer and nearly one month of station closures for the final phase of Metro's Platform Improvement Project. This summer, five stations are closed. If you've traveled through any of these stations, you've probably encountered an essential element of our communications strategy for the project: outreach teams!
Metro is committed to providing multilingual and equitable communications and outreach throughout this project, in accordance with our Public Participation Plan and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program. These outreach efforts are supported by Idle Time Advertising (ITA), the organization providing the outreach teams that customers have grown to recognize throughout the Metro system. ITA's "yellow aprons," provide multilingual outreach staffing for various Metro projects, distributing flyers and surveys and helping customers navigate station changes safely.
ITA, a woman-owned business, Small Business Enterprise (SBE) and DBE, started as a display advertising and signage company in 2007. Metro began using ITA's outreach teams in 2014 and eight years later, they are a well-oiled machine, focusing solely on providing outreach team support.
ITA's support for this summer's Platform Improvement Project generated over 150 jobs in the region. To fulfill Metro's mission to provide equitable outreach, ITA provides multilingual staff specializing in Spanish, Amharic, Korean, Vietnamese, Mandarin, French and American Sign Language. To date, these outreach teams have worked over 73,000 hours, distributing over 30,000 handouts and counting!
When asked what ITA enjoys about working with Metro, ITA's Vice President Josh Sweat said, "Knowing that we are making a difference. People often comment that they are genuinely grateful for the 'yellow apron' staff being out in the field providing multilingual support."
Next time you're at a station take a moment to say hello to ITA's outreach teams-they love connecting with you!
Business Spotlight is not an endorsement by Metro.