Spokane Transit Authority CEO Susan Meyer will retire from her near 20-year post on Jan. 1, capping a 36-year career as a business leader in the Inland Northwest. 

During Meyer’s tenure at the STA, she spearheaded two successful sales-tax funding measures to improve public transit in the region. She also led the formation of the region’s first bus rapid transit line and the transit authority’s launch of a zero-emission fleet, among other accomplishments. Meyer is ending her career as the STA’s 10-year plan, STA Moving Forward, is set to close in 2026, and the agency’s next 10-year plan, Connect 2035, is set to be approved by the organization’s board of directors by the end of this year. 

Meyer, 67, has deep roots in Eastern Washington. She was born in Pasco, Washington, and grew up about 35 miles west of downtown Spokane in Davenport, Washington. Her parents were entrepreneurs, opening a restaurant and cocktail lounge in Cheney, and purchasing a handful of other restaurants over the years. Meyer’s mother, Eleanor MacDonald, served on the Davenport City Council for 30 years. Her grandparents were homesteaders on land that is now Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, and her great grandfather, Isaac Jeremiah Ballinger, was the mayor of Cheney in the 1890s. 

After completing her MBA in 1988, Meyer led the economic development organization, Momentum. She then worked for Pacific Gas Transmission Co., now known as PG&E Gas Transmission-Northwest, a subsidiary of California-based PG&E Corp. Meyer then served as the vice president of human resources and corporate relations for the Liberty Lake-based telecommunications company, Telect Inc., now known as Amphenol Telect, before joining STA in 2005. 

The Journal recently sat down with Meyer and discussed her long career under the guidance of a few of Spokane’s business titans, her experience as a woman in business, and the people who inspired and influenced her career path. 

 What compelled you to become a business leader? 

I had a friend who was a business professor at Eastern Washington University, and I was talking to him about what I might do because I had a degree in psychology, which was not very marketable in 1981. He said, "There are still not a lot of women in business, I think you should get your MBA." He had a Ph.D., and I thought, well that makes sense, I think I’ll do that. And my mother had always owned a business my whole life. 

I had to take the whole undergraduate core over again to satisfy the business degree requirements, so it took five years to complete. I was a single mom, working full time, and took one class per quarter in the evenings. It was a long slog, and my daughter, Heather, was small. I said to my mother, do you realize how old I’ll be when I finish this program? I’ll be 30 years old. And she said, "How old will you be if you don’t finish?" So I kept going at it. 

And your first job out of grad school was with an iconic organization. 

My first job was with Momentum. It was a learning experience, and I got to work for all these executives. So there was Paul Redmond. He was the CEO and chairman of Washington Water Power, now Avista Corp.; the late Bill Cowles, publisher of The Spokesman-Review; Dave Clack, the former chairman and CEO of Old National Bank. And there was Mike Murphy, of Central Pre-Mix. Those were the four chairmen of the board—we called them quad chairs—and 60 people on the board of directors, all businesspeople.

It was a nosebleed of a learning curve to jump into the business community with this nonprofit organization that had been created to stimulate economic development. I was a staff of one, working for all these people who had staffs of hundreds, and figuring out how it worked. It was an adventure. 

How was it to be a woman in business at that time? 

That is almost another subject. Things have changed a lot since I started in business, but there were obstacles for women—some that were subtle and some that were not so subtle. Most of my jobs have been male-dominated environments, and transit was certainly one of those. There were four women CEOs in Washington state when I came in. 

At Momentum, I eventually became the executive director. Most of the board members were men, older men too, seniors, chairmen of the board types. Most of the challenges seemed subtle but clearly there because I was a woman. I think things have changed dramatically since then, but women need to be in leadership positions for more women to witness and believe they can do it. And because my mother was a barrier breaker, I didn’t ever feel like I couldn’t get ahead because I was a woman. I was raised by a woman who got ahead. 

It sounds like your mom was a big influence in your life.

I was raised by a woman who could do anything she set her mind to. She started a women’s clothing store and named it Jeremiah after her grandad, and opened three total: one in Davenport, one in Cheney, and one in Spokane. Then she sold them all and went back into the restaurant business. She was really determined and said I could do anything. I never quite had the confidence she did, but I think I always looked at challenges through her eyes. 

She was an emergency medical technician for a while. When I started college in the winter of 1979, she went back to school with me that February because she hadn’t gone to college. She took a quarter’s worth of classes with me, and we drove back and forth from Cheney to Davenport all quarter. 

Who else was a mentor to you in your career? 

Some of the people who influenced me came to my retirement party recently. Dave Clack is 90, and Paul Redmond is 87. Those men were titans of Spokane business, and they still look like that: fit, articulate, and funny. I give them a lot of credit for helping me see what had to be done. They were already mentoring Phyllis Campbell, who was a senior banking executive. I admired what she did, and she broke barriers in banking as one of the few minority women who went to great places and provided leadership for people like me.

When I first came to the STA, I knew business, but I didn’t know transit. I met some CEOs of big transit systems at a conference and invited them to come to Spokane and do a peer review. They said some things that would form the foundation for everything we would do next. Those were the first people I met in transit, and they were my mentors. 

Looking back on your career, what have been a few of your biggest accomplishments? 

Well, the thing that each of the jobs I did had in common was that I wasn’t qualified. Each of those jobs, I had to learn once I got there. That is something that keeps you humble. I had the education and good judgment and sort of good business sense, but not knowing how to do something and being given the opportunity to do it, there is something motivating in that. 

Becoming the CEO of the STA was a big jump that I didn’t see coming. I never thought about being in the public sector. I thought I would always be in the private sector. So, coming into the public sector meant I had to learn a whole new way of doing everything.

Transit is an old industry, and I had to learn everything, I imagine it was as hard on the whole team as it was for me, because they had to train me on what it meant. There is a science in transit planning, and almost nobody knows that unless they’re in transit. So when I got here, I wanted to translate transit to all my friends in the nongovernment sector. Transit has performance metrics, and we performed better than anybody in the state, so I started evangelizing my friends in business by talking about transit in those terms. 

Why retire now and what are your plans for retirement? 

I’ve had an employment contract every year since I got here in 2005. I’ve been renewing all these past 19 years, which is almost like a sales tax reauthorization. So I knew that 2024 would be the end of my career here.  

So I leave with a full heart of gratitude about what I was entrusted with and able to do, and without a doubt in my mind that this is the time for me to transition out and for someone else to come charging in. 

I have worked so many hours a day for so long. I am often here late at night, and that’s just the way I have always worked. It’s time to dedicate that energy to something else. I don’t know what it’s going to involve yet, maybe some travel. I have some writing to do, maybe some book ideas. Starting Jan. 1, I’ll be in San Diego, with my daughter Heather, and my granddaughters. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.