Unsure what kind of career he wanted, E. Glenn Gilbert took his father-in-law’s advice and applied for what sounded like a secure job as a vault puller. It didn’t take long for him to feel right at home, and after finding his calling uncertainty turned to determination and he built a career in transit that would eventually span more than three decades. Gilbert retires next week after 34 years of service.  

“When I started, I was a college dropout with a young family and no obvious career,” Gilbert said. “Working here gave me opportunities to increase my knowledge, skills, and abilities, to be part of a public service that really matters to the community, and to achieve the financial stability to retire.”  

The opportunities Gilbert found at Metro Transit were largely of his own making.   

After eight years as a vault puller, Gilbert moved to the stockroom where he was exposed to computers and started learning how to build queries and reports. There, he learned he had a knack for information systems and looked for ways to build and apply his skills in that space. 

After returning to school, Gilbert spent time in Bus Maintenance and Bus Transportation, where he honed his abilities developing nascent business intelligence tools that are still used today. Gilbert said he was particularly adept at interpreting what people needed from systems and putting that information in terms other people needed to deliver solutions. “That’s a niche not everyone can live in,” he said.   

For the past seven years, Gilbert has served as a business systems manager in Strategic Initiatives. In this position, Gilbert said he was able to put all his experience and education toward designing the next evolution of the same systems he helped get off the ground. Like every other position that came before it, he said it was the best job he ever had.  

Throughout his career, Gilbert relied on the same transit system he supported behind the scenes, riding the bus to and from homes in Blaine and Falcon Heights.   

Now, though, Gilbert is ready to ditch the commute and hand things off to a successor who can stick around and see the systems he’s helped bring to the foreground mature throughout their career.  

In retirement, he hopes to spend more time on the things he enjoys the most, including listening to live music and following IndyCar. “Mostly, I’m just looking forward to having a good chunk of my day back to chose what I want to do,” he says.