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WOMEN IN TRANSPORTATION Lisa FARBSTEIN TITLE Public Affairs Manager – Strategic Communications/ Public Affairs Straight out of university, Baltimore- raised Lisa Farbstein wanted to be a reporter. She got a job at a local newspa- per as a sports writer, and as an ardent baseball fan, she called it the "post-col- lege dream job." A few years later, a small private col- lege in Maryland was hiring an assistant director of public relations, and it was in that position that Farbstein put her communications degree to work. Over time, she raised the school's profi le, pro- duced admissions brochures and fun- draising literature, helped start the col- lege on the path of desktop publishing to websites and even earned a master's degree. Eleven years later, however, Farbstein was looking for something fresh. She took a spokesperson job for the Arling- ton, Va. public school system. This po- sition gave her immersed news/media experience in Washington, D.C. and just the right skills needed to grab the attention of her next and second longest employer, the Washington Metropoli- tan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). Farbstein was fi rst hired as a spokes- person and then served as the director of media relations and public relations, overseeing 13 people with a $2 million budget. While at WMATA, Farbstein launched a social media platform and developed the agency's fi rst emergency communi- cations response plan for major crises. She covered everything from fatal train collisions to board turmoil. "Typically the crises there would be operational, so I saw a strong need for having an emergency response plan compliant with the Department of Homeland Security response method- ology from the communications side to work with folks internally and exter- nally," says Farbstein. ORGANIZATION Transportation Security Administration CITY Arlington, Va. Farbstein currently works closely with risk-based security. She helps promote initiatives, makes updates and improvements to current regulations, and rolls out the initiatives to other states. After 10 years at WMATA, Farbstein left to pursue her present position at the Transportation Security Administra- tion (TSA): public affairs manager in the strategic communications/public af- fairs department. Farbstein is the lead TSA spokesperson for the New York and New Jersey region. Because she's based in Washington, D.C., she's occasionally involved in proj- ects for TSA's headquarters as well. TSA has 10 spokespeople across the country. They each take turns being "on call" for four weeks of the year and must answer to nation-wide issues and emergencies. "At WMATA, it would always be some- thing odd, trivial or unusual because of the number of passengers being trans- ferred daily," says Farbstein. "Here, you see things on a national scale — because it's the federal government, the stakes are higher." Currently, Farbstein is working closely with risk-based security. She helps pro- mote risk-based initiatives, makes up- dates and improvements to current regu- lations, and rolls out initiatives in other states. From her experience at WMATA, 48 < mETRO mAGAZINE SEPTEMBER • OCTOBER 2012 she has become a bit of a crisis expert. "It's satisfying to know what good work is being done by TSA to keep peo- ple safe while using various transporta- tion systems," says Farbstein. "We help ensure people's freedom of movement." She also writes about the events, is- sues and occurrences that happen throughout the transportation systems — airport, rail and mass transit in gen- eral — to notify the media, passengers and TSA's internal team. She says the most challenging part of her job is breaking into the media news cycle. If something unusual happens in transit, the media is quick to report on it; however, it frequently takes TSA time to investigate. Once TSA resolves a problem, Farb- stein must break into that rapid news cycle to provide a complete side of the story. She accomplishes this by posting Twitter updates or longer blurbs on the TSA blog. "I enjoy working with the media," says Farbstein. "Maybe that's because of my initial background in reporting, but I understand what they're looking for metro-magazine.com