RENO, Nev. — When a shocked and emotional Richard “Dick” Fischer stepped onto the STN EXPO stage to receive a lifetime achievement award from School Transportation News, he said he was speechless. That is saying something for one of the industry’s longest-serving and most knowledgeable school transportation safety trainers.
Fischer, 89, has dedicated nearly his entire life — he began driving a school bus when he was 17 — to student transportation safety.
He started his career in 1952 as a 17-year-old school bus driver for the U.S. Air Force. After being honorably discharged, Fischer worked in transportation for Southern California’s Orange Unified School District and nearby Centralia Elementary School District in Buena Park, ending both of his terms there as director of transportation. He took part in forming the California Association of School Transportation Officials and started School Bus Safety Week with a letter-writing campaign to President Richard Nixon in 1969.
Fischer also worked for ARA Transportation before starting his own consulting company, Trans-Consult in 1977, the same year the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for school buses were first published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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With Trans-Consult he became widely known for his school bus driver instructor course. The focus is on not only driver training for the onboard safety of schoolchildren but to also limit liability and costly litigation as a result of crashes. He’s also a National Association of Pupil Transportation Hall of Fame member.
He initially retired from the industry in the summer of 2013 after 61 years. However, many know that his presence remains at various conferences, including this past week at STN EXPO in Reno, Nevada, where he gave a full day’s presentation on accident investigations and lawsuits. He continues to send his daily emails with links to articles about school bus safety, something he’s done since 1996. He’s also still an active CDL school bus trainer in the state of California.
“I want to call up someone for a very special award this morning,” STN Editor-in-Chief Ryan Gray said on July 15 during STN EXPO in Reno. “Mr. Fischer has been a dear friend to STN since well before STN even existed.”
Gray said Fischer had been in the industry for three decades when he took STN founder Bill Paul under his wing in the early 1980s. Paul was just getting involved in the school bus industry with School Bus Fleet magazine before forming STN with wife Colette Paul in 1991.
“School Bus Safety Week would not exist without this gentleman here,” Gray continued. “He single-handedly got President Richard Nixon to pass the first School Bus Safety Week, and here we are, it is now a tried-and-true element and a very much look forwarded to event each year as school districts and bus companies across the nation celebrate.”
Gray added that Fischer is a walking dictionary when it comes to school transportation, “and we are so honored that he continues to come here and share his wealth of knowledge and expertise with the attendees,” he continued. “He truly makes this industry better and that is why we want to honor Dick today with a very special award: The Lifetime Achievement Award.”
Next year, STN will present a $2,000 scholarship for STN EXPO Reno to a school bus driver-trainer in Fisher’s name. The scholarship is made possible by Pete Baxter, a retired state director of transportation for the Indiana Department of Education and Fischer’s co-instructor on the July 12 STN EXPO seminar on school bus accident investigation.
Fischer took the stage and first asked all U.S. military veterans in the room to stand. “I never rode a school bus when I was a youngster, because they didn’t have them,” Fischer said, addressing the EXPO crowd. “I never thought I would be in the school bus industry.”
However, he said, his first job in the military was picking up the students via a school bus. He was told to drive around the base and pick up any child he saw standing outside. Fischer had no training and no knowledge of school bus driving at that point. When he was stationed overseas, he used his driving experience to haul bombs.
“I want to thank the people that came before me,” he said. “Who are in heaven right now, who helped me do a lot of things that I had the opportunity to do, they gave me leadership.”
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Fischer also thanked Baxter, who he’s known for the past 40 years, for his industry leadership. “I want to thank every one of you, for being here and getting up every day at 4:30 a.m. to work [in school transportation]. I applaud you,” he said. “This industry is the best industry in the world. We transport more people every day than any other industry.”
He noted that he has been successful in what he’s done because of the people like those in the audience who have supported the industry. “I say to you, don’t feel bad if you’re down in the dumps because all you have to do is think about the kids that you are saving every day, getting their education.
“Thank you very much from my heart. We work together as a team to accomplish this goal,” he concluded.
