NAPT President Don Carnahan passed away due to massive heart attack on the night of Oct. 3. He was 75. The news came as a surprise to members of the industry, many of who remembered him fondly. “Everyone Don knew in pupil transportation, especially his friends and colleagues in NAPT, is grieving with his family,” said NAPT Executive Director Mike Martin in a statement.
Donaldson Martin Carnahan was born on May 27, 1939 in Washington State. He attended the University of Washington from 1958 to 1963 and had an illustrious college football career, which included the national collegiate football championship in 1960 and playing in two Rose Bowls. In 1959, he married Sharon Joy Poulsen. He is survived by daughters Shari Carnahan, Kimberlee (Ronald) Medlock, and Tamara (Kevin) Johnson and eight grandchildren.
AN INDUSTRY ‘ICON’
Carnahan’s career in student transportation spanned many decades and involved many different leadership roles. In 2003 he went to work for fleet management technology provider Zonar Systems as vice president of business development of pupil transportation, a position he still held at the time of his death.
“Don brought to the team more than 45 years of leadership in the education and pupil transportation industry including school district administration, department of education administration and private sector employment partnering with educational institutions,” said Andrew Johnson, vice president of marketing and sales support.
The company held a memorial for him on Oct. 15 at the Beach Park Event Center in Des Moines, Washington. In his honor, about 150 attendees wore their “best boots and leather vests,” Carnahan’s staple apparel. Close
friends Robert Pape, president of the New York School Bus Contractors Association, and Alexandra Robinson, past NAPT president, gave the eulogy.
Other colleagues also remembered him as an exceptional leader and a great friend.
“Words cannot express the shock upon hearing of his death. Don Carnahan was, and will continue to be in his passing, a true icon of our industry. He was a mentor, a colleague, and most of all, a friend to all of us,” said Max Christensen, who concludes his tenure as NASDPTS president at the association’s annual meeting in Kansas City this month.
Added NAPT’s Martin: “Don was one of those rare people who in many ways was larger than life itself. May he now rest in peace.”
NAPT planned a special honoring of Carnahan at its Summit this month, also in Kansas City.
A LIFETIME OF DEDICATION
Carnahan began his career as a teacher and coach at his former high school after graduating from the University of Washington. He taught biology, physical education and traffic safety. It was his experience in the latter subject that eventually drew the attention of the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, which recruited him to work in its traffic safety and transportation division in 1974. After one year, he was promoted to state director of pupil transportation.
In the early 1980s, Carnahan implemented a new formula for funding pupil transportation operations and a new depreciation system for school buses.
“It was a big argument,” he told STN in 2010, when he was named the magazine’s Leadership Award winner at the NAPT Summit in Portland, Ore. “We had a reimbursement system, and they didn’t like the way it was sending money out to districts. We had to develop an allocation system that wasn’t going to be contentious with the legislators. They figured I could handle it.”
Allan Jones, the current director of pupil transportation and fingerprinting for Washington State, said Carnahan’s operation funding system was used for 25 years, and the depreciation system he implemented is generally still in place.
Carnahan served as state director there for 22 years, until 1996. During his tenure, he also served as president of the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation (NASDPTS) from 1991 until 1992 and is the only two-time president in the association’s history. He is also the only person to serve as both NAPT president and NASPDTS president.
Carnahan chaired the 11th National Congress on School Transportation, which convenes every five years to adopt proposed updates to the National School Transportation Specifications and Procedures.
Following his retirement as state director, Carnahan went to work for bus contractor Laidlaw. He left the company in 2001 when it finished a major restructuring after filing for bankruptcy.
Carnahan also worked in higher education from 1989 until 2004, having served as adjunct professor for the Pupil Transportation Management Training Program at Central Washington University. He developed and implemented the program along with the Washington Association for Pupil Transportation and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Jones calls this program “one of the biggest impacts Don had on the pupil transportation industry.”
