Public service has grown during 17-year tenure as executive director
Photos and story by Lynn Colburn
Jean Jumper, executive director of the West Central Mass Transit District (WCMTD), retired after 17 years on February 1. Jumper’s leadership has been instrumental in growing WCMTD from its initial small scope in 2004 to the efficient and effective public transportation system in the six-county area it is today.
WCMTD provides public transportation services to all residents Morgan, Cass, Schuyler, Brown, Pike and Scott counties in west central Illinois in a demand-response mode.
“Jumper is the epitome of someone my father would have said keeps her ‘nose to the grindstone,’” notes Lynn Coburn. Jumper leads by example and keeps her focus intensely upon the work at hand.
Jumper says, “For many of those first years, everything we had went into just keeping us running. There was no extra. If it didn’t push forward the agenda, the vision and the mission then the money was not doing for the agency what it was meant to do: provide another person a ride to their doctor or workplace, put another tire on a bus or buy another gallon of gas. I knew that someday we would need to build a building but it was a dream for the future.” A state grant has been approved that will make that dream come true. A new building is in planning stages and is slated to open in late 2026.
Ed Heflin, transit specialist on staff at the Illinois Rural Transit Assistance Center (RTAC), noted in RTAC’s recent publication, that Jumper came into the job with no transit experience. Heflin goes on to say, “West Central Mass Transit District has been successful because Jean came into the job with compassion for riders, a strong customer service focus, exemplary leadership skills, and the desire for continuous improvement of the district’s services.”
Jumper moved to Jacksonville in 1985, traveling with her two young children from Grand Island, Nebraska to become executive director of the Jacksonville Area Convention & Visitors Bureau. Today, she and her husband, Gordon, have six children and 13 grandchildren between them. From 1985-2006, Jumper’s professional experience focused on not-for-profit administration and re-organization. Besides the JACVB, Jumper served as president of the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce; executive director of Belleville Economic Progress, Inc.; executive director of the Prairieland United Way; and spent several years providing consulting services for area nonprofit boards.
It was the consulting that brought Jumper to WCMTD in August 2005 to train its board of directors in its role and responsibilities to the organization. Shortly thereafter Jumper was invited to join the board of trustees. “Having worked on and with volunteer boards for 20 years, I knew what responsibilities board members were charged with but I did not have a very thorough understanding of this particular agency, so I dug in to learn as much as I could about the funding, regulations and requirements in order to make informed decisions. It was at that time that administrative and financial concerns began to come to the surface,” Jumper says.
Initially, rides were provided via contracted transit with Executive Transportation. Jumper says, “If it hadn’t been for Tim Mann and his people at Executive Transportation, the agency would never have gotten off the ground. Tim did what he needed to do to in order to get us going and for that we owe him a great deal of gratitude, which I don’t think was ever communicated to him.”
Director Debra Walters presen
ts Jumper with a retirement gift and the sincere thanks of the staff, board of directors and community.
By the time Jumper joined the board, the district had acquired two buses and had hired a couple drivers. The managing director of the district resigned in early 2006 leaving some issues to be resolved and a position to fill.
Ron Gray, with whom Jumper worked at several different organizations over the years and who had applied for the position of managing director, came to her and said he had met with the search committee and turned the job down telling them that Jumper should be their new managing director.
In her interview with RTAC, Jumper recalls, “By the end of the next day, the chair of the search committee called me and let me know what Ron had said. I resigned from the board and submitted my application. The rest, as they say, is history.”
On November 1, 2006, Jumper began her 17-plus-year career with WCMTD. At the time, the district provided services to Morgan and Scott counties. “In 2008, after working with community leaders and getting all the necessary permission, WCMTD began providing transportation for the citizens and visitors of Brown County. 2008 was also the year that we applied for and were awarded the grant that supports the Senior Bus service in Morgan and Scott counties,” says Jumper.
Jumper emphasizes that she has a wonderful staff: “They are family. They all step up when needed and we all help each other both in and out of the office.”
Many of her staff have come and gone, but some of the staff have stayed with Jumper for many years. “Gerald Day, Missy Bramblett, Emma Baldwin and Kim Stout have been with me since 2007,” says Jumper. “Thirty-five percent of the staff has been here five years or more. Some former staff members stop in every once in a while, and it is always a joy to see them.”
The staff includes administration, dispatchers, drivers and maintenance; however, they do not employ a mechanic. “We do all mechanical work in the communities we serve. I’m an old Chamber exec so I like to put money back into the community,” explains Jumper. “We buy fuel at local gas stations.”
WCMTD expanded services even further after Jumper met Ed Heflin, director of RTAC, in 2009 at a meeting in Pike County to discuss its needs. Jumper says, “RTAC, serving as a clearing house for Interagency Coordinating Committee of Transportation, developed and facilitated a transit capacity-building process for counties seeking a Section 5311 grant, the ICCT Coordination Primer Process.” In 2010, after nine months of planning, Pike County was added to the district service area.
In the process, Jumper says she learned a lot and continued to work with RTAC on a variety of projects including meetings with Adams County representatives working on county-wide services and WCMTD’s annexation of Cass and Schuyler counties, which were added to the service area in 2014. RTAC invited Jumper to serve on the Rural Transit Assistance Program (RTAP) Advisory Board for several years, and she served two of them as the board’s chair. Ed Heflin wrote in the RTAC publication, “She [Jumper] is known for her integrity and making customer-focused decisions and is admired throughout the Illinois Section 5311 environment.”
Jumper was also a member of the board of directors of the Illinois Public Transit Association for several years serving as the board’s secretary. She was honored by executive director Laura Calderon and the board at the January 2024 meeting for her years of service on that board.
Under Jumper’s guidance, WCMTD ridership grew between 2006-2014, but even with best laid plans she notes, life can throw one curves.
In 2016, late reimbursements from the State of Illinois became an issue forcing a service shut down and staff layoff of 72 employees that lasted 60 days. “It was the most difficult decision I ever had to make,” says Jumper. “The staff was so supportive and their main concern was for their customers! They even offered to volunteer their time, use their own cars and call whomever they needed to call! They stood behind the agency.”
During those two months, Jumper worked with a different driver each day with funds from a Title III-B Grant to provide lifesaving transportation for medical reasons — dialysis, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, bariatric therapy — and kept running what they could. Jumper took calls and scheduled rides in between working with the press, IDOT, IPTA and RTAC, plus various city, county, state and federally elected officials looking for solutions. “Congressman John Sullivan, Representative Jil Tracy (now Senator Jil Tracy), Senator Sam McCann, Representative C.D. Davidsmeyer and Representative Norine Hammond all reached out to me numerous times in that period. They were concerned and actively worked to get funding for public transportation back on track.” Jumper says. “Calls came at all hours of the day and I was humbled by the number of calls received to just make sure we were personally doing okay.”
The Jacksonville Lions Club stepped up with a donation and challenged other organizations to get involved. Several stepped up including Kiwanis Club, Sunrise Rotary, Central Illinois Herb Guild, Vet-2-Vet, Beardstown Lions Club, Beardstown Emblem Club and the Pilot Club. Donations also came in from the City of Jacksonville, City of Beardstown, Morgan and Cass counties, Village of South Jacksonville, individuals, businesses and churches allowing WCMTD to continue to provide services on a limited basis to those who relied on it for medical purposes.
Paul White, president of then-Premier Bank took a chance on the district; White worked with Jumper on an agreement that would provide funds to make payroll and pay for fuel and took the proposal to Premier Bank’s Board of Directors for approval. It was Premier Bank that provided the financial backing that allowed the district to get back to business in December 2016. “We held up our end of the bargain and paid the debt off two months early,” Jumper reports.
Just when they thought they had gotten through the worst, COVID-19 hit in 2020 hit and the world came to a halt. Jumper smiles when she recalls, “There were new hurdles to overcome and once again the staff pulled together, and together we got through it.”
Jumper says she is pleased to say they are on track in fiscal year 2024 to come back to pre-COVID ridership levels, despite the challenges of today’s workforce shortage, the inability to procure newer vehicles and the increased costs of keeping up the organization’s aging fleet.
Dispatchers and drivers are still needed in different counties WCMTD serves. Anyone interested can apply at the Jacksonville WCMTD office, 1120 W. Walnut St. in Jacksonville. For questions, please contact 217-245-2900 and ask for human resources.
There were other challenges and too many successes over the years to mention, but Jumper says each day provided new learning experiences and the services they are able to provide to the residents and visitors in the communities WCMTD serves making it all worthwhile.
When asked what she would like to convey upon leaving, Jumper says, “My experience in Jacksonville is one that I would hope for my children and grandchildren to get. I mean in that the people I met and learned from, individuals I got to work with that most people only see on the news, things I was allowed to be a part of because of where I ended up. Moving to Jacksonville was one of the best decisions I ever made.”
Jumper also says she had “so many amazing mentors over the years. People like Pauline Newport, Helen Foreman, Helen Baldwin, Barbara Baker, Betty Teaford, Phyllis Lape, Peggy Davidsmeyer and Lynn Colburn to name just a few. These are people I grew up loving and learning from. And I’m not even sure they ever really knew how important they were in my professional and personal life. What we learn is where our strengths lie and what other people’s strengths are. We learn how to collaborate making us stronger together.”
Recognizes Jumper, “We sometimes forget to say thank you! And if there is anything I wish I could do, it would be to say thank you personally to everyone who I had the privilege of working with and learning from. This is one goal that I will never succeed at because I’ll never be able to name you all. But thank you for giving me the opportunity to become a part of this amazing community! To Bob Black, Ernie Downey, Larry Kuster, Jim and John Mann, and the rest of the JAVCB Board who took a chance on a young woman from Nebraska — Thanks for believing in me! To all who served on the various boards at the Visitors Bureau, the Chamber, United Way and WCMTD … thank you for your time, your counsel, your support and holding my feet to the fire! Finally, thank you to all the many volunteers and employees I have had the privilege to work with. Nothing worthwhile is accomplished without a team of committed individuals with a vision. I can only hope that in some way I said thank you then as I thank you now.”
And on one final note, Jumper shares, “And to those who come to Jacksonville from elsewhere, there is so much to do here and so many opportunities here, all you have to do is let people know you are willing! Get involved. Jacksonville is always going to be home to me, it’s always going to be a special place.”
