RTD highlights women in transit during Women’s History Month: Meet Caitlin Magee and Sarah Boettcher
RTD is commemorating Women’s History Month by promoting incredible and resilient women who make lives better through connections. During this last week of March, RTD is featuring two women who actively manage projects, operate public transit vehicles, perform train servicing, and use their insight to generate ideas. They each share who inspires them and what makes their work in the transit industry meaningful.
Rail Compliance Officer Sarah Boettcher is a 15-year veteran at the agency. Her greatest satisfaction comes from performing meaningful work that impacts the Denver community, solving problems and helping people.
Boettcher emphasizes the significance of expanding benefits, including housing and childcare assistance, to attract new female talent to the transit field. For inspiration in life, Boettcher looks to her mom.
“She worked hard to support her family and did all the things that women were told that we can do, despite the fact that we now know that that is a really big load, and she made it look easy,” Boettcher said. As a valued member of the agency who aligns with its values, Boettcher shared, “When I was a bus operator, I came into a sense of, I would say, ownership about Denver. I really felt like Denver was our city and we had a responsibility to it and it helped me understand how RTD is important to our community and to the customers who ride and just the surrounding cities and everything that we go into and out of and support.”
Demonstrating RTD has a history of inspiring women, Boettcher mentions Gina Callahan and Jennifer Ross-Amato, both former RTD colleagues who served as her great mentors.
After work hours, Boettcher can be found enjoying live music concerts with her fiancé or creating things, such as paintings and crafting.
Behind the computer screen and deciphering data puzzles is Caitlin Magee, who has worked at the agency for 18 years. As a data analyst for light rail operations, she is particularly fond of working with different departments and people.
“We coordinate and brainstorm ways to do things better or to try to work on projects together,” Magee said.
Despite the perception of transit being a male-oriented environment, Magee encourages women to apply and explore the different opportunities and facets of jobs that the transit industry can offer, from operations to communication. She highlights the benefits RTD provides to its workforce, including support for pursuing educational goals.
As inspirations, she highlighted memorable women such as Sally Ride and Amelia Earhart, and equally important professional references, such as former RTD employee Carla Perez, as someone who taught her to not be afraid to make mistakes.
Reflecting on a significant moment in her career, Magee remembers when in a peer group call they recognized her collaborative work with Julie Kirk, RTD Senior Manager of Rail Business Operations, on data dashboards as a leader in the industry.
Magee added “it was really great to get that recognition and for people to recognize why data is important.”
When not analyzing and interpreting numbers, Magee loves to explore new places, read, listen to music, and spend time with her beloved pets.
The world now recognizes that women can be whatever they want, and RTD embraces its strong workforce, acknowledging the contributions of talented women who keep our community moving.