Guiding Us Back to the Future.

• Author: LUSKY, MARK

THINK: ELECTRIC TROLLEY BUSES

Jim Graebner, his white hair streaming, resembles the Docin Back to the Future. And just as Christopher Lloyd's character proved so critical to time travel, so has the real-life Doc" Graebner demonstrated his value in the travel zone known as public transit.

Graebner, president of the Denver-based Lomarado Group, lives and breathes mass transit. When the Czech Republic wanted to market its famous electric trolley buses (the ones with the overhead power wire) in the United States, he played a key role in purchases totaling more than 300 buses for the San Francisco and Dayton, Ohio, public transit systems.

Accustomed to being told to build a specified number of buses for a particular bus system by a certain date, the Czechs were thrown a major learning curve by the free enterprise system. All of a sudden, they had to "start dealing with the RTDs of the world, who want to help design, inspect their plants, create work teams," Graebner said. The Czechs "wanted to learn, and they were frustrated" at the same time, he added.

Now, Russia is looking to Graebner to help lead its electric bus marketing push into the United States.

A Who's Who in America transit mainstay for the last quarter-century, Graebner has led transportation systems from Rhode Island to Santa Clara County, Calif., and consulted with many others. His client list reads like its own Who's Who, and spans a good share of America. Among the states and municipalities: Little Rock, Ark.; Indianapolis; Houston, El Paso and Austin, Texas; New Jersey; Norfolk, Va.; Dayton; San Francisco; Phoenix; Memphis, Tenn., Orlando, Fla.; Vancouver, British Columbia; and Denyer.

A consensus builder, Graebner is regularly called upon to integrate many transit...