While his work as general manager of WMATA has made him something of a DC celebrity, Randy Clarke got his start working for Boston’s MBTA system. He later was vice president of operations at the American Public Transportation Association before moving to Texas to head Austin’s CapMetro. In fact, regional rail systems have bestowed Clarke with not just a career: He met his wife, Kimberley, on an MBTA—or “T”—train more than two decades ago. Here, he looks back on that fortuitous day.
“It was May 2003. I had a job in Cambridge and lived in [Somerville’s] Davis Square with roommates. [While I was at work] these guys were having a few drinks during the afternoon. I get back to the apartment, and we’re going to the Red Sox game.
“Halfway to the T, one of the guys forgot something, so we had to go back. We [then] got back on the T, and I kind of separated myself from the guys because they’d had a couple [drinks]. I see two women standing, so I go, ‘Do you want my seat?’ That was to my now-wife. She’s like, ‘No.’ Totally dismissive, because a couple of the guys were probably being annoying. I complimented her on her Doc Martens. She was like, ‘Dude, this isn’t working.’
“[To get to Fenway Park] we get on the Green Line and I’m like, ‘I wonder if I’ll see her,’ and I don’t. We get off and one of my buddies goes, ‘Randy, there’s your girlfriend!’ She and her friend are walking in front of us. She turns around and I say, ‘Are you going to Copperfield’s?’—a Boston dive bar. She says, ‘No.’ Dismissive again. I’m like, ‘All right, well, see you later.’ And she laughs. [My friends and I] go to the bar, then the game, and when we leave, we walk into a sports bar. One of my buddies is like, ‘Hey, there’s your girlfriend!’ She looks over, and this time she’s like, ‘What the hell? Where have you guys been?’ We actually were leaving to go to this other bar, and she and her friend walked with us. As the Seinfeld episode says, ‘Yada yada yada’—I got the digits, and a couple weeks later we went out.
“It took meeting on the train, [then] meeting walking off the second train we’d just gotten off together, to the next bar, to the next to get the dig-its. And remember, we had to go back to the house to get something, and she said she and her friend [also] got delayed. So the fact that we both got on the same car at the exact same time—both actually got our plans mixed up to get to that car—to transfer to the other train, and with a huge crowd in Fenway. There’s such a statistical improbability.
“Without meeting her, I probably would have moved back to Canada. I could never be an all-in general manager here without her. Every once in a while, I get a text [from her]: ‘Hey, this escalator’s out,’ or ‘This announcement was muffled.’ ” So I go out of my way to make sure my biggest critical customer has good trips.”
—As told to Kate Corliss
