BY KIM JOBE FULTON COUNTY TRANSIT AUTHORITY
Apr 9, 2022
Kenney Etherton will retire from the Fulton County Transit Authority after serving as its director for many years.
A desire to shorten his commute to work was the main incentive for Kenney Etherton to begin his leadership role at Fulton County Transit Authority in 2002.
“I wanted to come back home to work,” Etherton explained during a recent interview. “I was driving to Calvert City daily, and I wanted to shorten my drive. I wanted to be able to spend time with the twins (who were toddlers at the time) and the other two kids, too.”
In Calvert City, Etherton was part of a fire/rescue and hazmat team. He also served as the county DES (now Emergency Management) director.
“I became familiar with government operations and how to work within the system of government,” Etherton explained.
During the first days of employment at FCTA, Etherton called his former boss in Calvert City and requested he hold the job open there for about a week just in case Etherton opted to return.
“We had a fleet of 20-25 vehicles at FCTA then. I didn’t have a vehicle with under 250,000 miles on it. Duct tape and baling wire were a true statement of keeping them together,” Etherton said.
FCTA’s finances were being held together by the kindness and cooperation of local bank officials.
“Transit was deep in debt with local banks,” Etherton recalled. “All were great to work with once we talked about a plan of what we thought we could do and where we could go.”
The agency’s liability and other insurance coverage was in limbo at that time, too.
“My very first conversation with our insurance carrier was at a ‘meet and greet’,” Etherton explained. “We talked about Transit, the weather, and my past. Just your basic small talk. During this conversation, he mentioned if we didn’t come up with $10,000 in a two-week period, our insurance would be canceled.”
A stunned, rookie transportation leader looked at the insurance official and said, “Wait a minute! I don’t know which key opens my office door and you tell me this? It’s gonna put us out of business!”
The insurance official went on to tell Etherton that it wasn’t his company’s decision but was an insurance board decision.
“I knew we had just finished payroll and had $500 in the bank,” Etherton recalled.
Instead of panicking, Etherton called Harold Garrison who was then Fulton County Judge Executive and told him about the situation.
“Judge Garrison assured me and reassured me that it would be OK. He said that Transit was an important service to the county, and he would see what he could do. Thanks to Judge Garrison and the Fulton County Fiscal Court, we overcame that hurdle at that time.”
According to Etherton, the next hurdle for him came quickly after the insurance payment was worked out.
“We got a notice that our federal funding would be cut by a substantial amount,” Etherton said. “Once again, I called Judge Garrison and he told me, ‘Let me work on it.’ About an hour later, I got a phone call and Judge Garrison said, ‘Meet me at the PADD Office in Mayfield this afternoon at 3 o’clock’.”
As Etherton recalled, he drove to Mayfield, walked into the PADD Office, and Judge Garrison met him at the door.
“In his loving, gruff voice he said, ‘Come on. Go with me!’ He drug me into a small office behind the reception area at the PADD Office and introduced me to Senator Jim Bunning’s field representative; Congressman Ed Whitfield’s field representative; and Senator Mitch McConnell’s field representative. He told me, ‘Tell them your problem,’ and then walked out of the room. I explained to the three field reps what the problem was, where we were, and where we wanted to go. They were all very cordial and understanding. After some worry and grief, several months later our funding was restored. Once again, Fulton County’s Judge Executive came through in helping the agency survive,” Etherton recollected.
The early part of Etherton’s tenure at FCTA wasn’t as bad as the beginning, but it wasn’t all good times yet either.
“We had 12 to 15 employees and struggled to make payroll and pay the bills,” Etherton said. “I had to call our fuel vendor and ask to extend our time to pay the bill because the money hadn’t come in yet. Our reputation for being on time delivering clients wasn’t the best. But with a supportive Board of Directors and local, elected leadership in all four counties we served, we slowly started making some turns.”
One positive included obtaining newer vehicles.
“We were able to turn that high-mileage fleet over in just a year’s time,” Etherton said. “Ridership started increasing as we got better, more reliable vehicles in the fleet.”
Although the Transit system isn’t set up to be a money-making entity, it should, instead, break even. Theoretically the more rides you provide the more federal money you receive. Etherton explained the early struggles — and quite possibly the ones throughout his career — were caused by the way funding goes and flows throughout the system.

“I’ve always said there’s been just enough money to run the place at times, but the cash hasn’t flowed at the right time,” Etherton said. According to the FCTA leader, agency funding was, and still is, like a swinging pendulum.“If the pendulum ever gets to the middle, it doesn’t stay there long,” Etherton said. “It’s either fully to the right or fully to the left. That’s the nature of the beast. The funding cycle, how Congress funds grants is rural versus urban. There are a lot of reasons for that swing. It’s simply not designed to be a for-profit agency.” Within a few years, the Fulton City Manager’s position became open and Etherton opted to take that job. He remained involved with FCTA as a member of the Board of Directors. “We were able to establish a level of credit with one of the area banks when cash wasn’t flowing as it needed to,” Etherton said. “Our ridership was improving, and we were making money when we needed to.” Etherton served as city manager for almost six years.“I don’t know that I ever saw myself coming back to work at Transit,” Etherton recalled.Leaving the city manager’s office, Etherton wasn’t sure where he was going to work next. FCTA Executive Director Paul Maxwell had taken another job and, as Etherton said, “it dovetailed into me going back to FCTA.” During the time Etherton worked in city government, FCTA had continued to grow.“FCTA got new vehicles while Paul was executive director,” Etherton said. “We got this office building. Lots of good things were happening during that time frame. It was still in that pendulum swing where we had to fight for every dollar. We did have some leftover grant money and were quickly able to build the current shop facility that we have.”
Etherton believes the maintenance department may well have exceeded their early vision.
“I don’t know that we envisioned it to be turning out the amount of work it does today when we built it,” the FCTA leader said. “As some of the local vendors retired or went out of business, we saw we were going to have to do much of our own maintenance which has turned out to be a blessing with the cost basis. It took a little while, but we were able to hire a mechanic who had past experience working on our vehicles from a vendor we had used.”
FCTA Building and Grounds Maintenance Supervisor Chris Brown and Mechanic Kenny Patterson kept the shop going and detention center trustees helped with the mowing.
“That building and those personnel have saved us millions of dollars with oil changes and light maintenance,” Etherton said. “We were able to do a much better preventive maintenance program which expands the life of our vehicles and were able to turn our vehicle down time around much faster. If a vehicle is in the shop for more than 24 hours, we are waiting for a part. This turns our vehicles back into revenue making vehicles quickly.”
According to Etherton, building the shop wasn’t a planned accomplishment, but ended up being one anyway.
“Building that shop and what we have done with it is probably one of the things I’m most proud of in my tenure here,” Etherton added.
During his second stint as FCTA top leader, the agency moved into providing a service to Amtrak customers.
“I knew and understood the liability to City of Fulton was carrying by transporting people back and forth to the station,” Etherton explained. “It turned out to be one of our signature services.”
One of the challenges Etherton said he has had during both stints as executive director has been educating the public on the various benefits of riding with FCTA. Although numerous people use public transportation, some don’t really understand it.
“People in the urban areas understand public transportation; people in rural areas sometimes don’t understand what public transit can do for them. They think of it as a ‘doctor bus,’ and in a way it is,” Etherton said. “Public transit benefits seniors and helps their families who are caregivers. They can still go to work, and their family members can make it to their doctor appointments.”
One of Etherton’s favorite stories about his years working at FCTA is a personal one.
“My mother was in a nursing home here in Fulton,” Etherton recalled. “At that time, she was pretty much confined to a wheelchair because her mobility was gone. I didn’t have a vehicle to transport her. Then I thought, ‘You run a transportation agency.’ We got her to her appointments and back safely.”
In addition to helping older citizens get to medical appointments, Etherton said FCTA helps them continue to take part in life.
“We are able to make sure they can get to the local drug store and pay bills. We give them the ability to carry on day-to-day life without burdening family members and friends,” Etherton said.
Slowly over time, Etherton said, people of all ages in the four counties FCTA serves have realized how the agency can become a large part of their daily lives.
“People have learned over the years that we are an efficient way to get them to work on time,” Etherton added. “For many years, we carried children to school. We have provided charters for governmental agencies and industries as well as for area holiday parties so employees and others could get to an event and home safely.”
For some unknown reason, Transit agencies tend to fail to tell people the good things they can do.
“I hope during this stint as executive director, I have changed that and helped others realize what we can do and how we can meet their needs,” Etherton said.
Improving FCTA’s technology was also a major goal in Etherton’s second term.
“Our technology was way behind. Even doing simple, every day tasks proved our technology was not up to par,” Etherton explained. “We applied for grants, and we would get a little money here and there to help improve our systems, but nothing significant. We just kept continually picking away. We were also taking small bits to improve our technology out of what we could afford within our yearly budget.”
An international pandemic ironically provided a huge boost to FCTA’s technology needs.

“Where we made leaps and bounds with our technology is when COVID-19 hit,” Etherton admitted. “That may sound odd, but with CARES, ARPA, and others, it freed up some money within the state with a short turnaround. Where we are today is simply amazing. We are better able to communicate with our drivers and better able to track the vehicles for the safety of drivers and clients. Internally, our phone system is amazing, and being able to use the cloud and have in house storage for documents. We are working toward a paperless workspace although I don’t think you can every achieve that in a governmental agency.”Etherton was careful to admit that with all the achievements that have been made, FCTA hasn’t totally arrived at the place he and others have dreamed it would be.“We’re much further down the road than we were, but we still have miles to travel. Overall, I feel good with where we are,” Etherton said. Operating a Transit agency during COVID-19 was like turning off a light switch according to Etherton. “We, as a team — past employees and present — have worked so hard at building the ridership up. I think we had built a trust with the elected leadership and citizens that we were reliable and efficient. We were at just over 60 employees and were moving 500 to 600 people a day,” Etherton reflected. “COVID hit and we went to moving less than 100 clients a day and were down to 20 employees in a 30-day period. Not knowing what was going to happen, changes hit us every day — sometimes hour to hour — with new regulations we had to follow.” Etherton admits he wasn’t sure if the agency could survive COVID-19. “I didn’t know where we were going to go, what we were going to do, and if we could sustain this,” Etherton said. “I couldn’t see us sustaining this for a long period of time. I never dreamed COVID would last this long and, as time passed, I realized it was a long-term thing. Do I personally agree with everything the government did with CARES and ARPA? No, I didn’t, but the good may outweigh the bad. Not only did those two acts save FCTA, but many other Transit agencies across the Commonwealth. I’m sure the country, too. We wouldn’t have survived and that would have been devastating to this part of the Commonwealth.”
Looking back over his tenure, Etherton was careful to recall who could very well be considered the “father” of Fulton County Transit Authority — former Fulton County Judge Executive James Everett.
“We need to be thankful to Judge Executive James Everett for having the vision to create FCTA,” Etherton said. “I hope I’ve done my part to keep James’ vision alive and that it has grown beyond what he had ever envisioned. Having known James, I think he would be proud of what we’ve done.”
With less than two weeks left in his time at FCTA, Etherton finds himself doing lots and lots of reflecting.
“As I see this chapter of my career closing, I look back and I have a lot of people to say ‘thank you’ to. I’ve had a good staff who really care about the citizens we serve. From administrative staff, to drivers, to maintenance workers, to groundskeepers everybody has been making this a better place,” Etherton said. “I leave knowing there will be a new addition constructed at this facility here to run the administration more efficiently. New vehicles are ordered. Another year’s grant has been filed. I leave knowing we’ve done a good job. The challenges here will never end, but FCTA will always be ‘going and coming your way’.”
Source: The Mayfield Messenger