Vice President, Government Relations and Public Policy

Role Summary

Bus Patrol is seeking an agile Policy Leader with distinct expertise in both Public Policy and Government Relations (GR) to serve as our Vice President of Public Policy and Government Relations. This role requires a senior leader who has previously worked as the Head of Policy and GR function with a proven track record of successfully lobbying multi-state legislation on controversial political issues, and who is highly effective at managing at scale (people, process, and systems).

You will navigate a unique and highly complex political environment and will be responsible for designing and executing complex political strategies.

This position heavily emphasizes the Government Relations and Policy work necessary to manage and build political strategies, and lead pioneering legislative enablement. As the accountable process owner, you must be comfortable enabling and driving enterprise decision-making. This person will be responsible for continuing our success in defending and authorizing automated enforcement laws by balancing direct advocacy, building complex strategies, and coordinating subject matter experts to be on the frontline.

• Legislative Leadership, Defense, & Enablement: Lead Bus Patrol's public policy development, GR strategies, and pioneering legislative enablement efforts. Focus heavily on managing both offensive legislation and critical glitch bills/defense bills to protect and expand automated school bus stop-arm enforcement, Speed Zone Safety (SZS), and other related legislative efforts at the state and municipal levels.
• Enterprise Policy & GR Management: Manage policy and GR at scale on behalf of the enterprise. Direct and execute complex political and advocacy strategies in highly complex political environments while heavily coordinating internal SMEs to serve on the frontline, ensuring the entirety of the function's delivery requirements are met.
• Team, Lobbyist, & Outside Counsel Management: Supervise a high-functioning internal government relations team and manage a diverse network of external contract lobbyists and outside counsel. Explicitly identify and coordinate Business Development (BD) consultants, ensuring this GR/BD work effectively aligns with the company's complex political strategies.
• Cross-Functional Alignment: Develop tactics and strategy for a number of distinct state-by-state policy initiatives, working closely with Bus Patrol’s Growth, Legal, and Communications teams to ensure compliance and market readiness.
• Technology Policy Integration: Work with our partner municipalities and school districts across the U.S. to help them prepare policies for emerging technological innovations in traffic safety, automated enforcement, and smart city data platforms.
• Partner Empowerment: Build the capacity of our local champions and partners to effectively engage with state and local leaders on our shared child safety and traffic enforcement policy agenda.
• Market Expansion: In target growth states, work directly with local partners to promote violator-funded safety programs and secure the necessary legislative and regulatory frameworks for new deployments.
• Public Evangelism: Travel and speak on behalf of Bus Patrol and its safety coalition, including testifying at legislative hearings, participating in industry workshops and conferences, and engaging in media interviews.
• Coalition Support: Utilize and support established coalition-building functions. Work alongside the Gov Ops team, which manages day-to-day coalition activities in perpetuity, to leverage these groups for targeted policy and legislative initiatives rather than leading the coalition building directly.

• Minimum of 10+ years of leadership experience, featuring a mix of state and local in-government experience (e.g., state legislature or Executive branch), followed by advocacy or government relations (GR) roles. State lobbying experience is an absolute must; having only lobbied in a large municipality is not sufficient. (
  
  Note:
  
  Federal experience is nearly meaningless for us).
• Proven track record of successfully lobbying multi-state legislation into existence…