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Sandra Escalante pictured above at El Cerrito Plaza Station. 

Happy International Women’s Day! BART is celebrating Women’s History Month by sharing stories about the incredible women who work with and have impacted our agency. Stay tuned for additional content. 

In the construction world, small business owner Sandra Escalante said she is often referred to as a “unicorn.”  

“I’m a woman, a minority, and a member of the LGBT community,” she said recently. “It’s very difficult just to be an employee in the construction world. A business owner? Ha.”  

Escalante owns Laner Electric Supply Company, a wholesale distributor of electrical and lighting tools and supplies headquartered in a 16,000-square-foot warehouse in Richmond, Calif. The company is one of 670 small businesses supported by BART’s Small Business Support Services (SBSS), a program operated by BART’s Office of Civil Rights. SBSS provides a variety of free services to small businesses owned by women, minorities, disabled veterans, and members of the LGBT community, that are looking to bid on BART construction contracts or require technical assistance on active BART construction contracts.  

Escalante happens to meet every single one of the criteria for participation in SBSS. In addition to working with the program, she also served for multiple years on BART’s Business Advisory Council.  

In her interview with BART, Escalante confessed that owning a small business “is not easy,” and all the more so if you’re a woman or minority.  

"Programs like SBSS are the beginning of changing mindsets,” she said. “If you don’t change mindsets, nothing will change materially." 

Escalante’s path to entrepreneurship has been long, winding, and full of challenges. After leaving an engineering program in the Philippines when she was young, Escalante joined the military. When they found out she was gay, they kicked her out. Escalante then went on to work for the U.S. Postal Service, walking up and down the hills of San Francisco “with a mail bag that was bigger than me.” In time, she landed at a construction management firm as a mail clerk working for $10 an hour. Little by little, she climbed up the industry ladder.  

Throughout her career, Escalante said she’s “had to break a lot of glass ceilings." She can share numerous anecdotes of people in the room discriminating against her. When she was helming major companies, she was sometimes mistaken for the secretary, she said. Once, an administrator refused to order her business cards because “only men get them, not women." 

Everything she’s experienced in her many decades of experience has only fueled her internal fire. It’s also compelled her to “pay it forward.” In addition to serving on a number of business advisory councils, including BuildOUT California, an LGBT industry association, Escalante is a hands-on mentor for up-and-coming entrepreneurs, many of whom are treading a path trod by Sandra herself.

 It's a lot of time and effort, but she believes sharing her knowledge and experience is important. 

“If there are people out there that are not just looking out for themselves, the good comes back to them,” Escalante said of her mentoring efforts. “It’s karma. Don’t do things for yourself, and the rest will fall into place.” 

Before she took over Laner Electric, Escalante held a series of executive positions in the construction industry. Though she has decades of experience under her belt, Escalante said she’s never stopped learning, especially in her current role as the CEO and president of a small business.  

She said BART’s SBSS program, especially its pre-award administrator, Paul Pendergast, has supported her in a variety of ways, including editing capability statements (promotional/marketing documents that advertise a company and its services); advising on ways to secure funding; helping her craft requests for proposals (documents that announce and describe a project to solicit bids); and offering technical support. Pendergast even hired Escalante a coach to help her conquer her stage fright ahead of speaking engagements.  

Pendergast said he hasn’t “met many entrepreneurs who have donated as much time as Escalante to advocating for all small businesses.” 

“With Sandra, it is always about lifting ‘all boats’ equally,” he said.  

Escalante knows well the challenges of owning and operating a business as a woman and a minority. But she’s never given up, even after she experienced a debilitating stroke and heart attack in 2006 that continues to have lasting effects on her.  

Her responsibility to her employees keeps her going despite the setbacks, she said, and she’s learned to ask for help when she needs it, including by reaching out to services like SBSS.  

"[SBSS] is actually making a difference,” she said in closing. “I hope BART continues to expand it and keeps taking chances on small businesses.” 

BART released its annual Sustainability Report , focusing on BART's green energy and modernization efforts to provide alternate regional travel away from automobiles.

"Today, BART is one of the greenest options for Bay Area residents traveling around the region," said BART General Manager Bob Powers in his introductory message to the report. "Every time you ride rather than drive, you're helping to reduce regional pollution and support sustainability."

Riders who take BART every day for one month emits less carbon dioxide than driving to the same location just once. A BART rider gets 73.3 miles per gallon, which on average is three times more efficient than a typical car driven alone.

BART celebrated its 50th year of serving the Bay Area in 2022, and the Sustainability Report emphasizes BART's five decades of sustainability efforts. From its inception in the 1950s, BART's founders prioritized central locations in the Bay Area to "provide convenient service within walking distance;" their forward thinking has enabled BART’s Transit-Oriented Development program to build housing and commercial spaces next to transit hubs. From the onset, BART was designed to run electric trains, which produce no emissions or pollution at point of use. Since 2020, core BART trains are powered by 100% greenhouse gas-free sources from a diverse mix of hydroelectric, wind and solar generation.*

In 2022, BART also recorded its lowest total energy use and potable water use per (normalized by vehicle revenue mile) since it began tracking these metrics in 2015. BART's total greenhouse gas emissions per vehicle revenue mile has dropped by 96% in 2022 compared to 2015, meaning it has already achieved its 2025 target goals.

In the report, BART highlights its progress in modernization of infrastructure, such as trains, stations, and parking garages. Modernization projects were completed at 19th St and Powell St stations, improving the rider experience and saving energy by using LED lighting and new underground restrooms with water-efficient fixtures. BART's new lighting at the two stations also conserves more than 510,000 kWh annually -- equivalent to the annual electricity usage of about 48 homes in the United States. BART also upgraded more than 10,500 lighting fixtures across fourteen parking garages, switching from dated metal halide and sodium-vapor fixtures to brighter and more energy-efficient LED lights, which require less maintenance. In addition to making park-and-ride BART patrons feel safer, this project is estimated to save nearly 7.8 million kWH each year, or equivalent to the annual electricity use of 730 U.S. homes.

Climate change is on the forefront of BART's sustainability efforts, as the Bay Area has seen record wildfires in recent years. In 2022, BART took two major steps to advance its climate resiliency. The first was updating BART's Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, a planning document that identifies the risks of natural hazards -- flooding, rising sea levels, extreme heat, and wildfires, among others -- and actions for reducing these risks. Examples of such actions include seismic retrofits, slope stabilization and erosion control, and fire protection replacement. The second step was endorsing the Bay Adapt Joint Platform, a regional strategy addressing how the Bay Area will adapt to rising sea levels. The BART Board of Directors joined 55 other Bay Area cities, counties, and organizations in support of regional adaptation to sea level rise.

BART recognizes its constant interaction with the wildlife that surrounds its stations and employs natural and humane methods to manage critters found throughout our system. BART hired a falconer to mitigate pigeons at some BART stations and has long contracted a local beekeeper to remove beehives found in the system. During summer months, BART hires goats (and sheep this year) to graze on dry vegetation sprawled across the hills and fields next to BART right-of-ways to reduce wildfire risk. 

Read the 2022 Sustainability Report here.

*An earlier version of this story reported a preliminary number for 2022. This value has since been updated.