Costco Commute Profile

Representing Costco Wholesale Home Office (From left to right): John Matthews, Steve Stachowiak.

Costco is a repeat Diamond Award winner, having won in 1997 for its outstanding vanpool program. This year, the Costco Wholesale Home Office is recognized for the outstanding leadership management has shown by strengthening the program in a time of tremendous growth.

Costco's Home Office is located in Issaquah. All the administrative support, including accounting, buying, information systems, human resources, and membership, is located there and serves the nation-wide chain of Costco Wholesale. When Costco completed its move to this site in 1996, there was a sufficient amount of employee parking, thanks to a large number of vanpools (23) that were formed at the time of the move.

However, in the last three years the number of employees at the site has increased by 700. Although an additional 160 employees have formed vanpools, there is now a parking shortage of about 350 spaces. To help ease the shortage, the company continues to heavily promote ridesharing and has joined forces with neighboring employers to contract with Rideshare Plus, King County Metro's personalized ridematching service. The focus of the Rideshare Plus effort is to help establish vanpools among a pool of employees from a combined company base. Begun in May of 1999, this program already has formed four additional vanpools, all of which include Costco employees.

Costco employees always are encouraged to try forming carpools and vanpools. They are allowed to use company email to promote these options and look for riders. Traci Kooy, employee transportation coordinator, keeps employees informed with reminders and announcements that are posted on bulletin boards, sent via email and flyers, or enclosed in paychecks.

Financial commitment is good business
Costco's financial commitment to its commute trip reduction program is $150,000 per year. That pays for the King County Metro FlexPasses, a monthly subsidy of $60 for King County Metro vanpools, and $30 for Community Transit vanpools. It also supports the guaranteed ride home program and Rideshare Plus. Management appreciates the state's B&O tax credit, which helps reduce the overall cost of the program.

“We feel the money invested on our CTR program is money well spent because it helps improve local mobility,” says Steve Stachowiak, facilities manager. The growing congestion in the Puget Sound region has a direct impact on Costco's bottom line because of the way it affects the movement of freight in and out of the Sumner distribution center and all of the wholesale locations.

Stachowiak acknowledges that the CTR program investment “gives our employees a valued benefit, which helps with employee hiring and retention.”

In addition, management is supportive of staff participating in groups that address regional transportation issues. Stachowiak is a member of the Regional Vanpool Coordination team, which is working to coordinate cross-county vanpool services. Costco also takes an active leadership role in the Issaquah Employer Transportation Network.

*Some definitions: An “ETC” is the staff-level employee transportation coordinator responsible for the daily administration of the transportation program; “PM” is the transportation program manager; and “CEO” refers to the top management-level person at the worksite. “SOV” stands for single-occupant vehicle, and “CTR” for commute trip reduction.