The Social Subway Dan Stessel, WMATA's Twitter Guru, Wants to Make Washington Fall Back in Love with the Metro

In 1996, a George Washington University student named Dan Stessel nearly hatched a billion-dollar idea. He complained to a friend about the flood of joke emails filling up his inbox, saying, “I would rather have a one-line email from a friend just telling me he’s thinking about me.”

One line—140 characters, maybe—dashed off between friends. Sound familiar?

He never actually pursued the concept. Fifteen years later, he barely remembers it. Too bad, because these days, instead of counting his dough on the speakers’ circuit with fellow Twitter honchos, he’s got a slightly more demanding audience to deal with: us.

In May, the Bergen County, N.J., native left after seven years as a spokesman for NJ Transit to take on the role of Metro’s mouthpiece in chief. Recently, the agency’s once stellar reputation has crumbled under the weight of deadly accidents, delays, and spotty communication. He’s trying to regain riders’ trust, and he’s using some new tactics to do it.

Stessel, 35, may not have invented Twitter or similar social media networks, but he’s using them every day—signing his tweets with “^DS”—to convince riders that Metro isn’t sticking its fingers in its ears anymore.

It’s a strange gig for a guy who started his career in D.C.’s nightclubs and landed in the transit world by accident. After college, Stessel spent two years as the marketing director at Tracks, the legendary dance club near the Navy Yard. In 2000, he realized nightclub work might not look great on a résumé to employers from other businesses. So he bounced around at a temp agency before landing with Amtrak. Two derailments in 2002 sent him to a new job juggling phones in the press office, and he’s been talking to reporters ever since.

With his shock of light brown hair and glowing headset, he seems out of place in his threadbare office on the second floor of the Jackson Graham Building. A smoke eater—left untouched since the days when it was legal to light up indoors—hangs from the ceiling. The soundproofing on the dull beige walls is flaking. The stained carpet begs for replacement.

@dstessel you have the hardest job in the city Jun 30 via Twitter for iPhone Dave G
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His belongings are the only reminders that we’re not stuck in a time warp: He sips iced coffee from a 31-ounce Starbucks trenta cup. A red “Keep Calm and Carry On” print hangs on one wall. The desk is a technophile’s wet dream, topped with a pair of wide-screen Mac monitors, an iPad, and handheld radios for listening to operations channels. One of the monitors is dedicated to TweetDeck, the app he uses in the office and his Columbia Heights apartment to track mentions of Metro. He keeps a pair of smartphones close by so he can take press calls with one hand and tweet with the other.

“I haven’t figured out how to type and hold the phone to my ear at the same time. Though I’m sure I will,” he jokes.

There are plenty of Metro riders who wish he’d hurry up and learn. According to Stessel, when he first took the reins of @metroopensdoors—the agency’s old Twitter account—Metro’s followers numbered about 7,000. They’ve doubled since. (Metro now uses @wmata.)

The spike came thanks to Stessel’s tweeting and the launch of Metro Forward, a six-year, $5 billion capital-improvement program promising brand-new rail cars, 60 miles of new rail, and fixes for more than 100 escalators at 25 stations. Metro raised the banner of its campaign on June 16—National Dump the Pump Day—and at first, members of D.C.’s twittering class didn’t know what hit them. Up to then, Metro’s Twitter feed was mostly just truncated versions of its service alerts.

“@unsuckdcmetro confused re: tweets emerging from @metroopensdoors w/ a ^DS. Seem snarkier than the usual litany of delays. What gives?” asked one user.

Stessel unmasked himself as the brains behind the snark, and the plaudits poured in. “It looks like @metroopensdoors may be on the verge of becoming an interactive twitter account. Pretty amazing,” came another tweet.

The explosion of interest shows that for years, Metro riders have been starved for information. They now have a human ear, and they’re practically twisting it off: When Stessel tweeted an invitation for 50 Metro followers to join a pilot program to refill their SmarTrip cards online, the list filled up in four minutes.

“Thanks for the um, enthusiastic response,” he replied.

Enthusiastic, sure. But trusting? Probably not. It’s going to take a lot more than a few tweets and a shiny PR campaign to get riders to believe in Metro again, and Stessel knows it.