Kenneth A. Divers

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT KENNETH A. DIVERS

Kenneth “Ken” Divers has over 30 years of distinguished public service to the greater Delaware valley region. As Director of Outreach Programs for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), Ken leads the Agency’s response to addressing the complex issue of homelessness on the system, and leads the Safety, Cleaning, Ownership, Partnerships, and Engagement (SCOPE) Program. In March 2021, Ken developed this SCOPE program to bring a holistic, compassionate approach to providing a safe and welcoming travel experience for returning customers; ensuring a secure environment for employees; and actively connecting vulnerable persons to vital services and care. This unified response allows SEPTA to maximize personnel; establish a culture of employee engagement; and develop partnerships with diverse stakeholders. During this time, Ken has come to appreciate the high-level demand and empathetic leadership required to address this public health crisis and works tirelessly to build bridges with government, nonprofits, academia, homelessness providers, and other sectors. An eternal optimist, Ken’s NorthStar is making homelessness on SEPTA, rare, brief, and non-recurring, thereby ensuring that our transit system is safe, clean, and reliable. SEPTA’s SCOPE Program has received APTA’s (American Public Transportation Association) 2022 Innovation Award at its annual conference in October, four legislative proclamations, as well as a number of other awards and accolades. Ken was recently honored to receive the Philadelphia Business Journal 2024 “Diversity in Business” Award.Ken serves as Fellow of Professional Practice at Drexel University Center for Public Policy (CPP). In this role, Ken collaborates with ongoing research projects, facilitates new research, participates in thesis/ dissertation committees for graduate student in CPP, and participates in seminars. Ken also serves as an Advisory Board member of the Alternative Response Unit (AR2), a novel approach to substance use that is committed to using person-to-person interactions and warm hand-off between EMS and Case Managers to engage people who use drugs (PWUD) with treatment services. He is an active member of Vulnerable Population National Workgroup on Homelessness and participates in the City of Philadelphia’s Opioid Response Unit Public Safety Strategy group. He earned a B.A. in Business Management from Pierce College, and lives daily by his mantra, “Let safety consume us, innovation define us, and our customers drive us.”