The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CDOT) is getting a new Commissioner. After four years on the job, Joe Giulietti is retiring.
Giulietti has spent more than
50 years in transportation, starting as a brakeman and conductor on the old
Penn Central RR while still a student at Southern CT State University. He graduated to road foreman and then
assistant manager for operating rules before joining the new Metro-North in
1983 as superintendent of transportation.
In 1998 he pulled up stakes
and moved to Florida where, for 14 years, he ran the Tri-Rail commuter rail
system. Then Metro-North called him back
to become President of the railroad from 2014 to 2017, when he retired after a
health scare.
As he likes to tell the story,
Giulietti got a cold call in 2018 from newly elected Governor Ned Lamont,
beckoning him out of retirement (again) to become CDOT Commissioner, his “job
of a lifetime”.
Joe G accomplished a lot in
his tenure, delivering projects on-time and on-budget while being constantly
pushed by his boss to speed up rail service to fulfill Lamont’s pipedream of “30-30-30”
service. The Commissioner also took one
for the team, serving as front-man for Lamont’s unpopular tolls initiative,
long since abandoned.
Insiders tell me Giulietti is
heading south again to warmer climes, but I’m guessing he may resurface in some
consulting role. He knows too much to
just sit on a beach.
The 70-year-old Giulietti’s
successor is Garrett Eucalitto, his former Deputy Commissioner, a
self-described “policy nerd”, not a railroad or highways guy. Eucalitto, who’s in his 40’s, may be the
perfect guy for the job because the challenge at CDOT has changed.
Eucalitto knows funding like
Giulietti knew railroad switches. The
new Commissioner spent time at OPM, the state’s Office of Planning and
Management, which controls the budget purse strings. And he worked for the National Governor’s
Association, turning transportation wishes into funding realities.
But finding the money is only
half the battle that Eucalitto will face.
He also needs to find talent to execute on the plans. After years of attrition under the Malloy
administration, CDOT still has 700 unfilled jobs.
Eucalitto says the agency is
attending jobs fairs and scouring the region for engineers. The CDOT is even having trouble hiring truck
drivers, competing as it must with the private sector.
Eucalitto inherits an agency
with a strong direction and good momentum.
The all-important Special Transportation Fund (STF) which subsidizes
these projects is coming back from life-support, the current “gas tax holiday”
notwithstanding.
Asked if tolls were back on
the table as a funding source for the STF, Eucalitto said “No… but…”. In 20 years when we’re
all driving electric vehicles, a tax on petroleum products
to pay for transportation will be an odd footnote in history.
No comments:
Post a Comment