State DOT Commissioner Honored By Long Island Contractors

Joan McDonald to Receive Leadership Award for Contributions to Infrastructure

ALBANY, NY (06/12/2012)(readMedia)-- New York State Department of Transportation Commissioner Joan McDonald will be honored by the Long Island Contractors' Association Wednesday as a recipient of the association's 2012 Leadership Award. The annual award, to be presented at the association's annual meeting and dinner in Woodbury, Nassau County, is given to individuals who have made a significant contribution to support Long Island's infrastructure and the heavy construction industry.

"Commissioner McDonald has demonstrated in a very short time an almost institutive sense of what Long Island needs in terms of resources and leadership required to protect the region and enhance its role within the New York economy," association Executive Director Marc Herbst said. "Our bi-county area remains an island whose 2.7 million people are totally dependent on the ability to move people and products across significant bodies of water and through congested urban communities. Without the Commissioner's continued leadership, Long Island would face far more than gridlock; its very future would be in doubt. Her strategic understanding of our needs and her practical approach to solutions merits this award."

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo nominated McDonald to serve as NYSDOT's 11th commissioner on Jan. 14, 2011. She is an expert on transportation, infrastructure, economic development, policy and planning. She was unanimously confirmed by the New York State Senate on March 8, 2011, and serves as a key member of Governor Cuomo's cabinet.

Commissioner McDonald led the department's response late last summer to Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee, which struck within 10 days of each other and closed more than 400 road segments and bridges across 36 counties. Nearly all of them were restored within 10 days of each storm.

In her short tenure, Commissioner McDonald also competed for and won $188 million in Federal Railroad Administration grant funding for high speed passenger rail improvements and then negotiated a historic agreement between NYSDOT, Amtrak and CSX Corporation enabling that work to proceed. She also initiated a new capital planning/asset management process at NYSDOT, which laid the foundation for the $1.2 billion in transportation improvement projects funded by Governor Andrew Cuomo's New York Works program. The department has advanced $250 million in paving contracts, $212 million in accelerated bridge projects and $700 million individual highway/bridge projects with regional significance since the program was adopted by the legislature on March 30 as part of the New York Works initiative.

On Long Island, NYSDOT has a host of bridge and highway improvement projects underway this summer, including: an estimated $24 million contract to replace the decks on six highway bridges; a $10 million contract to replace the walls along each side of 10 highway bridges; an estimated $6.2 million contract to resurface nearly 11 miles of the Long Island Expressway (Interstate 495) from Exit 68 to Exit 73 in Brookhaven and Riverhead, Suffolk County; an estimated $3.2 million contract to resurface 2.7 miles of the Meadowbrook State Parkway from Merrick Road to the Southern State Parkway in Hempstead, Nassau County; and an estimated $1.9 million contract to resurface 2.5 miles of State Route 25A from Bread & Cheese Road to Sunken Meadow State Parkway in Smithtown and Huntington, Suffolk County.

LICA also will present leadership awards to Helena Williams, president of the MTA Long Island Rail Road, and Teresa Rizzuto, commissioner of Aviation and Transportation at MacArthur Airport on Long Island.

Before becoming NYSDOT commissioner, McDonald served as the commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development for the State of Connecticut and chair of Connecticut Innovations, an authority providing venture capital to high tech start-up companies. From 2003-2007, she was the senior vice president of transportation for the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Her private sector experience includes five years as the vice president in charge of New York and New Jersey at Jacobs Engineering.

Commissioner McDonald was deputy commissioner for Planning & Traffic Operations for the New York City Department of Transportation from 1995-1998 and served as the director of Capital and Long Range Planning for the MTA Metro-North Railroad for the three years prior to that. She served as special assistant to the Speaker of the New York State Assembly from 1991-1992. She began her career in public service with the New York State Assembly serving in various capacities on the Ways and Means and House Operations Committees, including deputy budget director and assistant director of research.

Commissioner McDonald received her undergraduate degree in English at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, N.Y. She has a master's degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.