Shailen Bhatt, head of the Federal Highway Administration for the past 21 months, left her post at the agency on Sept. 10 to take a senior role at the large engineering firm AtkinsR.ialis, the company announced on September 12.
His departure was widely reported in the media in the previous days.
The US Department of Transportation appointed Kristin White, the agency’s deputy administrator, as acting administrator, effective 9/11. White, an attorney by training, joined the agency in July 2023 as principal counsel and was named deputy administrator in May. She had been chief operating officer of the nonprofit Intelligent Transportation Society of America.
In AtkinsRialis, formerly SNC Lavalin Group, Bhatt is now senior vice president and chief operating officer of the Montreal-based company’s US and Latin America regions and its minerals and metals business,
A US DOT spokesman said in an emailed statement that during Bhatt’s tenure, he “played a key role in identifying and implementing tens of thousands of projects” under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act , as well as in “advancing safety on our country’s roads”. and for improvements to the US transportation system.
According to FHWA, it has contributed more than $192 billion from the IIJA to date for fiscal years 2022-2024. In total, the infrastructure measure includes $350 billion in highway programs.
As administrator of the agency, Bhatt also dealt with some major accidents involving roads and bridges. He was quickly on the scene of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse on March 26 in Baltimore, which killed six construction workers, and on June 11, 2023, the collapse of a interstate-95 in Philadelphia after being hit by a tanker truck. . The driver died in the accident.
The reconstruction team reopened the damaged section in 12 days, then devised a permanent solution, resulting in the bridge reopening in May 2024.
Prior to joining the agency, Bhatt held a variety of transportation positions in the public and private sectors. His government positions include executive director of the Colorado DOT, secretary of the Delaware DOT, and as associate administrator of the FHWA in the Obama administration.
In the private sector, Bhatt was an executive in AECOM’s transportation business and chairman and CEO of ITS America.
Its interest in using the technology to improve road safety was demonstrated last month with the FHWA’s release of an outline to implement the use of vehicle-to-everything, or V2X, connectivity by 2036 .
Story updated 9/14/2024 with FHWA data on IIJA.
