Media & Public Relations


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Contact:

Carl DeFebo
Manager, Media & Public Relations
Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission
Desk (717) 920-7176


March 23, 2009

PA Turnpike Chief Reacts To
Mitchell Rubin Discharge

In response to the removal of Mitchell Rubin as Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission chairman, Turnpike Chief Executive Joe Brimmeier offers these comments:

 

 

Mitch Rubin was a dedicated leader who will certainly be missed. It has been my pleasure and honor to work closely with him since I came to the commission more than six years ago. This is a sad day for the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Mitch was a consummate professional who was focused on achieving the Turnpike’s mission while performing his duties as commissioner and chairman. He set the stage for a new way of thinking about how we do business here, implementing efficiency measures that will lead to projected operating-expense reductions of more than $12 million for fiscal-year 2009-2010.

Mitch’s achievements during his 10-year term were numerous. But his top-three accomplishments have to be: launching the massive job of completely rebuilding the Turnpike from the ground up; implementing E-ZPass electronic-toll collection across the system; and addressing a transportation-funding shortfall by helping to develop and execute Act 44 of 2007 — a law that is today providing billions of dollars for the state’s roads, bridges and public transit.

We at the Turnpike pledge to continue to fulfill our new mission of providing funding for transportation across the commonwealth while sustaining our longtime duty of overseeing the state’s toll roads. And we will accomplish this as we always have, by the dedication of the professional men and women — engineers, collectors, equipment operators, radio operators and accountants — who come to work here every day.

I join the PTC commissioners and employees in thanking Chairman Rubin for a decade of devoted service. We wish him well as he departs the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.

 

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