Transportation Board Elects Vance Smith, Jr., to be New Georgia DOT Commissioner
State Representative Vance Smith, Jr., R-Pine Mountain, chairman of the House Transportation Committee has been named commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation. Smith was unanimously elected today by the State Transportation Board. He will take office Thursday, June 25.
“I am honored and humbled to have been chosen and excited to start work,” Smith said. “There are great challenges facing the Department; I see these challenges more as opportunities to make a good transportation system the best it can be. I look forward to working with the Board, the Governor, the General Assembly, our partner agencies and the experienced Georgia DOT staff to make these opportunities reality.”
Board Chairman Bill Kuhlke, Jr., said the $2.4 billion-per-year, 5,400-employee agency is fortunate to gain the leadership and perspective of Smith. “Vance knows transportation and no one is more committed to improving it than he is. He understands this Department’s greatest need is to have adequate resources to build and maintain a multimodal transportation system that will help alleviate congestion, promote safety and pave the way for the infrastructure and mobility necessary to promote economic development. He worked tirelessly for additional and much needed transportation funding, and his legislative acumen will help us secure it.”
Smith succeeds Gerald Ross who has served as interim commissioner since February and who now will return to his previous position as the Department’s chief engineer. “I can’t say enough about the magnificent job Gerald has done under very difficult circumstances,” Kuhlke commented. “We’re very much indebted to him.”
A 17-year veteran of the Georgia House of Representatives (the past five as transportation committee chairman), the 57-year-old Smith operated a family-owned construction business in Pine Mountain for 30 years. He is a graduate of Columbus State University. He and his wife, Michele, have three children and five grandchildren.
The State Transportation Board determines policy and exercises general governance of Georgia’s Department of Transportation. The Board’s 13 members, representing each of the state’s congressional districts, serve staggered, five-year terms. Board members are elected by those state senators and representatives whose legislative districts fall within all or part of the relevant congressional district.