Skoropowski joins HNTB Corporation’s rail team

Eugene Skoropowski has joined HNTB Corporation as passenger rail services director for the South East Division, based in the firm's Lake Mary, Fla., office. He brings more than 40 years of experience gained in a career that spans the nation from Boston to Oakland, Calif. 

"HNTB is extremely proud to
add Gene to our roster of high-speed rail professionals," said Peter Gertler,
HNTB high-speed rail services chair. "His extensive domestic and international
experience and talent will add significant value to the services we provide our
clients as we continue to lead the industry in bringing high-speed rail to
America."

In his new role,
Skoropowski is responsible for serving clients of HNTB’s passenger rail
services and providing management and technical services for the firm’s current
and future projects in the South Eastern states.

Before joining the HNTB
team, Skoropowski had served as managing director of the Capitol Corridor Joint
Powers Authority since August 1999, 10 months after the CCJPA took over the
administrative management of the Capitol Corridor service from the Caltrans
Division of Rail. He announced his retirement from the CCJPA in September 2009.
At that time, Capitol Corridor had become the third busiest route in the
national Amtrak system with more frequent service than any route outside the
Northeast Corridor and the highest "on-time" record, at 92.4 percent, of any
Amtrak Corridor.

For ten years prior to
joining the CCJPA, he was director of rail projects for Fluor Corporation,
where he managed rail construction and operations projects  in Los Angeles
(MetroRail) and  Florida High-Speed Rail (Florida Overland eXpress), as
well as public-private partnership for TGV high-speed rail services in France –
and lead Fluor’s successful 25-year franchise proposal to
design-build-operate-maintain all track, signals and other related
infrastructure for the HSL Zuid Project in the Netherlands-TGV-type, ‘Thalys’
high-speed trains running from Brussels to Amsterdam.

He served 10 years as
assistant general manager of the Philadelphia regional transit system and was chief
railroad services officer for Boston’s sprawling commuter rail system for five
years. While practicing as a private architect and planner, he also served six
years on the Boston transit system’s budgetary board and regional planning
commission.

He is a founding member of
the American Public Transportation Association Commuter Rail Committee and is a
current member of the APTA High Speed/Intercity Rail Committee and Legislative
Committee. He is also a member of the Intercity Rail Working Group supporting
the National Commission Study on Transportation Policy and Investment submitted
to Congress in 2008. 

Skoropowski holds a
bachelor of architecture degree from The Catholic University of America School
of Architecture & Planning in Washington, D.C.