The International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) has confirmed its government affairs director Neil Gray has passed away.
IBTTA CEO Patrick Jones says: “This weekend we lost a member of our IBTTA family, Neil Gray, IBTTA’s long-time government affairs director. Neil was a dear friend and colleague to many in the IBTTA family and throughout the transportation community in Washington, DC and around the world. For more than 40 years, Neil shaped surface transportation policy and served the members at three vital transportation associations.
At IBTTA over the last 27 years, Neil worked to promote a better congressional understanding about the mechanisms and value of toll financing as a response to declining state and federal funding. He advocated for broader acceptance of innovative financing concepts by the US DoT and state legislatures. For more than 10 years, he led the company’s efforts to achieve nationwide interoperability of electronic toll collection. He also worked closely with congressional staff on the details and passage of five transportation reauthorisation bills.”
Jones reveals that Gray was previously director of government relations for the Highway Users Federation for Safety and Mobility (now the American Highway Users Alliance), a national coalition of highway interests focusing on federal fuel tax policies, alternative fuels and energy exploration. From 1975 to 1987, he held positions with the National Asphalt Pavement Association, culminating in a role as director of government relations. In this position, Gray represented highway contractors and equipment suppliers with primary focus on highway funding, energy and taxation issues as well as labour relations and disadvantaged business enterprises. In 2001, he served as president of the Road Gang, an informal group of business and government executives, highway engineers, consultants, and trade association officials from the highway transportation industry in Washington, DC. In 2009, Gray received the Dan Hanson Award for outstanding service to the organisation and industry.
“All of us in the tolling and transportation industry will miss Neil in a thousand ways. Neil was one of the most kind, decent, honest, generous, and knowledgeable persons you could ever meet. He was the heart and soul of IBTTA as well as the institutional memory of the association and the tolling industry,” Jones concludes.
