WASHINGTON — Two top experts and staff officials at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials plan to retire on Feb. 1 next year.
John Horsley, the transportation advocacy group’s executive director, and Jack Basso, its director of program finance and management, announced their decisions to AASHTO’s board of directors last weekend, Basso said. He stressed that their retirements are still months away and there is much work to be done in the meantime, but indicated that he and Horsley want to provide enough time for the board to find their replacements.
“They need several months to do what they’re going to do,” Basso said.
When he walks out the door in February, Basso will have served 12 years as a finance expert and go-to source of information for state departments of transportation around the country. He is widely respected as a top authority on highway funding, and has worked closely with other transportation groups, members of Congress, and reporters since joining AASHTO in 2001.
Basso also served as chief financial officer at the U.S. Department of Transportation, among many other stops in a nearly 40-year career of public service. “I better get out while I’m still alive,” he joked.
Horsley also spent time at the DOT, working for six years as associate deputy secretary before becoming AASHTO’s executive director in 1999. His more than 20 years of transportation experience follow on the heels of time spent in both the Army and the Peace Corps.
Jack Schenendorf, an attorney focused on transportation at Covington and Burling LLP in Washington, said AASHTO has taken a more prominent role in transportation issues thanks to the leadership shown by Horsley and Basso. “They’ve been enormously important to transportation advocacy in Washington,” he said.
Schenendorf said his working relationship with Basso stretches back to the 1970s, and praised the soon-to-be retiree for his detailed knowledge of transportation policy and gift for explaining it in plain English.
“He’s a resource that people all over Washington have used,” Schenedorf said.
Janet Kavinoky, executive director of transportation and infrastructure and vice president of Americans for Transportation Mobility at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, praised Horsley’s detailed knowledge of needs at the state and local level. She said Basso is unique amongst transportation experts.
“He is the single most knowledgeable person on federal aid transportation in the country,” she said. Together, Kavinoky said, Horsley and Basso have made AASHTO a major player on the national stage. Their retirements “will certainly be a blow,” to the organization, she said.
Basso said the board will create a panel to find a replacement for Horsley, but picking a new finance whiz to fill his own shoes would probably come later so the new executive director could have a say.q
Basso said he hopes his retirement from AASHTO will give him more time to devote to several part-time positions he holds, including membership on the Maryland Transportation Authority Board and the chairmanship of the Mileage-Based User Fee Alliance.
Schenendorf said replacing Basso and Horsley will not be easy.
“They’ll be sorely missed,” he said.
