Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 19, 1994 TAG: 9412190097
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Ray Pethtel settles on the couch in his office and checks his watch. It's 5:30. One hour 'til a senator-heavy reception starts at the Grove, the old mansion on the hill where Virginia Tech's president lives. Pethtel should be home by his usual 8 p.m.
Home these days for the long-married Pethtel is a latter-day bachelor pad in Blacksburg. Wife Mary Jane and two of the three Pethtel daughters still live in Richmond during the week.
Ever since the former state transportation commissioner became Tech's first-ever University Transportation Fellow this spring, home's been here and there.
"I do a lot of driving," Pethtel says.
The man therefore appreciates a good road.
Brought on board to ponder Tech's role in the world of transportation, Pethtel also is seen as the lobbyist to advance that agenda. He's in charge of the "smart" road and is promoting Tech as a clearinghouse for Interstate 81 corridor planning. He is paid, on a contract basis, $85,000 to do that.
He waxes almost rhapsodic on the subject of transportation.
"It's a function I feel is absolutely basic to our social fabric and economic health," said Pethtel, who holds a master's degree in public administration from Penn State. "And whether people believe it or not, I do see the intrusion of highways," he said, citing the concerns of environmentalists.
"But I see ways to address those [concerns], and the benefits we gain: Economic development, personal mobility, quality of life ..."
Not only does Pethtel have his reasoning down pat, but, after nearly two decades in the upper echelons of the Virginia bureaucracy, he does get his calls returned. Despite long service during Democratic administrations, he seems to carry a nonpartisan reputation that allows him to move between both parties.
"To this day, I don't know his politics," former Democratic Gov. Gerald Baliles said. "I don't know if he voted for me - or anyone else."
At Tech, Pethtel is probably most identified in the public mind as front man for the smart road. He backed the $50 million project as commissioner when it was proposed five years ago, and he believes in the technology that will beam messages from roads and bridges to drivers in their cars, or engineers in their offices.
"If I had to put money on it, technology [will someday] allow you to take the car in your driveway, hook it up to a system, and whisk you along at fairly high speeds," Pethtel said in a recent interview in his office.
He describes the near future of smart-road technology, how a screen on your vehicle's dashboard will light up with word of an accident on the road ahead or of opaque fog in the valley a mile hence. He imagines the far-futurist version: Cruise the interstate without your foot on the pedal. Relax. Enjoy the ride.
As smart-road spokesman, he can predict where opposition may arise, said Len Peters, vice provost for research at Tech.
"He has a good perception of the attitudes that are pro, con and neutral. It's what we sometimes refer to as street smarts. Savvy," Peters said.
At the moment, Pethtel's work as fellow has been interrupted by his additional job as interim director of the Center for Transportation Research. He was appointed in the wake of the former director's departure this fall. Antoine Hobeika, still on Tech's engineering faculty, stepped down amid a state police investigation into the sale of computer software and an internal audit regarding his "scholarly conduct." Hobeika has not been charged with any crime, and Pethtel says he's not interested in the permanent job.
Despite the unexpected turn on his career path, Pethtel still has managed to corral interested parties and try to launch some more initiatives. Here's some of what he's done since he got to Tech in May:
A proposal to establish a Center for Value Engineering at Tech has been floated before members of Congress who are connected to the transportation committees. The process of value engineering entails a follow-up cost analysis of projects and was adopted in Virginia under Pethtel's tenure as transportation commissioner. He's suggesting that legislators add $3 million to the National Highway System bill that will be considered next year, money to pay for a new center designed to teach value engineering. The center could end up at Tech, Pethtel suggests.
The only problem is that one of Pethtel's backers, Rep. Leslie Byrne, D-Fairfax, was ousted in the November election and no longer sits on a critical committee.
"It's gotten quite a bit of national support from people who are familiar with the process and are interested in having it adopted," said Pethtel, brushing aside any concern for the initiative as a result of Byrne's defeat.
A bridge will be part of the smart road through the Ellett Valley, and it may become a test site for the sensors that can tell engineers if something's wrong with the structure. For years, inspectors have had to check bridges visually, but they can't always reach all the parts of the bridge that need to be inspected. Sensors would promote better bridge safety.
Given the patchwork of funding and approvals that go along with such projects, these are the sorts of initiatives that are built more easily if the chief architect has connections.
"He would probably be hard to beat in the position they've got him in," mused Lyle Saxton, director of the Federal Highway Administration's Traffic and Safety Division, which oversees some "smart" technology projects.
A Richmond bureaucrat from 1974 to 1990, Pethtel arrived from the New York statehouse, where he'd helped to run a legislative commission overseeing government expenditures. That position won him the founding directorship of Virginia's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission. Among its many jobs is overseeing state agency goals - and whether the money spent goes to meet them.
After 12 years at the commission, Pethtel was appointed transportation commissioner by Baliles.
"I knew him to be an analyst of the first order, knowledgeable of government and familiar with finances," said Baliles.
Pethtel seemed to be the meticulous administrator needed to help lead one of the hallmarks of the Baliles administration, the massive 12-year, $12 billion plan to improve state roads launched in 1986.
The former governor cites an impressive statistic to illustrate Pethtel's work ethic: 88 percent of all road projects were advertised on schedule.
"This is Ray," Baliles said.
David Gehr, now transportation commissioner under Gov. George Allen, worked under Pethtel.
"He was very supportive of his staff and the things we brought to him," Gehr said from his office in Richmond. "He is a very hard worker. All of us spent a lot of long hours here."
Certainly, that habit hasn't stopped since Pethtel arrived at the university. If he gets home by 8 each night, he arrives at 8 each morning - a cup of 7-Eleven coffee in one hand, and, just to keep track of all that's happening back home in the state capital, a copy of the Richmond paper in the other.
by CNB