New deputy with RCOC a national expert on safety

Road Commission for Oakland County (RCOC) Managing Director Dennis Kolar has named Gary Piotrowicz as the agency’s new deputy managing director/county highway engineer.

“I am very pleased to announce Gary’s promotion to the deputy managing director/county highway engineer position,” Kolar said. “Gary is well known and highly respected in Oakland County and brings an ideal tool set to the position.”

Piotrowicz said he is excited to begin his new role.

“I’m looking forward to being involved in a wider range of road commission activities, and helping to ensure that the RCOC continues to be a national leader in all aspects of the road industry, especially as it relates to safety, so that we can provide the highest level of service possible for our customers, the residents, businesses and motorists of Oakland County,” Piotrowicz said.

Kolar, who took over as managing director on Jan. 1, previously held the deputy managing director/county highway engineer position.

Piotrowicz, who is a registered professional engineer and registered professional traffic operations engineer, has been employed by the RCOC for nearly 15 years. Most recently, he served as the director of the RCOC’s Traffic Safety Department, which oversees the agency’s traffic engineering, traffic signals, signs, guardrails, and other safety-related issues.

Prior to that position, Piotrowicz served as the traffic signal engineer (head of the Traffic Signal Division of the Traffic Safety Department) and was the project manager for the RCOC’s Faster And Safer Travel Through Routing & Advanced Controls (FAST-TRAC) high-tech “adaptive” traffic signal system.

Prior to joining the RCOC, he spent three years with the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) and also worked for a civil engineering firm.

“As we continue to struggle with insufficient funding, and as our employee count continues to drop, we need to find ways to provide the same high-level of service we have in the past,” Piotrowicz said. “We need to continue to evolve in the way we do things, continually finding new efficiencies. That is one of my key areas of focus.”

Piotrowicz is recognized as a national expert in the field of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and is renowned for his expertise in traffic signal systems and transportation safety issues.

“I will also strive to see that we continue to be a leader in the field of ITS, especially as it relates to the safety of our customers who use the roads,” Piotrowicz said. “I will also work to ensure that we continue our involvement and partnership with the auto industry in this regard.”

Piotrowicz holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Michigan State University (MSU) and a master’s degree in transportation, also from MSU. He has participated in the FHA’s Peer-to-Peer mentoring program, and has been a member of numerous Transportation Research Board National Cooperative Highway Research Program research panel teams. In addition, Piotrowicz previously served as a member of the TRB Signal Systems Subcommittee and is the co-chair of the Institute of Transportation Engineers Connected-Vehicle Task Force.