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Name: Madison, Thomas
Current Position: Former Administrator
Thomas J. Madison, Jr. served as administraor of the Federal highway Administration from August 18, 2008, until January 20, 2009. He gained his BA in political science in 1988 at State University of New York at Geneseo. He worked as a salesman for Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical Corporation of New Jersey and, in 1991, as a foreman for his father’s company, T.J. Madison Construction of Binghamton, NY.
Madison first entered government as an assistant to Republican New York State Assemblyman Richard H. Miller, followed by a stint as an executive assistant to New York State Senator Thomas W. Libous, who was the Chairman of the New York State Senate Transportation Committee.
In 1995 Madison joined the office of New York’s Republican governor, George Pataki, as a regional representative, and also worked as Deputy Appointments Secretary. From 1997 to 1999, Madison served as Deputy County Executive in Broome County, New York. He returned to Pataki’s office, rising to the position of Deputy Secretary and principal transportation advisor. He also served as Deputy Director of the New York State Consumer Protection Board, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Capital Program Review Board, the New York State Public Transportation Safety Board, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, and the Greater Buffalo-Niagara Regional Transportation Council, as well as Director of the New York State Bridge Authority.
From 2005 to 2007, Madison served as Commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation, overseeing an annual budget of $7 billion. He then left government, and in March 2007, he joined Spectra Subsurface Imaging Group, a Latham, N.Y. company specializing in underground mapping for utility companies, as the president of its subsurface imaging group. Picked by President Bush to serve as Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, Madison was sworn in on August 18, 2008.
On September 10, he startled some Senators when, at a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, he declared that even though a bridge might be determined “structurally deficient,” this did not mean that it was unsafe.
Madison is a strong proponent of public-private partnerships (P3), which allow governments to outsource public works projects to private consortiums, who can then use the projects to generate profits. In the context of the FHA, this means that private groups can design, build and operate toll roads.