MTA Names New Construction Chief to Oversee Subway Project

A 24-year veteran of the Army Corps of Engineers who advised the government on how to blow up heavily fortified military targets was named Thursday to supervise the building of Los Angeles’ troubled subway.

Col. Stanley G. Phernambucq, a 46-year-old Southern California native, will take over as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $131,000-a-year chief construction officer in July, more than nine months after the previous construction chief was ousted.

Phernambucq said his mother, a Norwalk resident, knew about the subway problems and asked why he would want the job.

“I said, ‘Because it’s a challenge,’ ” he said in an interview from Vicksburg, Miss., where he serves as district engineer overseeing public works projects in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. “It’s an important job, and one that I can do.”

He succeeds Edward McSpedon, who was removed as construction chief in October when the federal government suspended funding for the subway after the ground beneath the Hollywood Boulevard tunnel sank up to 10 inches.

Phernambucq’s selection follows a critical audit of MTA’s rail construction practices, including recommending that the agency hire a strong executive officer to take charge of construction and enforce accountability in the agency’s construction division.

Phernambucq said he has read a summary of the report, and he pledged to pursue unspecified changes within the agency.

“I’m a team builder,” he said, citing Lee Iacocca’s statement that “nice guys finish first.”

MTA Chief Executive Officer Franklin E. White, who selected Phernambucq, said he brings “a wealth of knowledge and experience in the area of designing and constructing major public works projects.”

Phernambucq was selected after a worldwide search, which was narrowed from about 100 candidates to six finalists.

The West Point graduate, who holds a master’s degree in civil engineering from USC, has supervised the building of a railroad in Brazil, the dredging of San Francisco Bay and construction of the Red River navigation project in Louisiana, which he noted was “on schedule and within budget.”

“You’ve got to be able to get in there and . . . take charge,” he said. “I know how to do it. I’ve done it.”

He will be responsible for supervising all of the MTA’s rail construction projects.