MTA Candidate Praised as Visionary Problem-Solver

Theodore G. “Tad” Weigle Jr., the 57-year-old construction company executive quietly being offered the job of steering the troubled Metropolitan Transportation Authority onto the road toward recovery, is no stranger to the challenges of running urban mass transit systems.

He received high marks for taking over and turning around Chicago’s Regional Transportation Authority during the late 1980s, when it was faced with a series of financial and operational problems not unlike those bedeviling the MTA. His earlier performance as the No. 2 official at the Washington Area Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates subways and buses in the nation’s capital, also drew favorable reviews.

But his most recent assignments overseeing mega-transportation projects in Boston and Athens for Bechtel Corp., the San Francisco-based construction engineering giant, have been more problematic.

Cost overruns and a loss of local political support are reported to have led to Weigle’s replacement as chief executive officer of the $8-billion Central Artery highway and tunnel project in downtown Boston. And his experience as the top executive for the Greek firm that will own and operate the Athens subway also has been marred by cost increases, as well as the inevitable complications involved in tunneling near the Acropolis and other ancient Greek monuments.

But taken as a whole, Weigle’s record has earned him the strong support of Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who controls four votes on the board that voted to offer the Bechtel executive a contract in a secret session Wednesday. Riordan said Thursday that he made up his mind after checking Weigle’s background.

“He’s a visionary,” the mayor said. “He’s one of the best in the business at design and construction, and he has the wisdom and humility to pick strong people around him.”

In addition, Riordan said Weigle’s federal government experience as a regional administrator for the Urban Mass Transportation Administration would be helpful in overseeing the MTA subway project.

But according to a source familiar with the issue, Weigle was not Riordan’s first choice. A number of experts told the mayor that the nation’s premier transportation executive was Shirley Delibero, who heads the New Jersey transit system. That source added that Riordan spent about two hours trying to talk Delibero into taking the MTA job, but personal and professional commitments tied her to her current job.

Riordan turned to Weigle after being impressed by stories of his success with the Chicago and Washington transit systems. Weigle was recruited as executive director of Chicago’s Regional Transportation Authority by its then-chairman, Samuel Skinner, who later became a U.S. secretary of transportation.

When Weigle resigned the Chicago post in 1990, a Chicago Tribune editorial praised him for reforming a troubled agency by providing a “strong, consistent management style.”

The editorial further concluded by saying that the agency needed “another expert in what makes a system run efficiently. It needs another Tad Weigle.”

At the time, Weigle said he was leaving the Chicago job because he had accomplished what he had set out to do. But there were reports of friction between Weigle and Skinner’s successor as chairman of the agency.

In Boston, Weigle was CEO of a joint venture between Bechtel and Parsons Brinckerhoff that provided engineering and construction management services for the mammoth Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel project, once of the biggest public works projects in the nation.

The ambitious project involves construction of interstate highways, a tunnel and transitways, plus an underground expressway to replace an overcrowded and aging elevated roadway that wraps around the heart of a historic district in Boston.

Cost estimates for the project have soared from $2.5 billion in 1985 to nearly $8 billion today.

The cost overruns and reportedly lax cost controls became local campaign fodder. Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation James J. Kerasiotes replaced Weigle as the top official in charge of the Central Artery project in November 1994.

Peter M. Zuk, the state’s top official on the project, told the Boston Globe that the change was made primarily because the project was entering a new phase. “Tad has made a major contribution to completing the Ted Williams Tunnel, but as we shift our focus to an intense period of downtown construction we need a hands-on construction manager to direct that effort.”

Neither Zuk nor Kerasiotes could not be reached for comment Thursday.

But Riordan said he was not alarmed by troubles that the Boston and Athens projects have encountered.

The Boston system had encountered problems long before Weigle arrived, he said. Similarly, Riordan said, the reports he received regarding Athens did not suggest that Weigle had contributed to problems there.

“I’m making further checks, but the people I talked to all said he was the best one of the candidates for this job,” Riordan said. “That’s why I supported him.”

Riordan did hold out the possibility of reconsidering if anything alarming turns up regarding Weigle before he is hired. “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” he said.

Although some critics of Wednesday’s action by the MTA board have complained that they felt the matter was rushed, Riordan emphasized that his support for Weigle was not based merely on an April 10 interview with him or on the MTA discussion.

Instead, Riordan said he had been contacting transportation experts around the country ever since receiving the resumes of the top candidates roughly two months ago.

“All the commissioners have had the resumes,” Riordan said. “We all knew who the candidates were two months ago.”

Officially, Bechtel spokesman Rick Laubscher in San Francisco said he could not comment on the MTA offer because it had not been announced publicly. “We’re in the dark about this,” he said. “We’re not in a position to say anything.”

But Laubscher praised Weigle. “Tad’s a very talented guy,” he said. “We obviously have the highest professional regard for Tad’s talents. He would be a great fit in any number of senior project positions in the public or private sector.”

A colleague of Weigle in Europe was more effusive. “I would consider him a savvy executive, an astute communicator, with good leadership skills and excellent people skills,” the colleague said. “He is a consensus builder . . . a very strategic thinker.”

Weigle was traveling in Europe on Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

Times staff writer Richard Simon contributed to this story.