MBTA employees who worked at the agency before a new general manager was installed by the Healey administration had “so many things on their plate” that outside hires with roots in New York were necessary, the head of the transit agency said Tuesday.
MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng defended his decision to bring on four out-of-state transit veterans to manage stations, engineering and capital, infrastructure, and operations and safety. The four men have all served at one point in their careers in New York-based transportation roles and their combined pay in Massachusetts is nearly $800,000 a year.
Current employees have “tremendous” institutional knowledge, Eng said during an interview with WBUR host Tiziana Dearing.
“What I saw, though, was that they have so many things on their plate that we needed to bring in reinforcements to support the team that’s there,” Eng said when asked to respond to a Boston Herald columnist who questioned his hiring decisions. “This is not replacing folks, this is supplementing and building the team stronger. It’s also helping folks here to think outside the box.”
The MBTA announced last week that it was filling four newly-created positions — chief of stations, assistant general manager of engineering and capital, chief of infrastructure, and senior advisor for capital, operations, and safety — to help “close management gaps and improve the quality, reliability, and safety of T services.”
Dennis Varley was hired as the chief of stations; Rod Brooks as the senior advisor for capital, operations, and safety; Sam Zhou as the assistant general manager of engineering and capital; and Doug Connett as the chief of infrastructure.
Varley worked for 11 years at the Long Island Railroad, which Eng served as president of from August 2018 to February 2022. Brooks is also a Long Island Railroad alum. Zhou spent 16 years at the New York State Department of Transportation, where Eng worked for eight years.
Connett most recently worked for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. He also spent time at New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, where Eng served as chief operating officer for just over a year.
Varley will make $265,000 a year, Brooks will be paid $120 an hour, Zhou will be paid $265,00 a year, and Connett will bring down $260,000 a year, according to an MTBA spokesperson. Brooks is contracted through Dec. 31 with a one-year extension option, according to the MBTA spokesperson.
Eng said bringing in outside perspectives to weigh in on the situations the MBTA is dealing with “is a good thing.”
“And that does not mean I have lost faith in any of the staff at the T. It just means that we are bringing the team together to make sure that we have a little breathing room, and to be able to get our heads above water,” Eng said. “Because there are so many competing priorities.”
Eng said the four men “will be able to come in having done this in other areas.”
“[They have] taken on challenges where systems have been failing, reliability, safety, frequency of service, and just helping us to move the needle and continuing to mentor and grow the staff that we have too,” he said.