About Greg Slater

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Greg Slater, Governor Hogan’s newly appointed Transportation Secretary, is a Maryland native with a career dedicated to addressing the State’s transportation issues. DW270 presents this brief look at Secretary Slater’s background and views, as context for understanding his role in shaping the future of transportation in Maryland during the critical months ahead. 

A Career in Transportation

Slater brings to his new role 20 years of experience at MDOT, most recently as head of the State Highway Agency. Previously at SHA, he was Deputy Administrator for Planning, Engineering, Real Estate, and Environment. Prior to that post, he served 7 years as SHA’s Planning Director. 

As SHA Administrator, Slater advanced major projects championed by Governor Hogan and former Transportation Secretary Pete Rahn. The Governor’s press release announcing Slater’s appointment said “he spearheaded the Traffic Relief Plan—the largest P3 project in the world—and led the negotiations for the Beltway Accord with Virginia to fix the American Legion Bridge and the entire Capital Beltway system.” (The controversial Traffic Relief Plan would add toll lanes to I-270 and I-495.) 

Secretary Slater is known as a transportation expert and innovator—a “Road Warrior” according to a July 2018 profile on the Towson University website. Slater is a 1997 graduate of Towson, where he started out as a business major but soon switched to geography and environmental planning. Slater explains, “Early on I thought differently from everyone else. I came at things from a different angle.”  The profile notes that “it was always systems—how they operated and how they can be improved—that fascinated him.” 

Slater’s transportation credentials go beyond MDOT. He is chairman of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ Transportation Data Management and Analytics Committee. He serves on several committees of the National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Board. He is a 2007 graduate of the University of Maryland National Leadership Institute, and a member of the 2015 class at Leadership Maryland (a year-long program created to develop “informed senior-level leaders” for the State).

A Solid Reputation

The new Secretary is highly regarded in his profession and among elected officials at the State and local level—even those who have been at odds with the Governor’s P3 plans for I-270 and the Beltway. For example:   

Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich: “Slater is one of the most forward-thinking people [at MDOT headquarters]. He is really smart. We’ve worked with him on any number of issues of mutual interest.” Maryland Matters

State Delegate Marc Korman (D-Montgomery), Chair of the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on the Environment and Transportation: “He’s accessible, he’s open and he’s solutions-oriented. And he’s responsive.”  Maryland Matters

Gary Hodge, Vice Chairman, Maryland Transit Opportunities Coalition, former Southern Maryland elected official, regional council executive and chairman: “Greg Slater is one of the most capable and responsive administrators I’ve encountered in Maryland State government over the last 40 years. I have never sent him an email—ever—that he didn’t answer within hours. His default setting is to collaborate.” Personal communication, and in testimony before the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee

In Slater’s Own Words

About Transportation (July 2018 interview)

  •  “Transportation is a quality-of-life issue. My job is to enhance the system for our entire state … and getting there can be painful.” 

  • “Everybody has something that is important to them and it’s important that we show that what’s important to them is important to us. It’s one way of meeting future transportation needs.”

About the P3 Project (July 2018 interview) 

  • How soon could we see Express Toll Lanes on the Capital Beltway and I-270?

    “This really depends on NEPA and its outcome. The important thing here is not the detail, but providing congestion relief to Marylanders as quickly as possible with the least amount of disruption to their lives. In this project, we are moving fast, but also thinking very differently than others in the past. In many ways, our goal is to not only provide that quick relief and real travel choices, but we also want to redefine how these projects are delivered worldwide by harnessing innovation, collectively and collaboratively.“

  • Tell me why this traffic relief [P3] plan might not happen. What stands in the way of it all getting done? 

    “That’s not in my vocabulary. I didn’t get here thinking about what we can’t do. The whole team is focused on what we can do so congestion relief is coming.”

  • What is your response to criticism that the state is too focused on highways and roads and not enough on public transit and non-vehicular modes of transportation?

    “My response is that we need both. We need all of it and unfortunately to deliver all of it, we have to do that in separate efforts. … Our citizens need choices for mobility, diverse choices that serve the diverse needs of Marylanders. Their mobility, the mobility of our commerce and freight is too important. My focus is on them and giving them that choice in safe solutions that are a value to Maryland citizens.”

Upon Appointment as Secretary of Transportation (December 2019)

  •  “The work we do at the Maryland Department of Transportation affects the lives and livelihoods of each of our citizens, and we strive every day to operate in a spirit of trust and accountability.”

Secretary Slater’s Comments about Recent P3 Developments

On Friday January 3, Governor Hogan announced that he and State Comptroller Peter Franchot had reached an agreement about advancing the P3 project to add toll lanes to I-270 and the Beltway. First in line is work on I-270 (and the American Legion Bridge); work on the Beltway east of 270 is postponed. The Hogan-Franchot agreement put the P3 on the agenda for the January 8 meeting of the 3-member Board of Public Works, having locked in Franchot’s crucial “yes” vote; the measure passed, with only State Treasurer Nancy Kopp voting ”no.”

Maryland Matters reported on Secretary Slater’s comments in light of this development and the related negotiations: 

  • About public transit: “State Highway Administrator Gregory Slater . . . said negotiations with ‘the locals and a lot of our stakeholder agencies’ focused on ‘where we can have a much stronger component of transit in this project.’ While the exact amount of transit aid to D.C.-area counties hasn’t been determined, Slater said the state pledged ‘to build a model where we can really have transit payments. … Those transit payments can be done in a number of ways, and over the next year or so, as we’re competing the contract, we’re going to be working with our local government partners on what that is.’”

  • About transparency: “In an interview, Slater said his staff is trying to figure out ways of sharing more information with local planners.”

  • About reversible lanes: “He also signaled a new flexibility to use reversible lanes north of Interstate 370, an idea championed by local officials but resisted by Rahn.”

On NBC4Washington, the Associated Press reported: “Greg Slater, Hogan’s transportation secretary, said transportation officials still believe improvements on I-495 are important. ‘But what we’re saying is that we want to do an area like 270 first, where we have a much greater agreement, and then just continue a collaborative dialogue with our local partners on what the right solution is on the rest of that system,’ Slater said.”

Small (But Interesting) Things to Know about Greg Slater

Multimodal commuter: In 2018, Slater, who lives north of Baltimore, told DCCommute Times that he usually drove to work but sometimes commuted the 20 miles into Baltimore City on his bike, using light rail for the return trip if he was tired or the weather turned bad. When he came to DC, he took MARC and Metro, so he could “get some work done and avoid the unpredictable DC region traffic.”

Protecting Wildlife: Towson University’s 2018 profile notes that, under Slater’s leadership, SHA had a commitment to protecting wildlife. He said: “We work to understand the habitats of various species.” For example, SHA brought in researchers from Towson’s biology department to study the effectiveness of relocating 900 turtles from a highway construction area.

Making tough decisions: The Towson profile also notes that when Slater faces tough decisions, he “refers to a list of attributes he keeps on a tablet. Among them are integrity, trust, dedication and dependability.”

A Final Thought

As Gary Hodge has said, Greg Slater’s default setting is to collaborate. Let’s share that spirit, but keep in mind that Secretary Slater is now the public face of Governor Hogan’s transportation policy.

SOURCES

DCCommute Times. “One on One with Maryland State Highway Administrator Greg Slater.” Tim Lemke. July 25, 2018.

Maryland Matters. “Stakeholders Applaud Changing of the Guard at MDOT.”  Bruce DePuyt. December 10, 2019. 

Maryland Matters. “Hogan-Franchot Compromise Hailed as Win-Win.” Bruce Depuyt. January 3, 2020.

NBC4Washington. “Maryland Governor, Comptroller Reach Transportation Deal.” Associated Press. January 3, 2020.

Office of Governor Larry Hogan. ”Governor Hogan Announces Cabinet Appointment.” 

Towson University. “Road Warrior.” Ginny Cook. July 10, 2018.

Washington Post. “Pete Rahn, Maryland Transportation Secretary, Resigns.” Robert McCartney, Erin Cox, and Katherine Shaver. Dec. 9, 2019.