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Tag: Elizabeth River Project

Elizabeth River Crossings CEO announces retirement

Elizabeth River Crossings OpCo LLC (ERC) CEO David Sullivan announced his retirement, effective Jan. 21. ERC finances, operates and maintains the Elizabeth River Tunnels.

A new CEO will be named next week.

ERC owners Abertis Infraestructuras S.A. and Manulife Investment Management named Sullivan CEO in January 2021. He had previously served as director of revenue, during which time he had helped transition ERC from a construction project to an operating company.

In his nearly five-year tenure with ERC, Sullivan helped upgrade the intelligent transportation systems, spearheading the migration of ERC’s tolling data from a primary data center in Portsmouth to a cloud-based platform developed by Cognizant and Amazon Web Services.

Sullivan oversaw several corporate citizenship efforts in his year as CEO. ERC received the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association’s 2021 Social Responsibility Award. In November 2021, ERC announced it will contribute $3.2 million annually in toll relief funds, with a 3.5% increase each year, to provide 50% toll discounts to eligible Norfolk and Portsmouth residents.

In his 50-year career, Sullivan served 32 years with the city of Virginia Beach, six years with Hampton Roads Transit and six years with the city of Norfolk.

“It has been a fantastic journey filled with extraordinary leaders, mentors and coworkers. I will miss it,” Sullivan said in a statement.

ERC is the operator of the Downtown and Midtown tunnels that run between Norfolk and Portsmouth. The company operates four tunnels and a highway in the Norfolk area, and its transportation infrastructure is used by more than 100,000 vehicles for daily commutes.

Elizabeth River Project receives $2.1M naming gift

The nonprofit Elizabeth River Project announced Thursday that it has received a major naming gift of $2.1 million from Norfolk’s Pru and Louis Ryan.

The gift, the largest in the organization’s history, will attach the Ryans’ names to the Elizabeth River Project’s Resilience Lab that will be built along the Elizabeth River at 4610 Colley Avenue in Norfolk. The official name will be the Elizabeth River Project’s Pru and Louis Ryan Resilience Lab, or Ryan Resilience Lab for short. The three-story green facility will be the first urban redevelopment project in Virginia intentionally built in the floodplain to demonstrate environmental resilience to sea level rise.

A research dock on the property will provide a platform for ongoing study and solutions to address climate change issues. The waterfront Learning Park will be open to the public for a changing demonstration of emerging practices in resilience and waterfront access along Knitting Mill Creek.

“We decided to support the Elizabeth River Project because it is the leading organization focused on the environment in Hampton Roads and in particular the Elizabeth River,” Louis Ryan said in a statement. “The legacy created by the Elizabeth River Project’s Resilience Lab is a cleaner and healthier environment for the citizens of our region. We are proud to put our names on such a prestigious facility that will be on the frontline of regional and national efforts to combat sea level rise and changing climate conditions.”

Louis Ryan, the co-chair of the project’s Next Wave fundraising campaign, is the retired general counsel of Landmark Communications, which owned The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press newspapers.

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