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.