Tony Tavares was appointed the 34th Director of the Department of Transportation (Caltrans) by Governor Gavin Newsom and sworn in June 2022. Director Tavares manages a nearly $20 billion budget and more than 22,000 employees who oversee 50,000 lane miles of highway, maintain approximately 20,000 bridges, provide permitting of more than 400 public-use airports, fund three of Amtrak’s busiest intercity rail services and provide transit support to more than 200 local and regional transit agencies.
 
Direct Tavares has been a champion of California’s Historically Underutilized Businesses (HUBs) and Workforce for decades. He was one of the first State Directors of Transportation to meet with BuildIT as well as open up channels of communications for us at the United State Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Transit Administration, and Federal Railroad Administration.
 
Director Tavares’ transportation vision for California has also included critical climate issues and advancing a safe, equitable, accessible, sustainable, and multimodal transportation system that builds on strong partnerships and robust stakeholder engagement which are core principles of BuildIT. He has also ensured that BuildIT has ‘been at the table’ as Caltrans works with Industry Associations such as CalInfra on Alternative (Collaborative) Project Management initiatives.
 
BuildIT will present this award to Director Tavares following his retirement from State Service which will take place in early May 2025.

​

​

BuildIT

PREVIOUS BIO

HOME