Lavell has more than 40 years of industry experience and served as Acting Vice President and General Manager of NJ Transit Rail Operations since March 2014, following the departure of Kevin O’Connor (now at Metro-North). He is described as “a career railroad professional with broad experience in operations, equipment, infrastructure, and safety whose focus throughout his career has been to provide safe, secure, and reliable service to customers, leveraging equipment technologies that improve the customer experience.”
For the past six years, Lavell has served as NJT’s Deputy General Manager of Equipment, “where he has provided leadership for all aspects of maintenance of equipment, including safety, budget, and planning of rail facilities and equipment modifications,” NJT said. “He established the agency’s first E-Learning program, which has enhanced the formal training programs for more than 1,400 employees. He also implemented a component-based maintenance program that has increased reliability of NJT’s rolling stock by approximately 10%, which is reflected in increased on-time performance. This program reduced material costs by more than $1 million and increased the availability of reliable equipment for customers.”
Lavell previously served 30 years with Amtrak, most recently as Regional Vice President of Equipment Maintenance.