PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson Transit General Manager Dave Turissini has accepted the express bus program manager’s position with Sound Transit in Seattle and will resign from the position he has held for nearly 10 years.
He will officially announce his move to the Jefferson Transit Authority Board on Tuesday, when it meets at 1:30 p.m. at the Port Townsend Fire Station Training Room at Lawrence and Harrison streets.
Turissini, 51, will leave Jefferson Transit on Jan. 9 to manage Sound Transit’s bus system, which contracts with transit agencies in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties that have 350 buses serving regional routes connected to the Sound Transit rail system.
He now oversees Jefferson Transit’s 30-bus fleet and 45 employees.
He was paid $74,000 a year at Jefferson Transit and would only say he would be making considerably more money as Sound Transit program manager for the express bus program.
“They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Turissini said Saturday at his Port Ludlow home, where he and his wife, Danille, have lived for nine years.
“This is a great opportunity.”
Jefferson County Commissioner David Sullivan, who serves as transit board chairman along with his fellow county commissioners John Austin and Phil Johnson, said the transit board would discuss Tuesday how to proceed with the process to fill the vacated general manager’s position.
Danille Turissini is Jefferson County Team Jefferson coordinator for the PEAK Leadership Program and will keep that responsibility.
