Gray leaves transit authority, will remain active in community
After more than 20 years, Joe Gray has stepped down from his role with the Butler Transit Authority. The local engineer isn’t going anywhere, however. He will remain on as the city engineer.
“As a business person, I think it’s good to be involved in the community,” Gray said. “I think it’s good business, and it’s a positive thing you can do as part of your business.”
Outside of a few years he spent living in Youngstown, Ohio, attending Youngstown State University (graduating in 1989), Gray has spent his entire life in Butler County. He has lived mainly in South Butler.
And he still does a lot in the area. In addition to recently leaving the transit authority and being city engineer, he has been on Butler’s Building Code Appeals Board for about 10 years and the Butler Township Zoning Hearing Board.
“Working with the community is a positive activity that you can make with your business,” Gray said. “And it’s good business, contributing to the community and making it better and your surroundings.”
Gray owns several businesses in the area, the most notable being DCM Butler. He describes DCM — which stands for Design, Construct and Manage — as the “nucleus” of all his businesses.
His day job, though, is architecture and engineering. Gray runs an architectural and consulting engineering firm, Ashlar Architecture and Engineering, with his wife, Jackie, and business partner, Marleen Myers. The company provides consulting services for commercial and residential services.
Gray also owns a construction company called Arris Construction and sits on multiple community development boards in Butler. The board members throughout the years have all been first-class business leaders in Butler, he said.
He owned another civil engineering company that was sold to Gateway Engineers. He was a partner at that company until 2010. He left there and began focusing on architectural engineering. He still consults with Gateway.
He’s also a real estate investor, owning J&J Gray Properties. His latest project was purchasing the former Friedman’s Freshmarkets building after its closure in 2018. He rented the building to Gateway for office space.
He sits on several boards dedicated to revitalizing the area, including Butler Downtown Revitalization’s Economic Restructuring Committee, Butler Area Development Corporation, which focuses mainly on the city, and Butler County Community Development Corporation. The latter two are their own entities.
Gray said he has scaled back on some of that work because he has too many things going on and needed to refocus. Gray said there are no issues with the transit leadership staff or board, adding that Executive Director John Paul does a great job.
Some of his recent consulting has come to improve the area as well. This includes the recent exterior renovations to the Butler County Government Center and a current project with Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport. He also has been working for a number of years to improve Main Street.
“Right now, it’s phase three of (Main Street),” Gray said. “We’re putting in trees and tree wells. Then the next phase will hopefully be newer sidewalks on Main Street.”
The airport project is something that comes with prior experience from Gray, who was the lead engineer on the midfield terminal project for Pittsburgh International Airport until he left to start consulting in 1997. That airport is going through a terminal modernization program.
“What’s kind of scary is now they are talking about renovating the airport,” Gray said. “I guess you’re getting old when they’re starting to renovate programs you’re involved in.”
But it’s still work, work and work for Gray on a day-to-day basis. Even his side activities during his limited free time involve work, with construction around the house being something he enjoys doing. Sometimes he will golf, and sometimes he will hunt, but it’s usually work for Gray during any given day.
“The city and I have had a good relationship over the 22 years. Unfortunately, we are limited with what we can do with budget constraints. Being creative in determining solutions to infrastructure problems and working closely with John Evans (building code official), Rod Huey of Parks, and Tom Shuler of Streets Departments.
“We are able to do quite a lot with the limited budget. Most locals don’t see the improvements Butler has made because they happen so slowly, but I see the improvement since I moved my business to the city. Although there is still plenty room for improvement,” he added.
