PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT

My name is Thomas Methven and I have been your Public Township Works Supervisor since November 2022. 

I have been married to my wife for twenty-two years and we have two children, ages sixteen and fourteen. 

I have long-term experience in road construction, maintenance, and road crew management.  I started my

career at PennDOT in 2003 as a plow truck operator/laborer, and was later promoted to Highway Foreman II

in 2008, where I received extensive training in highway maintenance and winter operations. In this position,

I was in charge of shed crews who did maintenance on local roads and plow truck operations on Interstate 70 and

Route 51 in Westmoreland County.  Furthermore, I ran the county-wide paving crew in paving roads throughout

Westmoreland County.  I ran a crew to repair three large landslides affecting state roads.  During this time, I was asked to be a temporary Assistant County Maintenance Manager where I was in charge of a large geographical area of Westmoreland County with two sheds, four foremen, and twenty-six county operators.  In 2015, I was promoted to highway foreman III and was put in charge of the bridge construction and maintenance crew for Westmoreland County.  During that time, my crew and I would repair small bridges under twenty feet, replace small bridges with large diameter pipe or box culverts, aid engineers in streamlining construction techniques, and was tasked with repairing three structurally deficient bridges per year from the state’s structurally deficit bridge list.

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Something I am most proud of is in 2017, I worked with PennDot engineers to design a new GRS (Geo re-enforced soil) bridge.  This new design would allow us to replace bridges faster with less costs by only using PennDOT laborers and no outside contractors.  Then, in 2018 I started with Gulisek Construction as a heavy highway carpenter and ran my own construction company until 2022.  The opportunity to return to municipal government and local road maintenance is what I enjoy doing, so the opportunity to work for Elizabeth Township was a good fit for me.  Working for Elizabeth Township and doing what I enjoy makes me strive to work hard to improve the infrastructure and make our roads safer. 

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I would like to thank the Township Manager and Board of Commissioners for allowing me the opportunity to work here and serve the community of Elizabeth Township.