The Road Commission for Oakland County (RCOC) Board of Road Commissioners, at its regular meeting Thursday, Dec. 14, re-elected Andrea LaLonde as Board chair and selected Eric McPherson as vice chair for one-year terms for 2024.
“I am honored to continue to serve the residents of Oakland County in this capacity,” LaLonde stated. “I am proud of all the work the Road Commission accomplished in the last year, and I look forward to continuing that forward progress in 2024.” LaLonde was first elected RCOC chair in 2021.
McPherson, in his second year on the Board, also expressed his desire to continue to work to improve the county’s roads. “This past year, this agency made great progress in improving the roads in Oakland County,” he stated. “We are absolutely committed to keeping that momentum going for the coming year.”
The RCOC Board consists of three members, with road commissioners appointed for staggered six-year terms by the Oakland County Board of Commissioners. The third member is Nancy Quarles.
RCOC is a separate unit of government and is not funded by the County Board of Commissioners. Rather, RCOC receives the bulk of its funding from the state in the form of fuel-tax and vehicle-registration-fee revenues.
Chair LaLonde is a resident of Clawson. She is an employee of Pangea in Rochester Hills, where she is executive coordination manager, and is a graduate of Kalamazoo College. She joined the RCOC Board in January 2019.
McPherson is a life-long resident of Hazel Park and a business agent for the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) Local 80, where he has been a member for 38 years. He is a trustee of the Local’s Insurance Fund, a trustee of the Michigan Maritime Trades Port Council, chair of the Oakland County Building Authority, a building trades journeyman and has completed continuing education classes in upgrading labor. He is a graduate of Catholic Central High School.
Quarles has a PhD in public administration and public affairs from Western Michigan University. She served in the Michigan House of Representatives from 1996 to 2002 and on the Oakland County Board of Commissioners from 1995 to 1996 and again from 2011 to 2020. She is a resident of Novi and a faculty member at Central Michigan University.
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RCOC maintains the largest county road system in the state, with more than 2,700 miles of roads. It is a national leader in both road safety and the application of advanced technology to road and traffic management. For more information about RCOC, visit the RCOC website at www.rcocweb.org.
Editor’s Note: Photos of Chair LaLonde, Vice Chair McPherson and Commissioner Quarles are attached.
