Section 10 is honored to present Garole Valbrun as our 2024 Transportation Professional of the Year. 

Garole began his remarkable engineering career as a contractor in Haiti in the late eighties. He moved to New York and began his career with the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) as a Junior Engineer/Civil Engineer 1 in 1998 in Region 10’s Design Unit. He has held many positions including Engineering Applications Group Supervisor and, more recently, as a Project Manager and Consultant Manager as a Professional Engineer 1 in Region 10’s Design Unit.

Garole has been an active member of NYSATE for over 25 years and attended numerous Annual & Mini Conferences, social events, and fundraisers. 

Garole is a generous person who gives of his time freely to better the people around him. He is always thinking of others in every aspect of his life whether work, community, or family. He enjoys learning new things and then mentoring others. At work, he was a trainer for “Managing Workplace Conflict” and taught the "Handling Conflict _ Manager as Mediator Program.”  In his community, he is an active member of his parish where he freely donates his time and resources and can be found on Sundays bringing communion to the homebound and hospital patients. In addition, he facilitates a weekly Bible study through the Zoom platform. Garole also contributes to many charitable organizations here and in Haiti. In fact, while living in NY, he was the president of SLG P81 Inc, an alumni association which raised money for the reconstruction of their former high school after the 2010 7.0-magnitude earthquake. Then in 2022, SLG P81 Inc raised an additional $200,000 for the construction of the high school’s Pavillon des Langues et des Arts Building.

In 2022, Garole along with another co-worker created a basketball team, made mostly of our Region 10 young coworkers. Many participants are almost half his age! He loves basketball, but he really loves the camaraderie and team-building opportunities it creates for those involved.

Besides his faith, there is nothing more important to Garole than his family. He has been happily married to his beautiful wife Mimose for 31 years. They have three wonderful children: Daniel, Marcus and Gamille. Daniel is involved in trade marketing. Marcus is in his last semester in college working on a degree in computing. His youngest Gamille is a Junior in college working on her psychology degree. 

In his downtime, when he’s not playing basketball, he can be found listening to music, especially Jazz. He finds music to be a great escape. He has learned to appreciate music from different cultures and across generations (even some rap music that his sons listen to). He enjoys dancing, but as he ages gracefully, he tends to listen more to instrumental music.