TxDOT executive director recovering following ‘mild stroke’
James Bass, the Texas Department of Transportation’s executive director for the past 13 months, is recovering at home after suffering a “mild stroke” on Friday, TxDOT officials said Thursday.
Bass, 50, a career TxDOT employee who had been the agency’s chief financial officer for 11 years before getting the top job, was in a meeting with his senior staff when the symptoms of stroke occurred, said Tryon Lewis, chairman of the Texas Transportation Commission. The executive director’s aides rushed to help him, Lewis said, and to quickly get emergency medical services involved.
Bass is “doing well,” TxDOT spokesman Bob Kaufman said Thursday, and “we look forward to his return in the coming days.”
Bass supervises a statewide workforce of more than 11,000 employees and a statewide road network more than 80,000 miles long, with an annual budget of about $12 billion.
http://www.statesman.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/txdot-executive-director-recovering-following-mild-stroke/PuotBcZpfv9mxoXlrI1xaJ/