Gerry Salontai ('77, Civil Engineering)

Gerry Salontai

President & CEO (Retired), Kleinfelder Incorporated

BS Civil Engineering, Cal Poly Pomona, 1977

MS Civil Engineering, Long Beach State, 1981

Gerry Salontai’s interest in civil engineering was sparked by summer engineering intern jobs his father, a water department engineering design technician, arranged for him when he was in high school. Gerry earned an associate degree in engineering from Imperial Valley College before following in the footsteps of his brother and sister and enrolling at Cal Poly Pomona.

Gerry joined Kleinfelder, an architecture, engineering and science-consulting firm, as senior engineer in the Reno, Nevada office. After spending five years in Reno, he went on to lead a multi-office region, established a national transportation business line and led the California division at Kleinfelder before being named president and CEO in 1998.

“The practical approach to the engineering curriculum at Cal Poly Pomona accelerated my knowledge of how things really work, thus allowing me to take more responsibility than my peers who attended other universities,” Gerry says.

Gerry retired from the company in 2009 and founded Salontai Consulting Group, a strategy, business and leadership consulting company.