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Inside Secretary Pete's quest to make the Transportation Department cool again

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Alex Wong/Getty Images
  • Pete Buttigieg has brought star power and loads of Twitter followers to the Transportation Department.
  • It's not a job usually given to political up-and-comers, but Secretary Pete has embraced the role.
  • His new staff, the White House, and some Republicans are giving Buttigieg high marks.
  • Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

Rank-and-file Transportation Department employees saw their phones start blowing up the day President-elect Joe Biden announced that Pete Buttigieg was his pick to lead their agency. 

One DOT staffer remembered being bombarded that December Tuesday with text messages, emails, and Facebook posts from friends who knew little about his actual job but were excited to hear that Buttigieg would be his boss. 

"Hey, you might get to have lunch with him!" or "You might see him in the elevator!" those messages read, the DOT employee told Insider. They all wondered what Buttigieg would be called in his new gig: "Are you going to say 'Mayor Pete' or 'Secretary Pete'?"

It's not uncommon for political stars and former White House contenders to land in a presidential Cabinet, but they usually don't call their new home the Transportation Department, a behemoth federal agency created during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration and whose portfolio includes pipeline safety, air-traffic control, and highway maintenance. 

So when they heard their new boss would be Buttigieg — a Democrat with national name recognition, a devoted social-media following, and a passion for arcane transit issues — some felt as if they'd won the secretary sweepstakes, two DOT employees told Insider. 

"He's brought a lot of high-profile attention and also clout to the role," a second DOT staffer said. "We're all excited at the change and like what we've been seeing so far." 

Buttigieg has been on the job for only a month, and his first big test will be helping the administration formulate and pass a major infrastructure package. On Thursday, he's expected to join Biden for a meeting with House Republicans and Democrats to discuss infrastructure. He is the only Biden Democratic primary rival, aside from the Vice President Kamala Harris, to make it into the administration. 

In his early weeks, though, staffers inside the department have been impressed by his willingness to learn. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, held an all-agency town hall, went on a listening tour with several branches of the department, and has been leaving voicemails to staff every Friday that serve as pep talks. 

"Hope that you're doing well, and just wanted to share a few reflections after my first full week here at USDOT," Buttigieg said in a recent voicemail, in which he discussed his quarantine and talked about breaking down silos at the department.

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