Anthony J. Sartor — Courtesy: PS&S
By Joshua Burd
Professional services firm PS&S is mourning the loss of Anthony J. Sartor, its former longtime chairman and CEO and a forerunner in the environmental engineering field, whose career also included decades of public service under six New Jersey governors.
Sartor, a Fairview native, died Aug. 5 at age 79, according to his obituary. The Warren-based firm announced his passing late last week, nearly 50 years after he joined the small practice known as Paulus & Sokolowski, which he would go on to grow over several decades to become a key player in the state’s commercial real estate industry and elsewhere.
“Dr. Sartor was a pioneer in the environmental engineering field and served as Co-Chairman of the Board of Paulus, Sokolowski and Sartor from 1974 to 2000,” the firm wrote in its announcement. “More importantly, he was deeply loved by his family, friends and all employees who walked through the doors of PS&S.”
Sartor’s roots in environmental engineering predate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. After receiving a doctorate in 1968, he went on to form one of the first environmental engineering departments, at Paulus and Sokolowski, and became a name partner there in 1974, according to his obituary. He served as co-chairman of what became Paulus, Sokolowski and Sartor from 1974 to 2000 and was one of two principals with overall responsibility for management of the firm, with special emphasis on client development, while he was the prime mover in the firm’s growth from 20 to 300 people during that time.
The obituary also noted that National Grid, formerly KeySpan, acquired PS&S in 2000, with Sartor serving in various leadership roles over the next nine years. He reacquired PS&S from National Grid in April 2009.
Sartor, most recently a resident of Naples, Florida, stepped down from his full-time leadership role at PS&S in 2015, remaining executive chairman while his son, John Sartor, took over as CEO and president. But that followed a career that also included decades of public service: In 1992, he was appointed by Gov. Jim Florio as a commissioner on the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority, where he chaired the construction committee and played key roles in the construction of the Atlantic City Convention Center, the luxury suites at Giants Stadium and athletic facilities at Rutgers University.
In 1999, Gov. Christine Todd Whitman appointed Sartor as a commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a position to which he was reappointed in December 2001 by Gov. Donald DiFrancesco and in December 2007 by Gov. Jon Corzine, according to his obituary. Sartor served as a member of the Operations Committee, the Committee on Governance and Ethics and the World Trade Center Redevelopment Subcommittee, which he chaired, overseeing the rebuilding of the site after the Sept. 11 attacks.
In a 2012 interview, Sartor proudly recounted responsibilities such as selecting a master planner, negotiating with developer Larry Silverstein for control of the site and guiding the reconstruction of the transportation infrastructure around Lower Manhattan. Port Authority executive Steven Plate said at the time that Sartor had “really been the champion since day one,” helping to steer a project that includes “building five Empire State Buildings, 500,000 square feet of iron retail … and Lower Manhattan’s version of Grand Central.”
Looking ahead to the eventual completion of One World Trade Center, which came some two years later, Sartor said he would “have a tremendous sense of accomplishment, and a tremendous sense of appreciation for the people who have worked on this site. And those guys and gals deserve all the accolades in the world for doing what they’ve done in this period of time.”
