Early Career
Mr. Schuler graduated from Syracuse University in 1952 with a bachelor of arts in public affairs and public administration from the Maxwell School of Public Administration. While at Syracuse he became active in New York State Young Democrats, which he served as vice chairman, and he worked in efforts to elect a reform administration in Kingston to replace the Republican organization that then controlled the Hudson Valley city.
He volunteered for the U.S. Marine Corps upon graduation, and served in the Korean War as an officer, platoon leader and company commander in the First Marine Division.
Mr. Schuler began his public-service career in New York State under the administration of Democratic Gov. W. Averell Harriman. He joined the executive staff of the then Department of Public Works and rose steadily through the ranks under the Republican administration of Governor Nelson Rockefeller.
He was the key architect of the reorganization plan under which portions of the Department of Public Works were consolidated with functions from other state agencies to form the New York State Department of Transportation. This was the nation’s first unified state agency incorporating all transportation-related functions. Mr. Schuler served as the first executive deputy commissioner of the new department under Commissioner Theodore Parker, and then was nominated by Governor Rockefeller to succeed General Parker as its commissioner.
In 1974, as Commissioner of Transportation under Governor Malcolm Wilson, Mr. Schuler coordinated the state government’s disaster relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Agnes. And he led the successful effort to win voter approval of a historic rail bond issue that became the foundation for preserving Amtrak and rail freight service in New York State. The next year Governor Wilson was succeeded by Governor Hugh Carey; Mr. Schuler was the only Cabinet commissioner retained in the new Democratic Party administration. As New York’s commissioner he led the creation of the Conference of State Departments of Transportation, to help state governments around the nation cope with the growing transportation responsibilities being assigned them by federal policy.
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