AI hires ex-ConnDOT chief Byrnes

Former state transportation commissioner James F. Byrnes Jr. has joined the Middletown engineering-services firm whose owner wants to erect a headquarters-apartment building in downtown Hartford.

Byrnes is senior director for business development and corporate strategy at AI Engineers Inc. AI founder Abul Islam proposes a high-rise office-apartment building on the former Broadcast House site on the northern edge of Constitution Plaza.

Byrnes, 68, has spent more than 40 years in engineering/transportation, rising from a Connecticut Department of Transportation engineer to deputy commissioner then, from 2002 to his retirement in April 2004, as the agency’s head.

Byrnes is a licensed Connecticut engineer, with a BS in civil engineering from UConn and a master’s from Cooper Union in New York City.