Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board CEO stepping down

HARRISBURG, Pa. — The chief executive of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board will step down from his post on Feb. 2, the agency said Saturday.

Joe Conti, 58, will “retire” from his $156,700-a-year job “to pursue future opportunities in higher education and the private sector,” according to a news release.

Agency spokeswoman Stacy Kriedeman declined to offer additional information.

Conti, a former Bucks County Republican senator, was appointed CEO by then-Gov. Ed Rendell in December 2006 after the position sat vacant for two decades. Conti‘s appointment so angered then-LCB Chairman Jonathan Newman that he resigned in early 2007.

In a statement, Conti called his six years as CEO his “greatest source of career satisfaction” and said he “could not wait to come to work each and every day of the last six years.”

But Conti‘s position had been on the ropes for months.

In June, Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, who favors privatizing wine and liquor sales, left no doubt that he would abolish the post.

“I never saw the reason for the initial appointment of the CEO, and I still don‘t see the reason for the appointment of the CEO,” Corbett said in June.

The LCB said Conti will remain with the agency temporarily to help with the transition, but it was not immediately clear whether the agency plans to replace him with a new CEO.

This article was written by Channel 11's news exchange partners at TribLIVE.

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