Staff, board appointments at NYMTA

Written by William C. Vantuono, Editor-In-Chief, Railway Age
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New York MTA Managing Director Ronnie Hakim

The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (NYMTA) has a new President and Managing Director, as well as three new board members.

 

Chairman Joseph Lhota on Aug. 3 appointed Patrick Foye as President and Veronique “Ronnie” Hakim as Managing Director of the NYMTA. Foye and Hakim will serve in the newly created Office of the Chairman, which will also include MTA Chief Development Officer Janno Lieber. Foye and Hakim will be responsible for managing the agency on a day-to-day basis. ‎Foye will lead “key innovation and modernization initiatives,” and Hakim “will be responsible for the operations of the authority,” Lhota said.

Lhota recently announced what is described as “a comprehensive plan to immediately stabilize and modernize the subway system.” Foye and Hakim will be responsible for implementing that plan.

Foye, a former (2010-2012) NYMTA board member, has been Executive Director of The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and President of PATH since November 2011. Prior to joining the Port Authority, he served as Deputy Secretary for Economic Development for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Foye was a Mergers and Acquisitions partner at Skadden Arps and managing partner of the firm’s Brussels, Budapest and Moscow offices. He was Executive Vice President of AIMCO, a real estate investment trust.

Hakim has served as Interim Executive Director of the NYMTA since January 2017. In 2015 she was named President of MTA New York City Transit, returning to the NYMTA after an earlier 23-year career at the authority. She has also previously served as the Executive Director of NJ Transit, and nearly four years as Executive Director of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.

“Pat and Ronnie are veteran transportation professionals who together with Janno form the dynamic team the MTA needs at this moment,” said Lhota. “They will assume the day-to-day leadership of the MTA and ensure that our customers are always our first priority. The plan I recently introduced is ambitious, aggressive, and requires dedicated leadership ensuring operational excellence and long-term innovation—which is exactly what the team in the Office of the Chairman will provide.”

The three new NYMTA board members are Randy Glucksman, Scott Rechler and Carl Weisbrod. Glucksman, a non-voting member, was recommended by the MTA Metro-North Railroad Commuter Council. Gov. Cuomo recommended Rechler; New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recommended Weisbrod. Only Glucksman has railroad operating experience.

Glucksman sits on the Metro-North Railroad, Long Island Rail Road and New York City Transit/MTA Bus committees. He has more than 40 years of rail operations experience, most recently with SYSTRA Engineering, Inc. in Manhattan, where he worked as a senior rail operations analyst. Previously, Glucksman was employed with New York City Transit, where he held several positions, including principal transportation management analyst, superintendent, trainmaster, train dispatcher, motorman, and conductor. Throughout his career he has been an advocate for improved transit options, serving on several citizen advisory committees and studying proposals for transit improvements. Glucksman is a U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam War. He received his B.S in Business Administration from Dominican College.

Rechler sits on the Long Island Rail Road, New York City Transit/MTA Bus, Finance, and Capital Program Oversight committees. He is Chairman and CEO RXR Realty LLC, a multibillion-dollar private real estate company and one of the Tri-State area’s largest real estate owners, managers and developers. In June 2011, Gov. Cuomo appointed Rechler to the Board of Commissioners of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where he served until October 2016 as vice chairman and as chairman of the Authority’s Capital Planning Committee. Rechler is a graduate of Clark University and earned an M.S. in Real Estate at New York University’s Schack Institute.

Weisbrod sits on the New York City Transit/MTA Bus, Finance, and Capital Program Oversight committees. He is currently a senior advisor at HR&A Advisors, Inc., an economic development and real estate consulting firm with offices across the country, and a senior fellow at New York University’s Marron Institute of Urban Management. From 2014 until February 2017, Weisbrod served as the chairman of the New York City Planning Commission and director of the New York City Department of City Planning. The founding president of both the New York City Economic Development Corp. and the Alliance for Downtown New York, he was appointed a director of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

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