Janno Lieber Confirmed as 15th Chair of the MTA

The New York State Senate confirmed Janno Lieber as the Chair and CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) following his nomination on Jan. 8 by Governor Kathy Hochul. Lieber has been serving as MTA Acting Chair and CEO since July 2021 and becomes the Authority’s 15th Chair since it was founded in 1968. In that time, Lieber has led the MTA’s recovery efforts from the COVID-19 pandemic, spearheading the hiring of transit workers, accelerating capital renewal efforts despite financial uncertainty, and restoring the public’s confidence in the system.

Lieber has worked in public service and on public projects for decades, starting his career in the Ed Koch administration, where he worked with the MTA from a position in City Hall during the agency’s first great revival in the 1980s under Bob Kiley and David Gunn.

Prior to being appointed Acting Chair and CEO of the MTA in July 2021, Lieber served as President of MTA Construction & Development.

At Construction & Development, Lieber oversaw the approval of the groundbreaking $51.5 billion 2020-2024 Capital Program. He successfully managed the on-time and on-budget completion of the L Train Tunnel Project, the Long Island Rail Road Double Track, and dramatically improved the pace of accessibility upgrade projects, completing a historic 11 ADA stations in 2020 despite the COVID-19 public health crisis. Lieber also led the rehabilitation effort of the F line Rutgers Tube, the last of the Superstorm Sandy-damaged subway tunnels, in record time.

Other megaprojects Lieber has overseen include East Side Access, LIRR Mainline Expansion-Third Track, Metro-North Penn Station Access, the 42 St Connector project and the reconstruction and expansion of Penn Station.

Lieber also helped spearhead the agency’s successful efforts to secure $14.5 billion from the federal government in the face of the pandemic-induced financial crisis.

Prior to his arrival at the MTA, Lieber served as President of World Trade Center Properties for 14 years, where he managed the multibillion dollar development of Silverstein Properties’ projects as the World Trade Center was rebuilt following 9/11. Before that, Lieber headed public-private development at Lawrence Ruben Company, and, as a consultant, worked with clients including Chicago Transit Authority, New Jersey Transit, and Penn Station Redevelopment Corp.,the agency then responsible for the Moynihan Train Hall project.

During the Clinton Administration, Lieber served as Deputy Assistant Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Earlier in his career, Lieber practiced law at the New York firm of Patterson, Belknap Webb & Tyler and served as a transportation policy advisor in the Office of New York City Mayor Ed Koch.

Lieber is a graduate of Harvard University and New York University Law School. He lives with his wife in Brooklyn.

-via Press Release

This article was posted on: January 21, 2022