People News: NYMTA, STV
Written by Carolina Worrell, Senior Editor
Former MTA Chairman and Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch (left), via Wikipedia; and STV Boston Transportation Area Manager Marian Barth (right).
Former New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Chairman and Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch has died at the age of 89. Also, STV elevates Marian Barth to Boston Transportation Area Manager.
Richard Ravitch, the former MTA Chairman and Lieutenant Governor, who is widely credited with helping New York City “emerge from its 1970s debt crisis,” died in Manhattan on June 25, according to a New York Post report.
In 1979, Gov. Hugh Carey tapped Ravitch to chair the MTA, which he was credited for “shoring up” during his four-year tenure “thanks to his plan to sell buses and trains to private companies who would lease them back to the state agency in order to receive tax breaks,” according to the New York Post report.
According to the report, Ravitch, who did not accept a salary for the position, had to wear a bullet-proof vest and be accompanied by security after receiving death threats during the 1980 transit strike.
After returning to the private sector, Ravitch ran for mayor in 1989 but finished third in the Democratic primaries, which were won by David Dinkins. In 2009, Ravitch returned to public service when Gov. David Paterson appointed him to be his deputy after a “coup in Albany brought the state senate to a standstill,” according to the New York Post report.
During his tenure as Lieutenant Governor, Ravitch once again elected to not receive a salary, and was tasked with “influencing the state budgeting process, with mixed results,” according to the report.
Though he was never elected to office, Ravitch, who was born in 1933 to a Jewish Russian immigrant family in Brooklyn, “had an immense influence on politics, transportation and civics in the state and city he called home,” according to the New York Post report.
“Dick Ravitch, for everybody in the transportation business, was a giant,” said MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber in a statement delivered on June 26 at a joint meeting of the MTA Board’s Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad Committees.
“He was the chairman of the MTA at maybe the lowest moment in the history of at least the subway system, and certainly the mass transit system in New York City. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, he led the beginnings of the turnaround of our great mass transit system. I knew him from those days, coincidentally, when I was still a kid in high school. He was one of the reasons that I got excited about transit, it was the area that was most representative of New York City’s incredible revival, starting in the late 1970s. And in many ways, he is one of the fathers of the mass transit system that we have today, which we celebrate in so many different ways and try to continue to improve in his spirit.
“So, I just needed to say to all of us who are passionate about this issue, and to some of us who knew Dick, he had just a huge impact to everything that this group works on. And part of his legacy is that he stepped up to the plate yet again in this latest episode for helping the MTA, under the Governor’s leadership, to get its budget deficit addressed. Dick wrote a couple of op-eds, which had impact in Albany—one in the Times-Union, one in the New York papers—and he was right there with us talking to me and to Kevin Willens about how we needed to make sure the MTA’s budget was balanced because he was passionate about maintaining service for the public. So, we all say together, God rest his soul, and thank you for what you did for New York and for the MTA.”
STV on June 26 announced that it has tapped Marian Barth, PE, as its Boston Area Manager. In this role, Barth will be responsible for “expanding the firm’s presence in the region and building relationships with new and existing clients,” the company stated in a release.
Barth has more than 30 years of experience managing complex projects in the greater Boston area and most recently served as STV’s Operations Director. Originally joining STV in 1993, Barth has been “instrumental in leading the firm’s Boston team on several iconic infrastructure projects,” STV said. Notably, she managed the design team for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s (MassDOT) Fanny Appleton Pedestrian Bridge. She has also led the STV team working on the Fenway Portal Flood Resiliency Project for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), where Barth’s leadership “helped develop project justification, design concept, bid documents and construction phase services” for the recently completed $8 million in improvements, including the installation of portal flood doors to protect the tunnel from a 100-year storm event.
Barth holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Northeastern University and an MBA from Babson College. She has received the Innovative Transportation Solutions award by the Women’s Transportation Seminar’s (WTS) Boston Chapter, where she has been an active member for more than a decade and co-chairs the Management Networking Roundtable.
“As someone who has served STV’s mission of making communities better in the greater Boston area for more than 30 years, Marian possesses an innate ability to lead,” said STV President and CEO Greg Kelly. “She understands how to serve clients, focuses on creating long-term relationships and prioritizes being active and engaged in her community.”
