Helena E. Williams

Helena E. Williams was appointed interim Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority effective May 27, 2009.

She also continues to service as president of MTA Long island Rail Road (LIRR), a post to which she was named on June 18, 2007; the first woman to lead the nation's busiest commuter railroad.

A long-time Nassau County resident, Williams' career is marked by top-level experience in transportation management and Long Island public service, including terms as President of MTA Long Island Bus and later as Nassau County Deputy County Executive.

A lawyer by training, Williams began her career in New York City, working for the Mayor's Office of Municipal Labor Relations. After a brief stint in private practice, Williams began a fruitful 13-year career at the MTA in 1985, where she rose from labor counsel to chief of staff of Long Island Bus before assuming the presidency of Long Island Bus in 1993. During her five years at the helm of the bus company, Williams oversaw an array of innovations and improvements to customer service. These included implementation of Metrocard, transition to a fleet of clean, eco-friendly buses, initiation of a new paratransit service and development of an employee availability program that dramatically cut costs. In 1999 Williams was inducted into the New York Public Transit Association's Hall of Fame.

Williams served for five years in the administration of Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi. She was a key member of the team that helped turn around Nassau's nearly bankrupt finances, earning 11 bond upgrades and helping to restore the County to sound financial footing and efficient management. Just prior to joining the LIRR, Williams worked briefly as Senior Counsel at Cablevision. Williams holds a J.D. from the St. John's University School of Law and is admitted to practice law in New York. She has a B.A. with honors from the State University of New York at Oneonta.

Williams' priorities at the LIRR have included a focus on customer safety, security and service reliability while laying the groundwork for meeting future transportation demand. Under Williams' tenure, the LIRR reached an all-time record on time performance of 95.14% in 2008 and has won high marks for improving customer communication through the establishment of a 24-hour Public Information Office. The LIRR employs approximately 6,800 employees and runs a system comprising more than 700 miles of track on 11 different branches, stretching from Montauk to Penn Station, approximately 120 miles away. The LIRR last year served a record 87.4 million customers, the most since 1949.