Friday, December 29, 2006
Politics
Dean Skelos
Deputy Minority Leader, New York State Senate
An honorary fourth member of the Three Men in a Room who divvy up the state government pie, Skelos, the Senate’s deputy majority leader, is hands-down the most powerful state politician on Long Island. Skelos is next in line for the aging Joe Bruno’s leadership post, and as long as the GOP retains its control of the Senate, Skelos’ star will remain in the ascendancy.
Peter King
U.S. Rep., R-Seaford
King will lose his Homeland Security crown at the start of 2007, but in 2006 he was the most powerful congressman on Long Island. Enough said.
Jerry Kremer
Lawyer/commentator/political insider
There was no greater supporter of Eliot Spitzer on Long Island than Kremer. Emboldened by criticism from Tom Suozzi’s ill-fated campaign that he crossed an ethical barrier for taking sides, Jerry took off the gloves for the governor-elect, winning him access that should pay off for Long Island in spades. The former state assemblyman also has the ear of Attorney General-elect Andrew Cuomo.
Tom Spota
Suffolk County District Attorney
No one strikes as much fear in the hearts of politicians as Suffolk DA Tom Spota. He’s a Republican-turned-Democrat, and his investigations are so thorough that he’s largely considered above the fray. His hit list in 2006 is impressive, including the jailing of deposed Islip Supervisor Pete McGowan and the conviction of former Suffolk legislator Wayne Prospect. Now Spota’s name is being bandied about for the federal prosecutor’s job in Brooklyn.
Roslyn Mauskopf
U.S. Attorney
In the last year, Mauskopf has proven that she’s much more than a Pataki crony. The federal prosecutor for Long Island and Brooklyn has thrust her office to the forefront of the federal government’s crackdown on white-collar crime. Former CA Inc. officials, including disgraced CEO Sanjay Kumar, are heading to Club Fed, and Mauskopf’s office narrowly missed convicting former Symbol execs. Mauskopf tracked down fugitive Comverse CEO Kobi Alexander in Africa, and her deputies have kept the heat on governance-challenged Cablevision.
Steve Levy
Suffolk County Executive
Ever the entrepreneurial politician, Levy isn’t bothered by the idea that illegal immigration is supposed to be a federal, not county, issue. At the same time, the Miser of Hauppauge has minded the store, keeping a lid on taxes and spending. His brand of centrism, which mixes fiscal austerity with a more activist social agenda, including a green environmental position, has provided the blueprint for the Democratic transformation of Suffolk, a former GOP stronghold.
Tom Suozzi
Nassau County Executive
He spent most of the year in other counties around the state in his failed bid for the governor’s seat, but no one’s forgotten that Suozzi is still top dog in Nassau.
He’s aggressive in pushing his ideas – sometimes too aggressive. The Legislature pushed back on a deal with Charles Wang to redevelop the Nassau Hub. Meetings ensued. Bids were made. And Wang, with new partner Scott Rechler, won. Meaning Suozzi won.
Where does he go from here? Maybe another shot at Albany. First he has to get over painful memories of the ‘06 campaign.
Education
Drew Bogner
President, Molloy College
Bogner has turned Molloy into a conduit for future Long Island leaders. Under his watch, the school created the Energeia Partnership, a think tank designed to create Long Island “trustees” who will help address issues such as immigration, homelessness and affordable housing.
Also with an eye toward leadership, Bogner saw to the creation of a business ethics institute and is working to help the region’s vast not-for-profit sector develop better tools to raise funds and groom a new generation of NFP professionals.
Shirley Strum Kenny
President, Stony Brook University
Kenny’s efforts to extend the school’s reach can be likened to Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory. Not only did Stony Brook take over the hundreds of acres adjacent to its current campus with plans to build a high-tech hub, it also planted roots in LIU’s old Southampton campus.
And while her position atop Stony Brook University Medical Center is in doubt following the controversial deaths of three babies, Kenny will likely succeed in making Stony Brook home base for Long Island’s East End hospitals.
Stuart Rabinowitz
President, Hofstra University
A former Hofstra law school dean, Rabinowitz has helped Hofstra, perhaps the Island’s premier private university, double its endowment to more than $200 million and attract $80 million toward the school’s ambitious capital campaign program. Under his leadership, Hofstra’s incoming first-year students’ average SAT scores have increased more than 100 points to 1169 as incoming students’ grade point average has risen from 2.8 to 3.26. Nearly half (48 percent) of Hofstra students come from out of state compared to 32 percent before he took over.
Robert A. Scott
President, Adelphi University
Everyone knows Scott has freshened up Adelphi’s image since taking over in 2000. Now he’s tending to the school’s infrastructure, with plans to overhaul just about everything, including its athletic facilities and cultural offerings. His influence extends to regional issues as chairman of the Regional Plan Association's Long Island Committee and a board member of the Long Island Association.
The Cloth
Bishop William Murphy
Diocese of Rockville Centre
Looks like the good bishop avoided the unfortunate fate of his peers following those unsettling revelations about some priests in the region. And so, he remains the voice of the 1.5 million Catholics.
Rabbi Marc Gellman and Msgr. Thomas Hartman
God Squad
From their show on Telecare to their countless benedictions, the God Squad serves as the moral and spiritual core of thousands, if not millions, of Long Islanders. By cutting across religious divides, they show us that everyone can get along if they try – an important message in these times, and any time.
Calvin O. Butts III
President, SUNY Old Westbury
Some might question why Butts is in The Cloth category. He is, after all, a leading educator. True. But he wields as much influence in his other capacity – the outspoken pastor of The Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York. Two flocks are better than one.
Sister Elizabeth Hill
President, St. Joseph’s College
Not only can Sister Elizabeth prepare you for a career, likely in education, she can save your soul in the process. One of only two female leaders of major colleges on Long Island, like Calvin Butts, she stands out for her dual roles.
The Arts
Larry Austin
Chairman, Long Island Philharmonic
Travel industry mogul Austin is the driving force behind the Long Island Philharmonic Orchestra, a difficult institution to keep afloat considering the titanic competition from New York City.
Like fellow influential Lynn Needelman, Austin took up a torch lit by Harry Chapin, who founded the orchestra in 1979. And with 19 concerts a year, the philharmonic has its own jumbo reputation.
Nelson DeMille
Author
Garden City-based DeMille has dragged us through Middle East terrorism, 9/11 conspiracy and, with his latest effort, “Wild Fire,” to the brink of nuclear Armegeddon in the Muslim world. To say nothing of Vietnam, Plum Island and his Fitzgerald-esque masterpiece, “Gold Coast.” The Hofstra alumnus – he earned his bachelor’s degree in political science and history – has a new wife, a new child and promises a much-awaited return to his “Coast” characters in the coming year. Added nice guy feature: He auctions off character names for charity.
Mitchell Kriegman
Founder, Big Big World
Snook, Winslow, Warts and Ick fill the screens of families with pre-school aged kids throughout the country on PBS – teaching them all about the importance of sharing and the environment. The hit show, with a sleepy sloth as the main star, is the creation of Kriegman, who produces the show out of his Wainscott Studios. Kriegman is also the creator of “Bear in the Big Blue House” and was a developer of the smash hit “Ren and Stimpy.”
Roger Tilles
Chairman, Long Island University, LI rep, NYS Board of Regents
Tilles’ impact on Long Island’s arts scene can be summed up in two words: concert hall. The Tilles Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of C.W. Post books renowned orchestras, ballets, operas, circuses, classical soloists, jazz legends as well as leaders in today’s rock scene. If any venue on Long Island captures the hallowed artistic hodge-podge of the New York metropolitan area it’s this center.
Tilles, whose family made millions in real estate, is also a SUNY regent.
Health/Science
Michael Dowling
CEO, North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System
If you had to name the single most powerful health care executive on Long Island, Dowling would be a natural choice. He’s moved to create a true system, putting single chiefs in charge of many departments at North Shore Hospital and Long Island Jewish Medical Center.
Under Dowling, North Shore-LIJ also acquired high-tech, high-cost equipment and pumped up training and recruiting of nurses to help avert a staffing shortage.
James Harden
President and CEO, Catholic Health Services of Long Island
Since joining Rockville Centre-based CHS in 2004, Harden has reversed years of operating losses. A former Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center executive, he leads Long Island’s second largest health care system, with about 13,500 full-time employees and more than $1 billion in annual revenue.
Bruce Stillman
CEO and Director, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories
Under Stillman’s leadership, Cold Spring Harbor recently broke ground on six buildings expected to occupy about 120,000 square feet and cost about $100 million. Another $100 million would go toward attracting scientists and initiating the actual research. With Stillman leading the charge, CSH is using the genetic blueprint of human beings to target causes and even treat cancer, autism, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia.
Joseph A. Quagliata
President and CEO, South Nassau Communities Hospital
Quagliata has had quite a year. In addition to running a hospital network, he was the only hospital CEO on the regional advisory committee of the New York State Commission on Healthcare in the 21st Century, otherwise known as the Berger Commission. The commission basically kept things as-is on Long Island, and you have to guess Quagliata is partly responsible. Adding to his influence, this year he was named chairman of the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council, representing the 23 not-for-profit and public hospitals on Long Island.
Law
Morton Weber
Partner, The Weber Group
At the helm of a small real estate boutique law firm in Melville, Morty and his attorneys are nonetheless at the center of some of the Island’s most important land deals – from redeveloping downtown Riverhead to maybe one day delivering a mall for Taubman in Syosset. Weber added to his firm’s heft by snapping up Mitch Pally, the universally respected deal-maker, who was looking to leave his long-time post at the LIA.
Steven Schlesinger
Managing Partner, Jaspan Schlesinger Hoffman
Schlesinger is nominally a corporate lawyer, but his passion for politics and devotion to the Democratic Party follow not far behind. He delivered for the Dems in early 2006, engineering a complex courtroom maneuver to keep his party in power in the Nassau Legislature after a leadership schism threatened to break the fragile majority. Recently, he’s reinvented himself as a class-action securities lawyer, lodging suits against prominent Long Island public companies.
Steven Pegalis
Pegalis & Erikson
Pegalis, the Lake Success medical malpractice attorney, is the kind of guy who makes doctors quake in their scrubs. As the Web site of his firm, Pegalis & Erickson, proclaims, he’s delivered two of the largest jury awards in the history of the state – including a $111 million verdict in stingy Suffolk County last year. And the esteemed National Law Journal named Pegalis one of the nation’s 10 top litigators.
Charles Strain
Managing Partner, Farrell Fritz
It was a good year for Strain’s Uniondale firm. One of firm’s land use attorneys, John Armentano, dusted off the statute book to find an obscure 1800s-era shoreline law that just might stop the Broadwater project. Meanwhile, two other Farrell attorneys, John McEntee and David A. Scheffel, led CA Inc.’s battle to recoup the $14.9 million it was forced to spend defending defamed CEO Sanjay Kumar.
Sports
Charles Wang
Owner, New York Islanders
So Charles Wang is a wacky owner. He selected the team’s backup goalie as the new general manager, and was mocked publicly by the local and national press for it. This helped lead fans to stay away from the Nassau Coliseum in droves. So why influential? Take a look at the standings. Wang’s also the driving force behind the redevelopment of a long-barren area surrounding their white elephant home.
Fred Wilpon
Owner, New York Mets; CEO, Sterling Equities
The Long Island developer struck the biggest land deal of all – and one he’s chased for nearly a decade – when the shovels hit the ground for the new Citi Field in Flushing, the future home of his New York Mets. Wilpon also basked in the glory of his team’s division championship, as the Amazin’s fell one game short of their first World Series birth in six years. With a new TV station also in his pocket, in SportsNet New York, the future’s bright for Wilpon.
Michael Pascucci
Chairman, WLNY, TV 55
When Michael Pascucci needed a golf pro to design a golf course for him, he went straight to the top – as in the top of the all-time list of great living golfers. The Golden Bear, Jack Nicklaus, and partner Tom Doak drew up the Southampton course for Pascucci, who also operates TV 55 and is the chairman of Telecare.
Labor
Ralph Ranghelli
IBEW Local 1049
It’s not often that a union local gets to bring a multinational corporation to its knees. But Ranghelli, who leads KeySpan Corp.’s electricians union, could have made life very difficult for the Brooklyn-based utility, which is awaiting regulatory approval to be bought by British giant National Grid. Instead, facing vocal opposition from its employees, which threatened to derail necessary state approval, Grid and KeySpan budged, giving Ranghelli’s union the employment guarantees it sought.
Jack Kennedy
President, Nassau/Suffolk Building and Construction Trades Council
It’s nigh on impossible to build anything in Nassau and Suffolk counties without the blessing of Kennedy, who leads the bi-county building trades council. His behind-the-scenes activity ensures smooth sailing for proposed buildings, and his advocacy for union workers is stirring up controversy in Huntington, which now virtually requires every project to be built by labor-affiliated contractors.
John Durso
President, Long Island Federation of Labor
Long Island is home to one of the nation’s most heavily concentrated union work forces, and presiding over the whole thing is John Durso, chief of the Long Island Federation of Labor. Herding so many competing voices – from teachers to prison guards to grocery store clerks – can be a thankless task, but Durso is adept at keeping the entire organization running in more or less the same direction.
Development
Ed Blumenfeld
President, Blumenfeld Development Group
He sold off the bulk his office empire to focus on retail development. And that's exactly what he's doing. Blumenfeld, the outspoken and delightfully frank head of the Blumenfeld Development Group, managed to get an outlet mall approved in Babylon in a fraction of the time it takes some developers to approve a new fast-food eatery. Blumenfeld's 800,000-square-foot project set to open in 2008 will likely give Riverhead a run for its factory seconds -- and money. The Syosset company is also thinking green. The $200 million Arches at Deer Park outlet mall will be LEED certified and will include a rail spur to remove most construction materials and debris.
Scott Rechler
CEO, Reckson Associates Realty
He's one of the few to battle Carl Icahn and win. The bloody war for Reckson Associates Realty Corp. cemented Long Island's role as a hot spot for investors to own commercial real estate. But it also fueled more drama within the Rechler family, part of the Island's real estate royalty. Rechler isn't one to let that bother him. His next step is to take Uniondale-based Reckson's suburban assets private, which he plans to do early next year.
Ron Parr
Developer
Parr, who just completed developing the new state-of-the-art Touro Law Center in Central Islip, is also behind a culinary institute in Riverhead for Suffolk county Community College. But beyond what he builds, Parr is the guy whispering in the ears of bureaucrats and business leaders, telling them what will and won’t work. More often than not, they follow his advice.
Finance
John Kanas
President, Capital One Bank
On Dec. 1, the wheeler and dealer finally threw his cards on the table, as North Fork Bank officially became part of Capital One. Now Kanas is on the board at the Virginia-based giant and he’s running their nascent bank business to boot.
Brad Rock
CEO, Bank of Smithtown
The former high school sports stud keeps running a tidy, powerful community bank on Long Island while he speaks for banks nationwide as president-elect of the American Bankers Association.
James Simons
Renaissance Technologies Corp.
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory was shut down and it seemed as if though it had smashed its last atoms. But along came Simons, the founder of ultra-secretive hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, who led a group who gave the lab $13 million to keep churning. Simons, on the board of Brookhaven Science Associates, also donated $11 million to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to help find the genetic basis of autism.
Jeff Weiner
Managing Partner, Marcum & Kliegman
Weiner, who continues to run the “Bourne Identity” movie empire, brought on board 100 new accountants this year, adding to the firm’s considerable clout.
Media
Katherine Heaviside
President, Epoch 5 Public Relations
What’s a PR person doing in the media category? Heaviside, heading up the region’s most prolific agency, gets more faces in the papers and on TV than anyone.
Stan Henry
Neighborhood Newspapers
Henry returned to ad-dominated two years ago, Henry has boosted Neighborhood Newspapers’ circulation to 500,000 – well above the weekday circ of the region’s only daily – with ambitious plans to hit virtually every home on Long Island.
Tim Knight
Publisher, Newsday
Newsday is slowly recovering from its circulation scandal, and Knight deserves credit for pulling it through tough times. Though the paper still has a ways to go to win over a disillusioned public, it’s beginning to develop a compelling new voice.
Howard Schneider
Dean, Stony Brook University School of Journalism
Schneider was a longtime managing editor and, briefly, editor of Newsday, until leaving the paper rather than oversee the massive staff cuts. Howie, known for dishing out 100 ideas a day, some of which stick, has used the force of his personality and deep Rolodex to start a School of Journalism at Stony Brook University. Seven previous attempts to launch such as school failed.
This is big.
Stuart Levine
Author/consultant, Stuart Levine and Associates
Levine isn’t shy to tell to powerful people what they’re doing wrong. In fact, he makes a living off it. The former chief of the Dale Carnegie Institute added to his stature with his bestselling book, “The Six Fundamentals of Success,” and is hoping to outdo that book’s success with a follow-up guide called “Cut to the Chase,” on bookstands as of Dec. 28. Levine racked up advanced sales of 25,000 at last count.
Tech
C. Kenneth Morrelly
President, Long Island Forum for Technology
Morrelly is driving a dream to make Long Island a hub for homeland security development. And as the LIFT president, Morrelly also funnels millions in state aid to manufacturing and technology firms throughout the region.
Yacov Shamash
Dean, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Stony Brook University
The dean of the Long Island tech scene, Shamash is the point man for Stony Brook’s Center of Excellence in Wireless and Internet Technology. And if that weren’t enough, he corralled $35 million in state for an energy research center – ready for a possible 2009 opening. With an active role in LISTnet and the HIA, very little goes on in the tech world without Shamash.
Duke Dufresne
Sector VP, Airborne Early Warning and Electronic Warfare Systems, Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems
Dufresne came to Long Island with a long resume, but he was faced with replacing the immensely-popular Phil Teel. A year later, Dufresne has stayed the course, as Northrop Grumman continues to push the envelope, all while the company works to create a solution for the region’s housing crunch.
Tom Rutledge
COO, Cablevision Systems Corp.
Let’s put it this way: When Cablevision CEO Jim Dolan seemed more interested in 12-bar blues than triple-play bundling, Wall Street analysts didn’t mind. After all, Tom Rutledge, the company’s COO, was running one of the tightest cable ships in the country. His pricing and operations innovations are the envy of the industry, and his firm hand on Cablevision’s future keeps investors happy even when management appears determined to write new chapters in absurd corporate governance.
Anthony DiMaso
Vice President, Corporate Strategy & Development, Verizon
Busting up a near-monopoly like Cablevision is no small task, but that’s what Verizon is asking DiMaso to do on Long Island. The telecommunications company is still struggling to gain subscribers for its fiber-optic TV service, FiOS, but DiMaso and Verizon are slowly working town-by-town to at least put itself in position to establish a market presence. In the battle for what you watch at night, DiMaso is a hidden, yet important, factor.
Peter Goldsmith
President, Long Island Software and Technology Network
This year Long Island’s biggest tech cheerleader – Robin to Yacov Shamash’s Batman – helped engineer the formation of angel investor group for fund-starved startups and has been lockstep with Shamash in pushing CEWIT and the proposed energy research institute.
Sustainability
Nancy Douzinas
President, Rauch Foundation
Douzinas’ Long Island Index has become the bible for smart-growth planners and anyone else wishing to make a point about high taxes, the brain drain, affordable housing, you name it. This year Douzinas took a more prominent role in promoting the Index with the departure of Carrie Meek Gallagher to Suffolk County government.
Eric Alexander
Executive Director, Vision Long Island
On Long Island, where home rule is king, Eric Alexander fearlessly plunges into the fray, bringing his smart growth vision to village halls across the Island. Few people are better connected. He can cobble together coalitions that consist of the lowest-ranking hamlet official to the highest-ranking government chief. And he holds sway with the multiverse of civic groups that command so many development decisions on Long Island.
Lynn Needelman
Director, Long Island Cares
The truth is, for all its affluence, Long Island is host to a large population of hungry families and, as director of Long Island Cares, The Harry Chapin Food Bank, Needleman is leading the fight against starvation. The organization – which was founded by Chapin in 1980 – collects food for more than 600 soup kitchens, shelters and group homes. The ubiquity of Long Island Cares’ signature blue collection barrels is testament to her work.
Carol M. Baldwin
Director, Carol M. Baldwin Brest Cancer Research Fund
The mother of Hollywood’s Baldwin boys has her own claim to fame: her breast-cancer fund is one of Long Island’s most influential not-for-profits. The fund has generated more than $3 million for breast cancer research, distributed among more than 57 research grants. The breast cancer survivor’s trick: With a name like Baldwin, it’s not that hard to pack a fundraiser full of celebrities. And her sons are quick to help out.
Adrienne Esposito
Executive Director, Citizens Campaign for the Environment
The Broadwater battle brought Esposito to the forefront, and she’s since become a media darling, there to douse out any plans for overdevelopment with a quit wit and passion that rival pine barrens king Dick Amper.
Philanthropy
Patrick Foye
Former President, United Way of Long Island
Foye, until recently president of United Way of Long Island, invigorated vision and new financial prowess into an organization helps more people in different ways o n Long Island than any other not-for-profit. Eliot Spitzer’s pal from way back in their law firm days, he was tapped by Spitzer’s to help run Empire State Development Corp. Nice.
Amy Hagedorn
Horace Hagedorn Foundation
The widow of famed Miracle Grow founder Horace Hagedorn has made a name for herself in the philanthropy circles – especially since she now holds the purse strings of the Horace Hagedorn Foundation, which focuses on families, immigrations and green development. The group also started Sustainable Long Island.
Susan Sonenberg
Executive Director, Long Island Community Foundation
Looking to pass on your wealth to charities with as little hassle as possible? Then call Sonenberg. Heading a foundation of foundations, she’s helped distribute millions from Long Island multitude of millionaires.
Power Brokers
Al D’Amato
Founding Partner, Park Strategies
If anyone thought Senator Pothole has lost any of his power, just ask Bill Weld, whose bid for governor was over before it started, thanks to D’Amato’s vengeance on a decades-old grievance. Now D’Amato’s smiling on Hilary Clinton. Does he know something?
Robert Catell
Chairman, KeySpan Corp.
Like his counterpart at LIPA, Bob Catell uses his perch atop the Island’s energy supplier, KeySpan, to keep his hand in most of the Island’s major happenings. Example? When Stony Brook needed a temporary home for its inspiring alternative energy research center, Catell coughed up a few thousand square feet in Islandia to make it happen.
Matthew Crosson
President, Long Island Association
The Long Island Association might not be as all-powerful as it was a few decades ago, but its chief, Matt Crosson, still retains a who’s who of business leaders on his board of directors. The man knows about everything, even if his monumental sense of discretion means you don’t always hear about it from him.
Gary Lewi
Executive Vice President, Rubenstein
If there’s a big deal being done, Gary Lewi, a D’Amato disciple and the most powerful PR exec on the Island, is usually on one or both sides. If he’s not involved, it’s because the deal isn’t big enough, or because someone doesn’t know how things get done around here.
Richard Kessel
Chairman, Long Island Power Authority
Richie Kessel puts the “power” and “authority” in the Long Island Power Authority. He has the most influential unelected government job on the Island, and he also gets to review Nassau government’s improving finances. As if that’s not enough, he likes to get involved in Democratic politics, too.
