Meet Tom

THOMAS R. SUOZZI

Thomas R. Suozzi now serves as a senior advisor to Lazard, one of the world’s preeminent financial advisory and asset management firms, and as a consultant to Cablevision System Corporation’s Local Media Group.

Mr.. Suozzi is an attorney and a certified public accountant. He served from 1994 to 2001 as Mayor of the City of Glen Cove, where he restored financial stability, created a national model for environmental cleanup and brought about a new era of civic pride.  He then served from 2002 to 2009 as County Executive of Nassau County, New York, a county with a population and budget larger than 11 states.

Prior to Suozzi assuming office as County Executive in 2002, Nassau had been rated “the worst run county in America” by the Maxwell School of Public Policy at Syracuse University. Mr. Suozzi led a dramatic financial turnaround of Nassau’s $2.6 billion government by reducing the workforce to the smallest in 30 years, implementing technology solutions, consolidating departments, eliminating wasteful contracts, reinventing government operations, reducing borrowing, and achieving historic labor concessions. He also achieved 13 bond upgrades, more than any other municipality in the nation during a similar time period all while reducing the crime rate to the lowest in 30 years, and implementing national and statewide models for the efficient delivery of Health and Human Services and environmental stewardship.

In 2004, Mr Suozzi founded Fix Albany.com, a statewide campaign to link the dysfunction of State government to local property taxes and he successfully campaigned to cap the growth of the local share of Medicaid costs. In 2005 Governing Magazine named Suozzi as one of their national “Public Officials of the Year.” From 2005 through 2009 he was Chairman and Principal of the New York Metropolitan Transit Council. As the Council’s Chairman, he developed the first comprehensive downstate transportation priorities vision plan supported by elected and appointed officials from New York City and five downstate suburban counties. Through his work with the Council, Mr. Suozzi was awarded New York University’s Outstanding Achievement in Transportation award.

In January 2008 the Governor named Mr. Suozzi Chair of the bipartisan NYS Commission on Property Tax Relief and he delivered a report on the causes of, and solutions for, the state’s high property taxes. Later in 2008 Mr. Suozzi was named as “the Environmentalist of the Year” by the NYS League of Conservation voters.

Prior to holding public office, Mr. Suozzi was an attorney at Shearman & Sterling, an auditor at Arthur Andersen & Company, and a clerk to Judge Thomas C. Platt, chief judge of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Mr. Suozzi received a Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law and a BS from Boston College, School of Management.

He is married to Helene and they live in Glen Cove, New York with their 3 children, Caroline, Joseph and Michael.