A member of the ERA since 1970, Bob is a graduate of MIT and has worked in the transit and transportation planning profession for 40 years. He retired from MTA NYC Transit in 2019 after 26 years in the Office of Management and Budget, Operations Planning and Strategic Initiatives. Bob has served as ERA’s president since 2012, and five years previously as third vice president and recording secretary. Bob has successfully managed ERA’s annual conventions in Los Angeles (2009), Chicago (2011), Boston (2012), Denver/Salt Lake City (2013), Minneapolis/St. Paul (2014), Houston/Dallas-Fort Worth (2015) Washington-Baltimore (2016), Atlanta and New Orleans (2017), Tucson/El Paso (2019), San Diego (2022), Portland/Seattle (2023), and Edmonton/Calgary (2024). Bob’s goals include membership expansion and retention, participation in the Association’s missions, continue successful management of Zoom programs and opportunities for selected in-person meetings, and continuation of ERA’s high-quality offerings of publications, monthly programs, and local, national and international trips.
Jeff has been a member of the ERA for 54 years, having joined in January of 1970. He has always been active, initially by helping to stuff envelopes for mailings at the ERA’s old offices at 145 Greenwich Street and 4 West 40th Street. Jeff, along with the late James Mattina, created the initial database of members when the ERA received its very first personal computer back in the 1980s. During those years, Jeff served as membership secretary and also helped to arrange several memorable excursions on the Long Island Rail Road. For several years he was the recording secretary of the New York Division and was an occasional contributing editor of The Bulletin. When the New York Division was merged into the National, he became a director on the new Board and once again has been able to help on the National level. After retiring from NYC Transit in April of 2018, Jeff took on the editorship of The Bulletin and in January of 2022, Jeff took over the desktop publishing of The Bulletin.
Subutay has been a member of the ERA since January 1994. A lifelong New Yorker and Queens native, his interest in electric railways began as a childhood fascination with the New York City Subway and eventually encompassed railways everywhere.
Over the years, he has served the ERA extensively in several capacities. Soon after joining the organization, he started volunteering at ERA’s headquarters, then located in Grand Central Terminal. He assisted with monthly mailings, office administration, and devoted particular attention to the maintenance of the Sprague Library. He served previously on the ERA National Board in the early 2000s.
Additionally, Subutay has been writing for the Bulletin since the late 1990s when it was a New York Division publication. His articles and photography span a wide variety of railway subjects and geography. He is currently the Bulletin’s associate editor.
Subutay is a transportation professional with over 31 years of varied experience as a cartographer, consultant and operations manager. His professional work can be easily observed around New York City, as the public benefits from his cartographic work on the WalkNYC system of pedestrian wayfinding maps and the newest generation of NYC Subway Neighborhood maps. As a consultant, he worked on the planning studies which yielded the current expansions of the region’s passenger rail network. Following 25 years in the private sector, he is currently a track and structures manager in the public sector.
Robert joined the ERA in 2013 but was a railfan well before that. He’s served as third vice president and recording secretary since 2014 and has managed all local trips for the ERA during that period. He implemented new e-mail techniques for the Bulletin, increasing the reliability of mailings and improving engagement with members while simultaneously reducing operating costs for the club. Robert began his transportation career working at four agencies of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority. He is now a senior manager of industrial engineering at Amtrak where he helps rebuild our critical rail infrastructure on the Northeast Corridor.
Yury is a dedicated transit professional with a Master’s Degree in Transportation Planning from Polytechnic University of New York. He has been employed at New York City Transit since 1998, focusing on Operations Planning. He is also a lifelong transit enthusiast and an avid traveler. He have a vast knowledge of various transit systems around the world, and He has accumulated a sizable collection of photographs from his travels. He contributes regularly to tram and trolleybus magazines and publications with photos and news updates. Yury is also one of the editors at transphoto.org, a worldwide site featuring photos, maps and rolling stock databases on electric transport systems from around the world.
Yury joined ERA in 1998. Over the years he participated in planning of a number of international tours and annual conventions. He hopes to continue to help ERA in convention planning with transport and travel logistics planning by applying his knowledge of various revenue and heritage operations worldwide, and by using his connections with many transit professionals and enthusiasts around the world. He hopes to also contribute to monthly presentations and ERA publications with photos and materials from his extensive collection.
A member of ERA since 1963, Michael previously held office as director of ERA. He has served as a member of the New York Division Board of Directors for many years and national treasurer since 1990. He is a retired transportation industry professional with over 50 years of experience as a transportation planner, light rail operations planner and transit scheduler.
A member of the ERA since 1976, Andrew was born and grew up in Montreal. He was attracted to the US by a job offer in 1991 under the then new US-Canada Free-Trade Agreement. He is a graduate of McGill University with a degree in Civil Engineering and a minor in Computer Science, which lead to a career in various jobs in IT and software development. In 2004 he switched back to his first love of transportation engineering and planning while also obtaining a Masters degree from Rutgers. He retired from NJDOT‘s Office of Freight Planning at the end of 2021. He has been a life-long railfan with a particular interest in all things electrical. He took up rail photography as a teenager. He is a member of many other rail organizations and serves on the board of the Rocky Mountain Railroad Club. He has traveled extensively, even more for his love of classical music than transit and trains. In retirement he does part-time consultant in his areas of expertise: Goods Movement and Geographic Information Systems.
Andrew has been a frequent speaker at ERA meetings and has assisted in facilitating and troubleshooting for the smooth operation of ERA’s Zoom presentations.