New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer nominated investment banker Doreen M. Frasca this week to serve as a voting member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board. “Doreen’s exceptional background in finance and transportation consulting will provide the MTA with an invaluable resource as the authority moves forward with critical projects,” Spitzer said in a press release.Frasca, who has worked in public finance for 30 years, is currently president of Frasca & Associates LLC, a consulting firm specializing in transportation finance. The company has advised the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in developing funding strategies for projects at the JFK International Airport including the Airtrain rail connection, JetBlue terminal, American terminal and Terminal 4.Currently the company is advising the Port Authority on terminal redevelopment projects at Newark International Airport, JFK, and LaGuardia Airport. The firm also advises six other major airports in the country.Frasca served on the governor’s transportation transition team following his election last year, when she floated the idea of the Port Authority buying the lease for Stewart Airport in Orange County, N.Y., a deal expected to be completed soon. “The MTA has a very large capital program ahead of it, so I’m hoping to be helpful,” Frasca said. “I plan on really delving into all of their numbers and understanding everything I can about their budget and finances and capital program.”Frasca’s career in municipal finance began in 1977, a year after graduating from Wheaton College with a bachelor’s degree in history and politics, when she became a credit analyst on the bond trading desk of Dillion, Read & Co. She later became a trader at the firm before going back to school and earning her MBA at Columbia University in 1980. She then began a 15-year stint at Merrill Lynch & Co. in the debt markets group where she became a managing director and headed their airports and transportation group. Frasca founded her own firm in 1997, two years after leaving Merrill.She also served as an adviser to a task forced created after Sept. 11, 2001, on management, security, and financial practices at Boston’s Logan International Airport.Frasca is the second person to be nominated by Spitzer to the 23-member board, which is subject to state Senate confirmation. The governor nominated a real estate executive H. Dale Hemmerdinger to be chairman of the MTA when Peter Kalikow steps down. The governor nominates six of the board’s 17 voting members.
