Patricia Reilly

Ask Patricia M. Reilly to sum up more than 50 years in New York public service, and she'll tell you it comes down to three things: "Ombudsman, Customer Service Champion, and Mentor." By her own count, that's spanned 31 years in New York State, New York City, and Nassau County government at the commissioner and director level, 13 years in public affairs and lobbying at Bolton St. Johns, and, true to a career that started in the classroom, a decade teaching Government and Politics at St. John's University. Today she runs Patricia Reilly Consulting, focused on government affairs, lobbying, and political work that has touched more than 500 campaigns — from the presidential level down to town boards — over the past half-century.

That reformer's streak runs through her whole career. Reilly counts herself among the architects of the 1990s "Reinvent DMV" effort, which built the agency's first Office of Customer Service and a Custom Plate Project that brought in $3.5 million in new state revenue in its first year alone — later studied as a case at Harvard's Kennedy School. She has also helped lead red light and school bus camera programs over the past two decades. Earlier, as Executive Director of the Nassau County Traffic and Parking Violations Agency, she inherited what the County Comptroller once called "the worst run agency in the worst run county in America" and more than doubled its revenue within four years. Newsday took notice, crediting her with moving "an agency tangled in confusion and inefficiency for decades" fully "into the information age."

Reilly has also served as Vice Chair of the Albany International Airport Authority and of the New York State Democratic Party, and she has spent a decade each hosting and underwriting St. John's University events in Albany, serving on the NYS Mentoring Advisory Council, and serving on the board of Eleanor's Legacy. As one nominator put it, she "leads by example, and moves through this business with one hand reaching forward and one hand reaching back to pull someone up the ladder with her" — grit, humor, and, in the nominator's words, "a little razzle dazzle" included. "New York is a better place to be," the nominator wrote, "because of her and all of her hard work."