MBTA shakeup: Healey replaces 3 board members, including chair
By Chris Lisinski, State House News Service
Gov. Maura Healey further reshaped the leadership at the under-fire MBTA on Friday, replacing three members of the agency's board of directors and bringing a former T chief back into the fold.
Less than two weeks after her hand-picked general manager started his tenure, Healey announced action to remove a trio of T overseers installed by former Gov. Charlie Baker and named former MBTA General Manager Thomas Glynn, former Sen. Thomas McGee and commercial banker Eric Goodwine in their place.
The shakeup marks a return to the T for Glynn, a longtime transportation leader in Massachusetts who served as general manager of the agency under former Gov. Michael Dukakis. He will serve as the board's new chair, replacing Betsy Taylor.
"I am excited to return to the MBTA in a different capacity but with the same goal -- to deliver the world-class service that millions of MBTA riders need and deserve," Glynn said in a statement. "It's time that the MBTA Board takes on the sense of urgency that this crisis demands. We can't settle for the status quo -- we need bold action to meet this moment and address the challenges facing the T right now."
Healey's appointments jettisoned Taylor, who had helmed the latest iteration of the MBTA management and oversight board since its inception in 2021, as well as fellow Baker appointees Scott Darling and Mary Beth Mello. In a statement, Healey thanked the group "for their service and commitment to our communities."
Darling and Mello served coterminously with the governor. Taylor's term was set to run until Oct. 7, 2024, and she will resign Friday, according to a Healey spokesperson.
Healey reappointed the only other board member serving coterminously, Robert Butler, to remain on the panel. Members Chanda Smart and Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch will continue their terms, as will Transportation Secretary Gina Fiandaca, who until Friday had been the only Healey pick on the panel.
"The MBTA Board serves as a vital point of oversight for our metro region public transit system, and I'm pleased to welcome these leaders as we work to rebuild safety, trust, and reliability across the MBTA," Fiandaca said in a statement, adding that the new appointees "will guide a renewed focus on supporting the levels of safety and service our customers and employees deserve."
Glynn is a veteran Massachusetts government figure with a range of experience across the public and private sector.
He led the MBTA from April 1989 to April 1991. When he was hired to that role 34 years ago, he joked, "I finally have a job that I can explain in one effective sentence to my kids. That sentence is to help make the trains and buses run safe, clean and on time."
Glynn then served as a deputy U.S. labor secretary in the Clinton administration and later spent nearly 15 years as chief operating officer of Partners HealthCare. In 2012, Gov. Deval Patrick named him CEO of the Massachusetts Port Authority, a position he held for six years.
He co-chaired the Healey-Driscoll transition's public transportation committee.
Healey picked another figure familiar to Beacon Hill in McGee, a former representative and senator who served as mayor of Lynn from 2018 to 2022.
During his time in the Senate, McGee co-chaired the Legislature's Transportation Committee, where he regularly focused on transit issues and pressed MBTA leaders on a range of topics.
Goodwine, Healey's other new appointee, works for Rockland Trust as its vice president and commercial loan officer for the Worcester Lending Center. He fills the board seat designated for someone with experience in public or private finance.
"I am confident that each of them will focus on ensuring the highest level of safety and service that the people of Massachusetts deserve," Healey said in a statement.
Healey's changes to the board follow her selection of Phil Eng, a longtime transportation executive who previously helmed the Long Island Rail Road, as the new general manager.
Problems at the MBTA have been locked in the spotlight for years, especially after federal investigators intervened last year and concluded that the agency must address a bevy of safety problems fueled by staff shortages, faulty oversight and a maintenance backlog.
The T's board has increasingly come under fire from transit advocates and from commuters, who have argued that its members took too passive an approach to the burgeoning problems.
"Please excuse my bluntness: this board is failing riders, full stop," TransitMatters Executive Director Jarred Johnson said at a board meeting last month. "I appreciate and understand the amount of time you all have given over the past year and a half, and I know this is not easy. However, neither is being a T rider these days. The system is in crisis, but I'm afraid you wouldn't know that by watching a board meeting."
Other than the transportation secretary, MBTA board members are not paid for their work on the panel, though they can seek reimbursement for travel and other expenses incurred in their official duties up to $6,000 per year.
The current board makeup has seven members, but that could change if top House Democrats get their way. The House's fiscal year 2024 state budget would expand the panel to nine members, adding one seat that the governor would fill with a municipal official in the MBTA's coverage area and another seat that would be filled directly by the mayor of Boston.