It’s one of the largest groundwater suppliers in the nation serving 1.2 million people with more than 75 billion gallons a year, and now it has a new chairman devoted to providing the highest-quality product at the lowest possible cost. Stepping up from his position on the Suffolk County Water Authority board of directors, Charles Lefkowitz was recently named to lead the utility by a unanimous vote of the county legislature.
The authority has set a high bar for water purity adhering to standards more stringent than required from its 637 wells for both residential and commercial customers. Its system can hold more than 73 million gallons of water at any given time and distribute it over 6,000 miles of water mains. Rigorous testing takes place before even a drop reaches a user’s tap with water that’s even more pure than what’s allowed in bottled products.
“It’s a tremendous operation that I’m proud to be part of,” the new chairman said. “We are a highly professional organization known nationwide for our world-class facilities and talented staff.” He described the authority as a “public-benefit corporation with the mindset of a private company focused on the bottom line.”
A former Brookhaven Town Councilman and member of the town’s Industrial Development Agency, Lefkowitz currently serves as president of the Three Village Chamber of Commerce. He is the president of CAMCO Services of New York and Louis Lefkowitz Realty. The companies the Setauket resident leads own and manage millions of square feet of commercial properties and oversees more than 3,000 residential units.
A director on the water authority board since last May, Lefkowitz highlighted the professionalism of the staff and the qualifications needed to run the nationally-recognized authority. “We have chemists, engineers, technicians, and dedicated men and women in the field that deliver top-quality services day in and day out,” the chairman said of the authority’s 580-employee workforce. “Satisfaction among our customers is very high,” adding that in his business career, the water authority was the most responsive of all the utilities he’s dealt with.
One area of significant improvement the chairman notes is the elimination of the labor-intensive role of the meter reader by upgrading to an automated system. “Everything is precise; there are no more estimated bills,” he said, adding that the staff reached its goal of complete automation a year earlier than anticipated. “I’m impressed by the fact that none of the meter readers were let go, but instead were retained for other necessary functions within the organization.”
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| Charles Lefkowitz |
Another priority for Suffolk’s water provider is upgrades to its miles of water mains, some more than 100 years old, and new storage tanks, both above and below ground. More than 85 percent of the county’s residents are served by the authority and the directors and staff are up for the challenge. They produce a comprehensive annual Drinking Water Quality Report and have a Strategic Plan pegged out to 2030. Recognizing the high professional standards of the organization, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency named water authority Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Szabo to the National Drinking Water Advisory Council, a first for the authority staff.
“An organization is only as good as its staff and I’m proud of the high-level of professionalism that is in place at the water authority,” Lefkowitz said. The founder of the Setauket Harbor Task Force and former member of the Port Jefferson Improvement District and Port Jefferson Station Chamber of Commerce took over the chairmanship from former county Executive Patrick Halpin, who served on the board for 17 years. He is joined by Timothy Bishop, a former congressman, Jacqueline Gordon, and Elizabeth Mercado. The legislature is expected to appoint a new member to the board to fill Lefkowitz’s seat.
The new chairman was named Person of the Year by the Three Village Historical Society in 2015 and by The Village Times/Beacon Newspaper in 2017, as well as Member of the Year by the Three Village Chamber of Commerce in 2015.
A 1980 graduate of Ward Melville High School, Lefkowitz went on to earn an A.A.S. in hospitality management from SUNY Delhi, a Bachelor of Science degree in management from Florida International University and a graduate degree in real estate studies from New York University. His father, Joel L. Lefkowitz, served as Brookhaven Town supervisor and county court judge.