Ex-LIRR president flies back to trains

Ken Bauer, former president of the Long Island Rail Road, has spent much of his time since he left in 2003 up in the air - flying to Europe and Asia as head of railroad companies doing business overseas. Now he will be back on the rails again, sort of.

Bauer, of Lido Beach, has been named by the Long Island Forum for Technology to head a new organization that will seek to form an industry coalition out of the 30 or 40 companies on the Island that provide equipment to the railroad industry.

"The last eight years I've been on nothing but airlines," said Bauer. "I spent very little time on Long Island. I'm looking to get back on Long Island."

Bauer spent 30 years with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the last three as LIRR president. After he left, he helped bring a Manhattan railroad management company, Railworks, out of bankruptcy, and then he worked for a French transportation company, Thales, working in business development.

Now, as chairman of LIFT's new Long Island Rail Suppliers Alliance, Bauer will try to make a serious business out of the loose collection of rail companies in Nassau and Suffolk counties. LIFT president Frank Otto noted the alliance was announced last summer.

"There are at least 30 to 40 companies on Long Island that manufacture and supply some form of product used in the rail industry," Bauer said. "They run from being very small to a little larger." Many of the companies, Bauer said, are unaware of opportunities to hook up with larger manufacturers, or of government contracts and how to secure them.

"I think I can bring some light here," Bauer said.

One company, Power Resources International Inc., of West Babylon, designs and builds software and hardware that monitors equipment at railroad substations.

Mike Dombrowski, Power Resources' vice president for sales and marketing, said he has been attending LIFT meetings about building a railroad industry on the Island.

The company's sales are about $10 million annually. "We're considered small" in the industry, he said. It would help to be a part of a coalition, he added.