Noah S. Berger

First, his professional life: Noah S. Berger is the administrator and CEO of Merrimack Valley Transit (MeVa), the transit provider serving the northeast corner of Massachusetts. MeVa, recipient of the Latinos In Transit (LIT) 2025 Agency of the Year Award, carries 3.5 million riders per year on its family of fixed-route bus, miniMeVa paratransit, and coming in 2027, ferry service. Berger, a 30-year veteran of public transportation, has previously held leadership positions with the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority, Connecticut Transit, Greater Hartford Transit District and the Federal Transit Administration. He is an exhibited oil painter, and has master’s degrees in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and philosophy from the State University of New York.

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What do you like best about your current city of residence?

Our family moved to the city of Newton, just west of Boston, before our youngest daughter was born. She’s now almost 21 years old, so I’ve lived here longer than anywhere else. When we moved here, we had two criteria — it had to have great public schools and it had to be on the T (the Green Line runs right past our kitchen window). Newton is composed of 13 very walkable villages, which are laid out like historical New England town centers. It is also ribboned with conservation land and great hiking trails (fabulous for dogs), and has a throwback lake beach that we used to frequent a lot when the girls were young. During a 5-year-span between 2010 and 2015, when Barack Obama was president, Deval Patrick was governor, and my friend, the late Setti Warren, was mayor, Newton had the distinction of being the only city in America where the chief executive at each level of government was Black. All three of their photos hung on the walls of both of my daughters’ classrooms in elementary school — what an amazing visual statement for my daughters and their classmates to experience every morning!

What does your Saturday morning routine look like?

Saturday mornings usually revolve around our rescue dogs. Rama is a black Lab and Sita is a Great Pyrenees mix. I’m usually the first human to get up (a function of both a busman’s schedule and age), so I’m greeted heartily, as if I were a soldier returning from war. After they settle down, we go out, they eat breakfast and then we all stretch out on the couch, some of us with a large cup of coffee and the paper (Boston Globe and Lawrence Eagle-Tribune).

Berger and his daughter, Usha, at Parque de las Palomas in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Favorite travel destination?

Puerto Rico is near and dear to my heart. While I grew up in what can only be described as a Jewish- Puerto Rican neighborhood in New York City, I didn’t have a chance to go to the island until I was in graduate school and was writing my thesis on the Heavy Rail Tran Urbano project, which was under construction in San Juan at the time. I fell in love with Puerto Rico’s colors, culture, warm ocean waters, mangroves, rain forest, interior mountains and wildlife — Greater Antillean grackles, coquíes, iguanas. It was special going back with my daughter recently — and she loved it every much as I did — except for when I humiliated her by insisting on taking the AMA bus, Tren Urbano and ferries — a busman’s holiday. Now the island’s presence is felt at MeVa, where Puerto Ricans are the second largest ethnic group (after Dominicans) in our central city Lawrence. When we put a focus group together to rebrand our vehicles a few years ago, they elected to move from buses with the exact same livery as mail trucks to vibrant chariots wrapped in coral, aqua, and gold, drawn from the colors of Old San Juan!

Favorite way to stay active?

My favorite way to stay active — but sadly haven’t had the opportunity to do nearly enough — is kayaking. I love the water (maybe because I grew up on an island, even if it was Manhattan), and love seeing the land from the water. When not in the water, I enjoy taking advantage of the many great places to hike across New England — always with dogs in tow.

Favorite TV shows?

My daughter has gotten me into anime, and my very favorite is a short series called "Odd Taxi." It is clever, insightful, funny, comes together perfectly, and pulls off an absolutely brilliant plot twist that works. It’s also only 13 episodes long, so very watchable. A show from this side of the world that I loved was "The Blacklist," almost exclusively because of the James Spader character, Red Reddington.

If you had to watch one movie multiple times, what would it be?

For those of us in the transit industry, nothing hits like "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" — the original with Walter Matthau. Not only does it have the kinetic energy of a classic heist film, it also captures the workings of a transit operation from the perspective of transit professionals. Plus, as a New Yorker of a certain age, I love the 1970s noir of the city I grew up in.

With wife Indu and daughter, Usha, at Halibut Point State Park in Rockport, Mass.

Favorite food?

If we’re talking favorite cuisine, I have a weakness for Ethiopian food. I mean, what could be better than eating your silverware (injera)? If we’re talking food category, eating seafood has a special sinful joy for me. At the age of five, I had an allergic reaction to clams and was told by an allergist to avoid shellfish. So I didn’t eat it until I was having dim sum when I was 22 and learned after the fact that I’d had quite a bit of shrimp without realizing it. My throat did not close up. After a trial period, I have been eating shellfish ever since — always enjoyed with a sinful satisfaction, steeped by years of deprivation. Without the dramatic backstory, I also find fruit immensely satisfying — especially apricots and blueberries

Favorite type of music? First concert?

Regarding favorite type of music, I love the Duke Ellington line, “there are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind.” As for my first concerts, what stand out in my memory are the many free ones I used to seek out. In particular, I remember when Milt Jackson, the vibraphonist from the Modern Jazz Quartet, played at the Jazzmobile at Grant’s Tomb in New York. It was quite a wild scene and Milt definitely played it up to the audience, treating it like a neighborhood block party.

What podcasts do you listen to?

My go-to podcasts are Transit Unplugged and Talking Headways, which keep me up to date with what’s going on in transit, and The Horse Race and The Codcast, which give me the inside scoop on local Massachusetts politics and policy.

Favorite guilty pleasure?

For reasons I can’t quite explain, I absolutely love watching the NBA draft. It’s one of the few things I’ll stay up late for, along with the ball dropping on New Year's Eve, and election returns. The hype, the crazy outfits, the back stories, the hope, the anticipation, the optimism — everything is pure potential. The strategy, the intrigue, the second-guessing, the double-cross, the chip on the shoulder, and the real-time commentary — I can’t get enough of it.

Berger, an exhibited oil painter, said his passion for art dates back to his childhood.

Hobbies?

For as long as I can remember, I have felt a special pull towards making art. As a kid, I was always drawing. While in grade school, I got in trouble for sketching unflattering caricatures of teachers. A cartoon I drew in crayon when I was nine, “Wonder Runt,” closed the 1976 book "Make Your Own Comics for Fun and Profit," by Richard Cummings. As I got older, comic strips led to acrylic and then oil painting, as well as print making. It’s hard to explain the feeling, but when I’m making art, time almost stands still, and I’m focused on pure creative expression.

What was your first job? What were some of the take-aways?

As a teenager, I worked as a vendor at the old Yankee Stadium. At the end of the night, we lined up to pay what was called a “subway” to the guys who set up the vendors’ trays. It was basically a tip to make sure they set us up right next game, but I viewed it as a shakedown — these were big beefy guys you wouldn’t want to cross. I learned that a roll of dimes cost $5 and a roll of quarters $10, and that it was safe to take the subway home at 1:00 in the morning, through neighborhoods I was told it wasn’t safe to walk. The job also taught me to always buy from ballpark vendors and not the concession stands, since the vendors are paid on commission. As I technically worked for George Steinbrenner, I learned that I could work for almost anyone.

What would surprise people to learn about you?

While in many contexts, particularly at work, I come across as very outgoing and gregarious, I am actually quite the introvert. My passion for transit, enthusiasm, playfulness and whimsy masks a natural shyness. As part of my growth as a leader, I have probably learned a type of code-switching, too — how to fake being an extrovert to meet the moment. While in the past I may have thought that this meant that I wasn’t a natural leader, I’ve since come to discover that some of the best leaders are introverts, because introverts are better listeners.

Berger enjoys spending time with his two rescue dogs — Rama, the black Lab, and Sita, a Great Pyrenees mix.

Tell us about a memory you have of riding public transit

I’ve been riding public transit since before I could walk — and bus drivers were my first superheroes. It is part of my family’s lore that I insisted on collecting bus driver autographs starting when I was 6 years old. I have memories of climbing the steps — buses weren’t low floor back then — of the M104 bus on Broadway with a pen and a tattered Manhattan bus map in my little hands, which I asked the drivers to sign. Some thought it was quite endearing — some, I suspect, couldn’t be bothered. My only regret is nobody in my family thought to save that map.

What do you think you would be doing, if you didn't work in public transportation?

Well, there’s a part of me that’s always wanted to be an artist, although I never had any idea how you could do it for a living. But in this spirit, I already have my retirement job identified! My goal is to be a full-time painter — and maybe then being a public transportation professional will be my side hustle.

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This interview was conducted by Janna Starcic, who can be reached at [email protected]

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