Kenneth Daube spent his childhood on the streets of Brooklyn before moving to comparatively rural Smithtown in 1978, six years after he took a job with the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA).  

"When I first moved here, there were farms across the street from my house. I felt like I was in the country," Daube said.

Daube's career movement in the MTA was just as exaggerated. He began at the MTA driving one of the bus routes and 38 years later retired as vice president.

Daube started his long and steady climb through the MTA as a Coney Island bus driver. Shortly after his move to Long Island, Daube was transferred to Queens. 

His daughter Debbie Daube Danley remembers her mom ironing his bus uniform each day and visiting the bus depot with him.

"It was very Ralph Cramden," she said. "I was more impressed that you could see Shea Stadium out of the window than anything else."

Daube studied fervently for the civil service exams and his first promotion earned him the title of dispatcher. His strong test-taking skills were an asset and he soon became a supervisor, then a superintendent and then a general supervisor, where he was put in charge of an entire bus depot in Queens. He oversaw more than 500 employees and the maintenance of all the buses there.

He was then promoted to assistant general manager, where he was responsible for all the Manhattan buses. The MTA oversees the largest and busiest bus system in the country with over 726 million riders in 2009 alone. Out of the ten busiest bus routes, three of them were under his jurisdiction in Manhattan. 

"The biggest problem we came across was keeping the buses on time, there are so many things out of our control, like a sanitation truck coming down a road and blocking for several minutes," he said.

He then became chief transportation officer at the MTA, responsible for overseeing all 209 local and 36 express buses in the five boroughs and on Long Island. He said the job was quite challenging, especially when bad weather struck.

"I remember a snow storm in 1978, it was so bad the Long Island Expressway closed," Daube said, during which he would work around the clock for days to help commuters.

His next and final step up the latter was to vice president. 

"He inched his way into better positions and before I knew it he traded his uniform for a suit," his daughter said. She did note that the promotions came with sacrifices, like working long hours and many holidays throughout the years.

Hurricane Katrina hit during his time as vice president and he immediately saw a way he could help.

"He helped bring a fleet of city buses to New Orleans to help evacuate the city after Hurricane Katrina," his daughter said. "That was amazing."

Daube retired in 2009 after 38 years of service to the company. He and his wife now spend their time traveling and will be riding mass transit in six different countries when they soon embark on a month-long European vacation. He's confident he will not encounter transit systems that rival New York's.

"The MTA system is the best I've come across, hands down," Daube said."It's an incredibly intricate system with a large number of connections with subways and the Long Island Rail Road."

He's no stranger to the MTA's issues, specifically the payroll tax the Town of Smithtown is currently challenging.

"The MTA was originally funded by a state subsidy that was taken away, thereby creating a large hole in the budget and the need for the payroll tax," Daube said. "The politicians in our great state have the ability to do magic and make the MTA the bad guy. I believe that the downstate taxpayers, particularly Long Islanders, should not carry such a great tax burden. If [tax dollars] were administered correctly, there would be no need for the payroll tax."

Daube says he's enjoying retirement in Smithtown but that he misses the day-to-day comradity at the MTA.

"Working for the MTA was a nice experience," he said. "I have great memories."