Carl E. Heastie: Speaker, New York State Assembly.

• Author: Andrade, Jane Carroll
• Position: THE FINAL WORD - Interview

Carl E. Heastie became the first African-American to serve as speaker of the New York State Assembly in February 2015. He represents the northeast Bronx, where he was born and raised. Before his election to the Assembly in 2000, Heastie was a budget analyst in the New York City comptroller's office, where he reported on the city's spending patterns. He earned a master's degree in business administration with a concentration in finance from Bernard M. Baruch College and a bachelor's in applied mathematics and statistics from Stony Brook University.

Have you always been good at math? Yes Even in elementary and junior high school.

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When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? It ranged from being a police officer to an airline pilot to a baseball player.

What drew you to public service? I always had an interest in politics. I always ran for things like class president in elementary school, but I lost every time. Never even came close.

And that didn't deter you? No. When I graduated from Stony Brook, I came back home and I was working in a day care center as a bookkeeper. So I guess that kind of started me on public service. I started to get involved in local politics and then I felt like I wanted to run for office.

Has your experience in business and finance helped you as a legislator? Yes. Even before I was elected speaker, the budget was probably my biggest area of concentration.

What does it take to be an effective leader? The ability to listen, to look at everybody's opinion as ingredients. Then we put them all together and we come out with something like a meal that everyone can be happy with.

What does it mean to be the Assembly's first African-American speaker? I mean, it's nice to be noted in history, but as I've said publicly, that's not what I want to be known for. I want to improve the plight of people of color, but I really want to make sure that I do the right thing by the 19 million people in the state.

What is your most important legislative priority and why? Trying to improve the education of young people, particularly in struggling schools, and trying to figure out that correlation between poverty and communities of color that are struggling.

What keeps you up at night? It's an ongoing desire to try to continue to improve the plight of people. As much as I think we accomplished in this year's budget, I know that we still have a lot of work to do. There are still a lot of people who are...