Property Management EVP Daniel Greene Earns ‘Nobel Prize of Public Service’ 

NYCHA’s very own Daniel Greene has been awarded one of the city’s highest honors for career public service.  

On May 28, Mr. Greene, the Executive Vice President (EVP) of Property Management Operations, was celebrated among six honorees of the 2026 Sloan Public Service Award, colloquially known as the “Nobel Prize of public service” for City government. The awards, presented annually by the Fund for the City of New York with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, honor civil servants who exhibit extraordinary commitment to the public and routinely go beyond their responsibilities to ensure that residents’ needs are met.  

Mr. Greene, who has served at NYCHA since 2019, was recognized for leading transformative environmental health and operational reforms, including overseeing the largest lead abatement initiative for public housing in the U.S., while also modernizing systems that directly affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. NYCHA colleagues and community members commended Mr. Greene’s dedicated career of service during a cordial gathering and site visit at Douglass Houses, prior to the formal awards ceremony at the New York Historical Society.  

“Receiving this award is a huge honor and it really reflects the tremendous, caring work undertaken every day by NYCHA staff,” said Mr. Greene, who began leading Property Management Operations in 2023.  

Mr. Greene’s career has been defined by translating complex environmental and legal challenges into operational systems that improve public health and resident trust. Before joining NYCHA, he served in the New York City Law Department, where he worked on major environmental matters involving hazardous materials, public schools, and remediation efforts. He later served as General Counsel for the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery (GOSR), helping oversee approximately $2 billion in Hurricane Sandy recovery and resilience initiatives.  

NYCHA Chief Executive Officer Lisa Bova-Hiatt, who also worked with Mr. Greene at the NYC Law Department and GOSR, said he is “in a class all to himself” as an impactful public servant.  

“His service to NYCHA extends well beyond the workday; it is a constant commitment to addressing residents’ needs and improving their quality of life day in and day out,” Ms. Bova-Hiatt noted. “His consistent presence alongside frontline staff on the ground each day has meaningfully earned him the respect of residents and staff alike.” 

At the Authority, Mr. Greene has become known for combining data-driven management with highly visible, hands-on leadership. He helped create operational dashboards and borough-wide maintenance summits with staff that improved accountability, productivity, and response times across a system that processes more than 146,000 repair work orders each month.  

As EVP and through prior NYCHA roles as Chief Compliance Officer and Senior Vice President of Healthy Homes, he has led major reforms in lead, mold, asbestos, and water quality management. His leadership has played a central role in strengthening NYCHA’s compliance and accountability efforts under the 2019 federal agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development related to environmental health and quality-of-life conditions.  

“Dan is a passionate, dedicated, and caring public servant who is laser-focused on improving the resident experience,” Chief Operating Officer Eva Trimble said. “He also cares deeply about the experience of frontline employees and uses increased accountability to improve service.” 

Dan Greene regularly visits NYCHA developments to meet with frontline staff and residents.

Among his key achievements, Mr. Greene created NYCHA’s “TEMPO” lead abatement program, which uses a respectful, voluntary relocation model for families and has been recognized by federal oversight officials as being among the strongest abatement programs in public housing nationally. Under his leadership, NYCHA has abated more than 15,000 apartments and is ahead of schedule in its goal to eliminate potential sources of lead exposure across the portfolio by 2029.   

He is also the architect of notable initiatives such as “Maintenance Cares,” in which frontline staff are encouraged to proactively identify maintenance and safety concerns before they escalate for residents. 

“Dan doesn’t just seek a legal solution, or achieve regulatory compliance – he looks for the root causes, he creates policies by listening to the people they are meant to help, and he then implements and supervises them to make sure they work,” Ms. Bova-Hiatt said. 

For Mr. Greene, public service is about leading from within the community, not from an office. On any given day, he is sure to be found walking through NYCHA properties, meeting directly with staff and residents, and working collaboratively with oversight agencies and advocates, knowing these are the ways to truly understand the community needs and how to most effectively enhance the quality of life across the city.    

“The New York City Housing Authority lives on the ground and in our properties – not in a central office,” he explained. “You can’t be hesitant to go through any door; hesitant to speak to any resident; hesitant to listen to any staff member. You need to be out there with them to really understand the day-to-day issues they live with and work through.”