For more than three decades, Paul J. Tonna has been one of Long Island’s most consequential public figures: a former Suffolk County legislator, healthcare executive, energy policy advocate, and now the leader of a regional campaign to combat sex and labor trafficking. His career defies easy categorization, which may be precisely why it has lasted.
From the Legislature to the Boardroom and Back
Tonna’s path to becoming one of Long Island’s most recognized public affairs voices began in elected office. First elected to the Suffolk County Legislature in 1994, he would go on to serve as its Presiding Officer for three years, the legislature’s top leadership post, before transitioning into a career that has consistently blurred the line between government, business, and civic life.
Today he serves simultaneously as Chairman of the South Huntington Water District, managing partner of Praxis Public Relations Inc., Vice Chairman and Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs for American Health Group, and consultant to Northwell Health System. He is also Executive Director of three organizations: the Suffolk County Village Officials Association, the U.S. Green Building Council’s Long Island Chapter, and The Energeia Partnership.
That last role, at Energeia, has become the platform for what may be the most urgent initiative of his career.
Leading Long Island’s Fight Against Sex Trafficking
In early 2025, Tonna launched a region-wide sex and labor trafficking awareness campaign through The Energeia Partnership, the independent Long Island leadership academy he has led as Executive Director since its founding in 2005. The campaign brings together law enforcement, educators, nonprofit leaders, and businesses under a unified prevention framework.
The scale of the problem warranted the response. According to the U.S. Department of State’s 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report, there were 2,640 documented sex trafficking incidents in the United States in 2023 alone. The Polaris Project reports more than 82,300 cases reported through the National Human Trafficking Hotline since 2007, with a 2019 U.S. Department of Education study finding that over 5,300 identified victims were under the age of 18.
To lead the effort, Tonna assembled a team with serious credentials. Gerri Hart, a former FBI agent, is heading law enforcement coordination. Neela Lockel, CEO of the EAC Network, is focused on victim advocacy and support services. Marian Conway coordinates with local nonprofits and survivor-informed service agencies to ensure the program reflects the lived experience of those it aims to protect.
The campaign uses the federal 2025 Human Trafficking Prevention Month Toolkit, issued by the Office for Victims of Crime and the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, as its operational foundation. Schools are being trained to identify warning signs including sudden isolation, unexplained finances, online grooming behavior, and reluctance to communicate. Businesses in hospitality, retail, transportation, and service industries are being brought into the network as a frontline layer of community surveillance and reporting.
The goal is not a single awareness event but a cultural shift, building a Long Island where educated communities are harder to exploit.
A Career Built Across Sectors
Tonna’s ability to mobilize across schools, law enforcement, business, and government reflects a career that has always operated at the intersection of sectors.
His healthcare background runs deep. He served as a hospital administrator in education and training at St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, led Professional Evaluation Medical Group as CEO, and has spent years consulting for Northwell Health, New York’s largest healthcare system. He has also served as an adjunct professor at St. John’s University and holds a bachelor’s degree from New York University, a master’s from Immaculate Conception Seminary, and completed doctoral studies at Fordham University.
His infrastructure and energy credentials are equally substantial. As a former chairman of the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency and vice chairman of the Long Island Regional Planning Council, Tonna shaped the region’s economic development agenda at the policy level. He serves on the board of the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center at Stony Brook University, a role that positions him in the debates around Long Island’s energy grid modernization, offshore wind, and battery storage.
Through Praxis, he works with clients navigating Long Island’s complex public affairs landscape, a region where municipal fragmentation, environmental constraints, and political dynamics make even straightforward projects difficult to advance.
Recognition Rooted in the Community
The awards Tonna has received over the years reflect the breadth of his engagement. He is a recipient of the Molloy University Caritas Award, was named Suffolk County’s Legislator of the Year by the Suffolk Human Rights Commission, Public Citizen of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers, and Man of the Year by Habitat for Humanity of Suffolk.
The pattern across those honors, spanning human rights, social work, community development, and public service, points to a career animated by something beyond conventional political ambition.
What Comes Next
With Long Island facing intersecting pressures including a housing crisis, aging infrastructure, climate mandates, and now a concentrated effort to address trafficking, Tonna shows no sign of narrowing his focus. If anything, his current portfolio suggests a leader who believes these issues are connected, and that the region’s future depends on people willing to work across all of them at once.
The sex trafficking campaign, still in its early stages, may prove to be the most visible and consequential work of his career. The question Tonna seems to be asking, and inviting Long Island to ask with him, is whether a community that understands its own vulnerabilities can be organized to protect against them.
Paul J. Tonna is Executive Director of The Energeia Partnership and Managing Partner of Praxis Public Relations Inc.