His father, Saul Berger, was a politically active lawyer who ran for State Senate and City Council as an anti-Tammany candidate.

[7] He later managed the campaign of Bronx Borough President Herman Badillo, a former US Representative, in the 1969 New York mayoral primary and Richard Ottinger's bid for the U.S. Senate in 1970.

[14] After leaving the Emergency Control Board in late 1977,[15] Berger became a professor at the Graduate School of Public Administration at New York University, teaching part-time there for over 6 years.

[5][16] In 1979, Carey appointed him a Member of the Board and Chairman of the finance committee of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs New York City subways, buses and commuter rail lines.

[20] He was responsible for directing New York and New Jersey's airports, port facilities, interstate network of tunnels, bridges and commuter trains and real estate investment, including the World Trade Center.

The agency also undertook new and improved services, including the commencement of ferry operations from Hoboken, NJ to New York for the first time in 22 years.

[22] He was responsible for a portfolio of businesses, including the Corporate Finance Group, Private Equity Investment, Railcar Services, Transport International Pool, GE Capital Modular Space and The Financial Guaranty Insurance Company.

[29] In early 2005, Governor George Pataki selected Berger to chair the New York State Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century.

Berger chaired the Health System Redesign Group, which proposed a restructuring of Brooklyn's Hospitals and Primary Care Facilities.

[34] On Berger's work as Chairman of the New York State Commission on Health Care Facilities: "Given his history as someone who is sent in to do difficult jobs that no one else wants to do, we think he’s coming in with his knives sharpened.

"[citation needed] Mr. Berger (...) whose name has rarely appeared in print without words like "sharp" and "aggressive" appended to it—is among the first to acknowledge that he is a fiscal tough guy.

"[30] When people suggested after the George Washington Bridge scandal that it might make sense to break up the enormous organization of which he'd once been head, Berger said: "It could be simpler and cleaner if you separated the different parts of the Port into individual agencies.

"[36] Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch once said of him: "Twenty years ago, if you had a conversation with Steve Berger you couldn’t get a word in edgewise.