The president of a Bronx-based nonprofit organization is stepping down after 25 years.

It's not uncommon in 2017 to hear that the Bronx is being built up, but in the 1980s, as investment ran from the borough, Nancy Biberman did the opposite.

"The Bronx was not a pretty picture," she says. "There was so much disinvestment and abandonment."

Working with nonprofit Catholic Charities, Biberman got her first taste of turning some of what was dilapidated in the Bronx into developed. But even though she helped provide homes, she says she felt something was still missing.

"There were no stores for people to shop in...schools were in terrible shape," Biberman says. "Streets are unsafe...the infrastructure was still in shatters."

That's when she formed the Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation, or WHEDco, speaking to women in the community about their needs. Biberman turned an abandoned Morrisania hospital into a neighborhood remedy with affordable apartments, child care, early childhood educations, job training and more.

Now after 25 years with WHEDco, Biberman is stepping down as the company's president. But as development in the Bronx and city keeps growing, she has a message for those going down the same path.

"Community development means actually talking to people, asking questions...finding out information and using that information," Biberman says. "We started from nothing 25 years ago...so leaving an organization saying, 'Wow look at these people and the work they do, 'how great is that?"

Biberman will continue to work with WHEDco, focusing on development and policy. The company's executive vice president, Davon Russell, will fill her role.