About MEA

MEA Steering Committee

MEA Member Orgs

SUSAN ALTMAN

Susan Altman founded the Medford Environmental Alliance in early 2005. She is also involved with the Medford Climate Action Network (Chair), the Massachusetts Climate Action Network (Steering Group Member), the Mystic River Watershed Association (Board Member), the Eastern Massachusetts Literacy Council/English at Large, and the Medford Clean Energy Committee. She co-founded the Massachusetts Social Marketing Association in 2005. Susan has more than 20 years of experience in communications and outreach, and has more than a decade's experience working for a better environment. She was the Communications Manager for the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation, the world’s foremost marine grantmaking program (3.5 years).

She has a master’s degree in environmental policy from Tufts University, where she worked with the Tufts Environmental Literacy Institute to develop a strategic plan and post-secondary curriculum guidelines for the Chemical Manufacturers Association and the Secretariat of University Presidents for a Sustainable Future. She also founded the Tufts Food Awareness Project to educate the university community about the links between food production and environment.

Susan then spent six years working with the Environmental Research Area of Abt Associates, an international government consultancy. She worked primarily on voluntary initiatives between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, industry, and academia. She developed, designed, created, and produced outreach materials for the general public, Congress, government agencies, non-profit organizations, industry, and commercial firms.

PATRICIA BARRY

As Director of the City of Medford's Energy and Environment Office (E&E) Ms. Barry is responsible for overseeing and implementing various environmentally sound programs in the City of Medford. The main areas that she focuses on are energy efficiency, air quality, climate change protection, renewable energy, wetlands protection, open space conservation, and stormwater management.

Ms. Barry is also responsible for the management and oversight of the Medford Clean Energy Committee (MCEC), a 9-member appointed board created by Mayor Michael J. McGlynn in January 2004 to analyze the opportunities for siting renewable energy technologies in Medford, particularly a wind turbine.

Prior to her position as the Environmental Agent for the City of Medford, Ms. Barry was a wetland biologist and permitting specialist for a private consulting firm in Boston where she conducted environmental assessments for wind developers such as Florida Power and Light, Invenergy, Atlantic Renewable Energy and Zilkha.

JONATHAN CROWE

Jon Crowe is a graduate student at Tufts University's Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning program. He has lived in Medford since 2004 and worked as the City's Energy Efficiency Coordinator from 2006 to 2007 and is currently an associate member of the Medford Clean Energy Committee. Before starting school in the fall of 2008, he worked for a year as a Program Associate for ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, a non-profit that helps local governments around the world manage energy use and emissions, and pursue other sustainability initiatives.

ROBERT IRWIN

Bob Irwin has been involved with grassroots education on environmental and related social issues for three decades. Over 110,000 copies of his article "Why Nonviolence? Nonviolence Theory for the Anti-Nuclear Movement" (1978; 2nd ed., 1984; web, 2002) have been distributed among citizens opposing nuclear power plants. He co-authored two editions of a manual for organizing action-oriented grassroots study groups on the interrelation of ecological and other issues ("macro-analysis seminars") that was used by more than 200 local groups in the 1970s and 1980s.

At the Philadelphia Life Center he helped to educate many would-be activists regarding nonviolence and organizing social change campaigns (including Marc Breslow, now the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network). He has since authored "Building a Peace System" (1989), another guide to readings for grassroots study groups, which includes a chapter on the ecological and economic requirements for a world without war. He helped to establish the Program on Nonviolent Sanctions in Conflict and Defense at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs and earned a Ph.D. in sociology (1997), with a specialization in social movements, from Brandeis University. He has taught at Tufts, Holy Cross, and Brandeis, and currently teaches writing at MIT. He moved to Medford in 2004.

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