Cash Flow

I'm the director of air policy for the state of Massachusetts in the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. EOEA is an umbrella agency that oversees and coordinates the activities of numerous other environment-related agencies such as the Department of Environmental Protection (the state analog of federal EPA), Coastal Zone Management, Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, and the Department of Agricultural Resources.

After college I worked at a sheep ranch/tree farm in eastern Oregon. Organic, holistic management, and deer hunting to fill the freezer for the winter. Gorgeous sunsets. As much as I loved sheep, I am vegetarian ...

144. I probably won't be able to reduce this number to a manageable 20 until early next week.

I was very worried when I took a job for the state about the stereotypes of state workers (inefficient, slackers), but none were true. I've been very impressed with the dedication and high-quality work of my coworkers. Naturally there are those inside and outside of state government who have widely divergent views on what makes good environmental policy, but that's part of what we're doing -- I see part of my role as trying to figure out good policy in the context of controversy and seemingly mutually exclusive interests.

I was born in New York City, raised in the Westchester suburbs, and I am settled now in Newton, Mass. (outside of Boston).

One of my first jobs was to facilitate a public meeting on long-held transit plans that the state was thinking about changing. For four hours, speaker after speaker (100-plus) rose to the microphone to berate us for abandoning our commitments, for killing kids in an urban area because of the air-quality benefits we were forgoing, and for abusing the trust that had been given to us. The meeting went fine, but I was left with a feeling of failing the public I've promised to serve.

I'm not sure this is an environmental offense, but I'm finding it very frustrating to deal with local environmental groups who are providing all kinds of roadblocks to the development of wind energy. There seems to be an inability to make a connection between desiring a halt to climate change and local air pollution and what that actually might entail in terms of giving up some other environmental things of value. One environmental group (national with local and regional chapters) recently came out with a strongly worded climate action plan but has only opposed proposed wind projects.

I fly in airplanes to go to pretty places.

I'm in a book club, and we rotate between fiction and nonfiction. A recent book we read that I highly recommend for insight into power, governance, and public trust is The Power Broker, about Robert Moses and how he completely reshaped the landscape of metropolitan New York from 1930 through the 1960s -- a cautionary tale. For fiction, I just finished The Kite Runner, about Afghanistan, moral choices, and family/social ties -- also highly recommended.

The desert Southwest -- the place I had most of my early wilderness experiences. Though after being in the arid West for a long time, smelling rotting leaves in the Northeastern forests is very grounding.

In some areas, beginning to make the connection between environmental protection and economic development -- truly seeking sustainable development.

It's too solipsistic -- an awful word I learned in a literature class in college that I recall meaning "too self-absorbed" and I see in the dictionary as "the theory that the self can be aware of nothing but its own experiences and states." It fits well with current environmentalism. Self-reflection is good, but enough already! Let's put our energy into making real change happen!

Reform electoral financing.

The Beatles. The Beatles.

I only watch one TV show: The West Wing. Favorite movie: The Gary Sinise 1992 remake of Of Mice and Men. My wife had to drive home while I wept uncontrollably after seeing it.

The balance in my life: I have a family, wife, and two daughters that are an utter and complete delight of spark and intensity; I have a great job that I look forward to going to (there have even been some Fridays when I left work thinking, "I'm psyched for Monday"), in which I can exercise creativity, play to my strengths, and develop new skills. I work hard at not letting one of these overpower the other.

As I noted in my comments above, too much time is being spent introspectively analyzing the environmental movement and its supposed death. Stop reading the premature postmortems (including in places like Grist) and devote your energies to working in communities, with the public sector, with the private sector, with the firms that we have historically battled against. Build bridges, leverage relationships, find out what the real interests of your "adversaries" are, and see how they overlap with your interests.