Big news: I'm joining The Trust for Public Land

I’m thrilled to let you know that today I have been offered—and have accepted—the position of President and CEO for The Trust for Public Land.

As my friends and colleagues know, I have been very fortunate in my career, having had the opportunities to work at the Environmental Protection Agency for 19 productive years, and at the Environmental Defense Fund for 11, most recently becoming EDF’s Executive Director.

I’m tremendously proud of what I helped accomplish. At the EPA, for example, we worked with thousands of local watershed groups to clean up streams and lakes, reconnecting people with their waterfronts. At the EDF, we restored the health of valuable fisheries, partnered with companies to slash greenhouse gas emissions, and pursued new strategies to move forward to address climate change and restore the oceans to abundance.

Yet never have I been more excited about a new job than I am now about joining The Trust for Public Land.

For more than 45 years, this organization has worked tirelessly to create, expand, and protect America’s greatest treasures—its parks and other public lands. The examples are far too many to list here, but let me just mention a few: Expanding Yosemite National Park. Protecting Martin Luther King, Jr.’s childhood neighborhood as a national historic site. Helping to establish Stonewall as the first national monument to the struggle for LGBT rights.

What especially impressed and inspired me is The Trust for Public Land’s relentless focus on creating and enhancing parks that make a meaningful difference in people’s lives. Its goal is hugely ambitious: Ensure that every American is within a ten-minute walk of a park. The Trust for Public Land already met this goal for millions of people, with projects like converting alleys into community greenways in South Central Los Angeles or transforming a barren asphalt school playground in Philadelphia into a colorful, rich play space. Our challenge now is to make this true for everyone. 

At this time of growing divisions in our country, this is a goal all of us—red state or blue state—can agree on and wholeheartedly support. I know that my own life has been profoundly enriched by the connections I’ve been lucky to have with nature and the outdoors, growing up hiking and hunting in the foothills of the Rockies, exploring the wilds of the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument on my honeymoon with my husband Dan Lashof, and living in places like Arlington, Virginia, and Berkeley, California, where lush green spaces are no more than a few blocks away. And the benefits I’ve personally experienced have been borne out by study after study. The research shows that people are healthier and happier when they can stroll through a grove of trees, picnic outdoors, gaze out of a window on a forest or meadow, or just sit on a park bench. And parks help local economies thrive too.

I’m humbled and honored to join the talented people at The Trust for Public Land, who already have done so much to make this country a better place. I am determined to continue, and even accelerate, this momentum. For every success story like the new Boeddeker Park in the heart of San Francisco's Tenderloin district, within walking distant of 50,000 people, many living below the poverty line, there still are thousands of urban neighborhoods that are bleak landscapes of brown and gray, with nothing green in sight. (And if you want to know how your city is doing, The Trust for Public Land can answer that question!)

We can do more. We should do more. I want The Trust for Public Land to reach its goal of bringing parks and green open spaces to all Americans. And with my experience in creating partnerships, raising awareness and funding, reaching new constituencies, and creating new strategies, I am determined to help make that happen.