Federal Policy Briefing 2013 Meet the Speakers Secretary Shaun Donovan (Keynote) U.S. Secretary, Housing and Urban Development His tenure as HUD Secretary has reflected his commitment to making quality housing possible for every American. Under Secretary Donovan’s leadership HUD has helped stabilize the housing market and worked to keep responsible families in their homes. The agency has instituted reforms that have solidified the Federal Housing Administration’s financial position and protected the taxpayer against risk, while still preserving FHA’s mission of providing responsible access to homeownership. Secretary Donovan has reaffirmed HUD’s commitment to building strong, sustainable, inclusive neighborhoods that are connected to education and jobs and provide access to opportunity for all Americans. In December 2012, President Obama signed an Executive Order creating the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force and appointed Secretary Donovan as Chair. The Task Force is charged with creating a comprehensive regional plan, based on local vision for redevelopment, to guide long term disaster recovery efforts. Secretary Donovan previously served as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). He created and implemented HPD's plan to build and preserve 165,000 affordable homes. Before his service as HPD Commissioner, Donovan worked in the private sector on financing affordable housing, and was a visiting scholar at New York University. He was also a consultant to the Millennial Housing Commission. Donovan rejoined HUD after his previous service in the Clinton administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing. He also served as acting FHA Commissioner during the Clinton/Bush presidential transition. Prior to his first service at HUD, he worked at the Community Preservation Corporation in New York City, a non-profit developer of affordable housing. Donovan holds a B.A. and Masters degrees in Public Administration and Architecture from Harvard. Margie Alt Executive Director, Environment America As director Margie helped grow Environment America to include 29 state groups, nearly 100 professional staff, and over 1 million members, activists and allies in all 50 states. Environment America is a leading ‘outside game’ player in the U.S. environmental movement working for clean air, clean water and open spaces. Marco Cocito-monoc Director for Regional Initiatives, Greater New Orleans Foundation GNOF’s regional initiatives are overseen by Dr. Marco Cocito-Monoc, who has been working in this capacity since the summer of 2007. Marco has extensive experience in community revitalization and economic development, having been executive director of Baltimore’s Southeast Community Development Corporation for four years and, prior to that, having led economic development initiatives at the municipal and regional levels. During his tenure at GNOF, Marco has restructured the Environmental Fund (the foundation's second largest pool of resources) and created the Coastal 5+1 Initiative to assist SE Louisiana's coastal communities in their efforts to adapt to wetland loss. Lee Crockett Director, U.S. Fisheries Campaigns, Pew Charitable Trusts Lee is the director of U.S. Fisheries Campaigns for the Pew Charitable Trusts. In this capacity, he oversees the development and implementation of campaigns to end overfishing, improve the management of forage fish, and transition the U.S. to ecosystem-based fisheries management on the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts. He joined Pew in June 2007 as its director of Federal Fisheries Policy and oversaw three projects: 1) ending overfishing under the authority of Magnuson- Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA); 2) transitioning Gulf of Mexico surface longline fishing to more selective gear to protect spawning Bluefin tuna and other ocean wildlife; and 3) improving the management of Atlantic Bluefin tuna in the U.S. and internationally. Prior to joining Pew he was the executive director of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, a position he held since November 1998. The Network is the largest U.S. coalition of fishing and environmental interests solely dedicated to promoting the sustainable management of ocean fish. The Network completed a successful campaign in December 2006 to renew and strengthen the MSA. Lee was also a fishery biologist with the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for four years where he led agency efforts to protect essential fish habitat. Before joining NMFS, he was a professional staff member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries for eight years. Lee has a BS in Biology and a MS in Biological Oceanography from the University of Connecticut. Prior to attending college, he served in the U.S. Coast Guard for nearly four years. Heather Cronk Managing Director, GetEQUAL Managing Director, Heather Cronk joined GetEQUAL in May 2010. Prior to her work with GetEQUAL, Heather was the Chief Operating Officer at the New Organizing Institute, overseeing operations and expanding programs. Heather has also worked with organizations such as mySociety in the U.K. and with Idealist.org in the U.S., always focused on building community and pushing for tangible social change. A native of Lexington, KY, Heather holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in religion/philosophy from Berry College in Rome, GA, and a Master of Divinity degree from Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem, NC. You can reach Heather by emailing her at heather at getequal dot org. Danielle Deane Director of Energy and Environment Program, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Danielle Deane is the first Director of the Joint Center’s Energy and Environment Program. Formerly, Ms. Deane completed the full eight-year term as an Environment Program Officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in California. Earlier in her career, Ms. Deane was a financial analyst and broker at Guy Carpenter and Company, the international reinsurance brokerage arm of Marsh and McLennan Companies. She also conducted research at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Ms. Deane was selected to be a Fellow of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and was a 2007-2008 Connecting Leaders Fellow of the Association of Black Foundation Executives (ABFE). She also served on the board of the Environmental Grantmakers Association. Projjal Dutta Director of Sustainability Initiatives, Metropolitan Transit Authority Projjal K. Dutta is New York State Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s first ever Director of Sustainability. He has two primary responsibilities: 1) To reduce the environmental footprint of the MTA and 2) to verifiably measure the carbon benefits that accrue to the region, due to the MTA’s operations. Projjal was instrumental in the MTA’s carbon footprint being measured, verified and registered with the Climate Registry. He has also played a leadership role in the transit industry’s effort to quantify its carbon benefits through his work on the Climate Change Working Group of the American Public Transportation Association. He has lectured and written extensively on the subject of ‘carbon avoidance’; including at Harvard, Yale and Columbia Universities. Projjal has more than twenty years of experience in projects ranging in scale from urban to residential, with a particular emphasis on sustainable design. Before joining the MTA, he worked as a sustainable architecture consultant for a large range of projects and clients, in both private and public sectors. He combined the practice of architecture and urban design with cutting-edge sustainable design strategies that result in energy, material, and other resource conservation. He believes that sustainability is imperative for all development and should be an essential part of the tool-kit of any designer of the built environment. Juliet Eilperin Environmental Reporter, The Washington Post Juliet Eilperin joined The Washington Post as the House of Representatives reporter, where she covered the impeachment of Bill Clinton, lobbying, legislation, and four national congressional campaigns. Since April of 2004 she has covered the environment for the national desk, reporting on science, policy and politics in areas including climate change, oceans, and air quality. In pursuit of these stories she has gone scuba diving with sharks in the Bahamas, trekking on the Arctic tundra with Selma Hayek and Jake Gyllenhaal, and searching on her hands and knees for rare insects in the caves of Tennessee. A native Washingtonian, Juliet graduated in 1992 magna cum laude from Princeton University, where she received a bachelor's in politics. Dominic Frongillo Councilmember, Caroline, NY Dominic Frongillo is the Deputy Town Supervisor and Councilor of Caroline, New York. Frongillo founded Elected Officials to Protect New York, a bipartisan initiative of over 575 elected officials from all 62 counties in the state calling on Governor Cuomo to continue the moratorium on fracking until the drilling method is proven safe for all New Yorkers. Internationally-recognized for his work in climate change and clean energy, Frongillo is a finalist for the national 2012 Barbara Jordan Leadership Award from the Young Elected Officials Network. Kevin Hassett John G. Searle Senior Fellow and Director of Economic Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute Before joining AEI, he was a senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and an associate professor