Academics
Serving & Shaping Her World Speakers Series
Environmental Panel
Laurie Burt ’67
Laurie Burt, founder of the environmental law practice at the Boston firm of Foley Hoag LLP, is commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP). MassDEP is responsible for ensuring clean air and water, safe management and recycling of solid and hazardous wastes, timely cleanup of hazardous waste sites and spills, and the preservation of wetlands and coastal resources.
Burt is a senior partner at Foley Hoag and the first woman to serve on the firm's elected executive committee. With expertise in state and federal hazardous waste and Superfund laws, Clean Air Acts, Clean Water Acts, as well as wetlands, endangered species, and environmental impact regulations, Burt has focused her practice on environmental compliance and land use redevelopment projects. She has worked with corporate and real estate clients to find creative solutions to environmental challenges to property transactions and redevelopment, including new wastewater strategies, new stabilization and treatment technologies for contaminated soils, conservation restrictions to improve site utilization, renewable energy use and other means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. She has represented national and international corporations, real estate developers, educational institutions, and public authorities in environmental litigation, enforcement actions, voluntary cleanups, and permit activities.
Prior to joining Foley Hoag in 1980, Burt was an assistant attorney general in environmental law enforcement. She is currently vice president of the Boston Bar Association and was scheduled to become President-Elect in September. She is also co-chair of the Appalachian Mountain Club's board of advisors, having served as president of the board of directors from 2000 to 2004.
Burt received her law degree from Boston College Law School. She also earned a master's degree in urban affairs from Boston University and a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin.
[Adapted from the Mass. DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) website: http://www.mass.gov/dep/public/0707bur.htm]
Sierra Murdoch '05
Sierra Murdoch '05 is a junior at Middlebury College, majoring in Environmental Studies and Conservation Biology. She is a part of the Middlebury Sunday Night Group (SNG), a non-hierarchical, open forum devoted to enacting solutions to global warming and considered nationally to be a model for college activist organizations. Through SNG, she has worked on making Middlebury College "carbon neutral" by 2016 and has assisted fellow Middlebury students in planning national demonstrations, such as Step it Up. In the summer of 2007, she helped found and lead a campaign called Climate Summer, committed to making climate change solutions a priority for New Hampshire voters and presidential candidates in the 2008 elections.
Erin Crotty '84
With 17 years of experience in environmental management in the public and private sectors, Erin M. Crotty has demonstrated her skill as a leader in this complex field. In 2005, Crotty founded The Crotty Group, LLC, a management consulting firm that assists corporations, governments and non-governmental organizations with the complex issues relating to the environment, energy, economic development, and land use. The corporate practice area focuses on corporate social responsibility—the integration and alignment of the environmental and social aspects of a company into their business strategy to gain competitive advantage.
In March 2001, Crotty was nominated by New York Governor George E. Pataki, and unanimously confirmed by the New York State Senate, to become the first woman to lead the Department of Environmental Conservation. Crotty held the position of commissioner for nearly four years, and her leadership solidified New York as a national leader on environmental issues.
As commissioner, Crotty led a professional staff of over 3,300 and an annual budget of approximately $1 billion. Crotty worked along side Governor Pataki in preserving over 900,000 acres of precious open space, was a chief architect of the historic Superfund/Brownfields law of 2003—ensuring a continued source of funding to clean up the state's contaminated sites, spearheaded the implementation of the toughest acid rain regulations in the country, reached two landmark agreements covering six coal-fired power plants that will achieve the largest reduction in air pollution levels ever attained through settlement, was a chief architect of the historic 1997 New York City Watershed Agreement, spearheaded efforts to reduce greenhouse gases in the Northeast, implemented the $1.75 billion Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act, and managed the agency's response to the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
Prior to becoming commissioner, Crotty was a deputy commissioner at the department, served as Governor Pataki's director of special environmental projects, was a policy analyst with the New York State Senate, a government liaison for Plug Power, Inc., and held other positions in the private sector.
Crotty was named Conservationist of the Year by The Adirondack Council, received the New York State Bar Association's Environmental Law Section award, received the Long Island Sound Guardian Award, the Outstanding Young Alumnae Award from Emma Willard School, an award for her work to preserve Long Island Sound from the Westchester County Chapter of the League of Conservation Voters, and was profiled in the National Journal May 2004 special report for her work on climate change as one of the 100 people whose ideas will help shape the debates over ten important issues.
Crotty presently serves on the board of directors for Audubon New York, is a member of the board of rrustees of Emma Willard School and the president of its Alumnae Association, is a member of the dean's advisory council for Siena College's School of Business, and is on the capital campaign for the Albany Pine Bush Discovery Center.
Crotty holds a B.A. in Political Science from Russell Sage College and an M.S. in urban and environmental studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
[Adapted from http://www.ahcgroup.com/associates_erincrotty.htm]
Websites and organizations recommended by the panelists:
From Erin:
General Environmental Issues (including global warming)
National Resources Defense Council
The Secret Life of Cell Phones
Green Living
National Resources Defense Council/Green Living
Environmental Defense/New Year's Resolutions
Oprah Winfrey Show/Going Green
From Sierra:
Organization that The Sierra Club founded last summer: www.climatesummer.org
Two organizations she is excited about (provide solutions for global warming):
1Sky and Green For All
Candidates' positions on climate change, from The NewYork Times providing a very comprehensive summary of the platforms:
http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/issues/index.html#/context=index/issue=climate.
From Trudy Hall (from discussions with panelists at environmental dinner)
Van Jones (his personal Web site)
Everything's Cool: Green Job Revolution (film from utube)—Van Jones
