We are pleased to announce Mr. Greg Watson will be the keynote speaker!
Greg's career has spanned many of the areas important to building a sustainable world: agriculture, affordable and livable cities, addressing the needs of the poor, energy, and sustainable business practices, and protecting our natural communities and ecosystems. A dynamic and thought provoking speaker, we look forward to Greg setting the tone of the conference with lots of excitement and inspiration.
In October 1999 Greg Watson was named the first program director for the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust. Created by the1997 law restructuring the electric utility industry, the Trust will have $150 million over the next five years and $20 million a year after that -- to accelerate the use of cleaner sources of electricity and invest in the development of renewable energy industry in the Commonwealth.
From 1995 to 1999 Watson served as executive director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI), a resident-driven community planning organization in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Founded in 1984 to help revitalize the economically disenfranchised Dudley area of Boston, DSNI is the only community-based nonprofit in the country ever to be granted eminent domain authority over its abandoned parcels of land. The residents of this community developed a comprehensive redevelopment plan with the ultimate goal of creating a multicultural urban village in which urban agriculture and energy efficiency figure prominently.
Watson had been Director of Educational Programs for Second Nature, a nonprofit organization dedicated to establishing systems thinking and sustainable development as the centerpiece for educational programs at all levels. Second Nature conducts workshops on systems thinking for faculty leaders, who are committed to training their colleagues.
Prior to joining Second Nature, Watson was Director of The Nature Conservancy's Eastern Regional Office in 1993. The Nature Conservancy is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving plants, animals and natural communities by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. He developed a nationwide survey for the Conservancy to assess the impact that agriculture is having on that organization's ecosystem-based strategy to protect biodiversity.
Watson served as the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture from October 1990 to June 1993. The department's two primary missions are to protect public health and safety and preserve environmental quality through the regulation of all agricultural production activities and, secondarily to develop both the market and demand for locally-grown produce. As commissioner he worked on a number of initiatives designed to further sustainable agriculture within the Commonwealth. These included a set of groundwater protection regulations that encouraged farmers to adopt integrated pest management strategies, and a dairy pricing order designed to keep dairy farmers on the land by providing them with a fair price for the milk they produce.
Prior to becoming commissioner, Watson was the Executive Director of the New Alchemy Institute. The New Alchemy Institute was a non-profit research and education center dedicated to developing environmentally sound approaches to agriculture. The Institute's staff works closely with farmers throughout New England to build programs in sustainable agriculture. Watson became Executive Director of the Institute in 1989. He served as the Institute's Education Director from 1980 to 1983. In 1983, Mr. Watson was appointed Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology within the Massachusetts Executive Office of Economic Affairs, a post he held until 1989. From 1983 through 1986 he also served as Deputy Director of the Massachusetts Centers of Excellence Corporation (MCEC), an agency designed to expedite the process of technology transfer between academic institutions and technology-based companies in the Commonwealth. He became the first Director of the Massachusetts Office of Science and Technology in 1986.
From 1978 through 1979 Mr. Watson worked as a consultant to the Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture. He coordinated the planning and implementation of a network of neighborhood-based farmers' markets in the Greater Boston Metropolitan area.
Mr. Watson formerly chaired the science department of Charles River Academy and taught environmental science at the Thompson Island Education Center. He serves on the board of directors of Ocean Arks International and a founding member of "Clean Air-Cool Planet" a Northeast Alliance whose mission is to encourage businesses and institutions to voluntarily compliance with the goals of the Kyoto Protocol. He attended Tufts University where he majored in Civil Engineering. He also developed a self-directed program in Environmental Design Science at Campus-Free College in Boston.
