The Mystic River Watershed Association’s first-ever virtual annual meeting was a mix of mingling, and a brief program featuring a video update from staff (big thanks to volunteer Caroline Brown), election of board members via Zoom polling, an impressive financial report, and volunteer and community awards.
Though virtual, more than 80 MyRWA members attended—many joining early to say hello over Zoom. It was a fantastic opportunity to thank our many volunteers who have made an impact, even in 2020.
AWARDS
VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR - JULIE ING STERN
This year—for volunteer of the year we are recognizing Julie Ing Stern. Before Covid-19, Julie was always the first to raise her hand to table for MyRWA—especially if it was at her favorite store Patagonia. She has been a dedicated herring monitor at Horn Pond for the last two years—part of the inaugural crew monitoring at this site, and counting herring online. This year she jumped at the chance to participate in both of our virtual Herring Run and Paddle events, plus our TrashTag Challenge. She was even out there with us on the close to 100 degree day painting the new Mystic Lake Mural. Julie has built swallow boxes and solicited for donations. We are continually impressed. Thanks for all you do!
RIPPLE AWARD - MAGDALENA AYED
The 2020 Ripple Award goes to Magdalena Ayed, a widely-recognized leader in the Lower Mystic Watershed focused on climate equity and waterfront access, especially in East Boston. Magdalena founded The Harborkeepers in 2016 with a mission to build equitable and sustainable coastal community resiliency and foster environmental stewardship. She works predominantly with East Boston residents of color to perform waterfront cleanups, go on urban nature walks, and participate in re-envisioning Chelsea Creek from a poorly maintained industrial area to something that provides more jobs, habitat, and beauty. She is a leader in social resiliency as an essential aspect of climate preparedness. We have gratefully adopted her best practices around engaging priority communities—especially people whose first language is not English. She's wonderful to work with and brings tremendous integrity, grace, and lived experience to our work together. We am excited to present this award to Magdalena, and to continue to work with her to pilot equity-based climate resilience projects to protect East Boston for low-income and working class residents and workers. Thank you Magdalena!
WATER QUALITY MONITORS
Our baseline water quality monitors are the folks who go out every month at 6 in the morning to collect samples for us, in all weather and all year long. Because of these volunteers, we have a really valuable 20-year data set on conditions in the Mystic River Watershed. The EPA water quality report card comes out of this work. It’s public knowledge that would not exist if volunteers didn’t contribute their time every month. As such we recognize these donors who have given 5 and then 10 years of service –as listed below:
Newly Elected Board Members
David Burson is an architect with over forty years of planning, design and project management experience in both private and public sector practice. His work has focused primarily in the areas of institutional facilities programming, design and campus planning, and urban transportation and infrastructure project planning, design and joint development. Mr. Burson is a Senior Project Manager with Mass General Brigham Real Estate and Facilities.
Lawrence (Larry) Feldman, Ph.D, LSP is a senior principal at the environmental and geotechnical consulting firm of GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc. His work is primarily on the assessment and remediation of sites contaminated by oil and hazardous material, and on providing litigation support in cases involving such sites. He is an appointee to DEP’s Hazardous Waste Site Cleanup Advisory Committee. He served on the Board of Registration of Hazardous Waste Site Cleanup Professionals (“Licensed Site Professionals”) from its creation in 1992 until 2004, and served on the Board of the LSP Association from 2004 until 2009, including a term as President. He also serves on the Public Affairs Committee of the MA chapter of NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association. Pronouns: he/him/his
Charles Holley is a finance professional with over twenty years of experience between the private, public and nonprofit sectors. Currently, he is the Director of Finance and Administration at Boston Harbor Now and former CFO of Dudley Street Neighbor Initiative. His nonprofit work has been focused on understanding how finances impact not just the sustainability of the organization but also the people that are supporting the organization; identifying and implementing systems that improve reporting and streamlining processes to gain efficiencies. He is a graduate of Johnson & Wales where he earned a degree in accounting. Pronouns: he/him/his
Marcia Manong is a resident of Malden, and works as Office Manager at Bread of Life, which offers free food to hungry, homeless, isolated people through dinners, food pantries, senior nutrition outreach, and food delivery in Malden and surrounding cities. She has for many years exercised her civic duty through participation in social justice and human rights issues. Marcia’s latest engagement is with the Malden River Works (MRW) Project, an experimental resilience project bringing together a new coalition of community leaders of color, youth, environmental advocates, and government stakeholders. Pronouns: she/her/hers
Monica Nakielski and her team are responsible for providing vision and leadership in the design and development of BCBSMA’s sustainability and environmental health strategy. Her team works with BCBSMA’s senior business leaders, vendors and manufacturers, and community partners to align and implement the environmental health strategy and to create business, environmental, and societal value. Monica serves as a board member of Healthy Building Network, member of the steering committees for The Chemical Footprint project, and sits on the City of Boston’s Zero Waste Advisory Committee. Monica has a bachelor’s degree in Medical Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a master’s in business administration from Simmons College, and has completed executive education in sustainability leadership from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Pronouns: she/her/hers
John Reinhardt has been vitally involved with the Mystic River Watershed Association for over 30 years, starting as its first part-time Executive Director and serving as Board president in the 1990s, as well as for 12 years starting in 2006. He is also currently serving on the Board of Cambridge HEET, a small but very effective climate change action group currently tackling natural gas leaks. Professionally, he was an environmental policy analyst for the USEPA and MassDEP for over 35 years. He served as a conservation commissioner for the City of Somerville for 19 years. Lastly, John is a certified Kundalini Yoga Teacher. Pronouns: he/him/his
Britney Satterlee is a Manager in PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP's Abandoned and Unclaimed Property practice. Before joining PwC, she worked at a boutique firm specializing in the recovery of abandoned and unclaimed property for corporations. Britney holds a B.A. from Smith College and is a resident of Somerville. She can often be found running along the streets and pathways in Somerville and the surrounding cities. Pronouns: she/her/hers
See board member bios here.
FINANCIAL REPORTING
Don’t miss out—watch the Mystic staff updates here.
