Episode 189: Patricia DeMarco

Patricia M. DeMarco is the Mayor of the Borough of Forest Hills, PA. (2026-2030). She is a Pittsburgh author with a doctorate in Biology from the University of Pittsburgh. She has had a fifty-year career in energy and environmental policy in both private and public sector positions. She writes and lectures in the fields of sustainability, energy and environmental policy, and natural history.

She learned her craft in public policy from Connecticut Governor Ella T. Grasso, for whom she served as policy advisor to the National Governors Association Low Level Nuclear Waste Compact negotiations. and liaison to the Connecticut Energy Advisory Board.

She served as Executive Director of the Connecticut Power Facilities Evaluation Council (siting power and telecommunication facilities). She worked in the utility industry as Demand Side Manager for the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative; she served as a Commissioner of the Regulated Utilities Commission of Alaska.

She returned to Pittsburgh in 2006 and served as Executive Director of the Rachel Carson Homestead Association then as Director of the Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham University, where she now holds an appointment as Senior Scholar and Adjunct Faculty.

She sits as Chair of the Board of Trustees for Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, and as a Board Member for the Black Appalachian Coalition and for the Mon-Metro Chamber of Commerce. And, she is a past president of the Rotary Club of Forest Hills.

Author of "In The Footsteps of Rachel Carson" and "Pathways to Our Sustainable Future," Patricia DeMarco discusses her latest work on making her community and the planet a healthier place to live. Patty's spiritual journey from Catholicism to Pantheism was discussed at length in episode #3 and is summarized here as well. Much of what she has spearheaded in local communities is replicable in the U.S. and elsewhere, and she has brought it to the world stage at international conferences.