Terri Goldberg

Beginnings

Terri Goldberg has dedicated her professional life to bettering human health and the environment. Terri graduated from Hampshire College with a degree focused on environmental studies and ecology. While studying at Hampshire, she worked during her summers at the Environmental Defense Fund, the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole, and the New Alchemy Institute in Falmouth, MA. During college, she became interested in issues related to the emerging science of genetic engineering and became involved in several organizations focused on those issues and others related to the social and political impacts of science.

After completing college, Terri obtained a National Science Foundation grant to work with MASSPIRG on an educational and advocacy project focused on the Connecticut River in western Massachusetts. She then moved to Cambridge, MA to work for a non-profit organization called the Science Resource Center and managed publication of its magazine, Science for the People (SftP). Three years later she and a group of colleagues founded the non-profit Council for Responsible Genetics (CRG). As the first Executive Director of the CRG, Terri started GeneWatch, a bimonthly publication and developed the organization’s structure and governance, helped its board identify its strategic directions, and led its advocacy work. Though she left the CRG staff to start a master’s program at the Harvard School of Public Health concentrating on environmental health policy a few years later, she remained with the CRG as a member of the Board of Directors. During that time Terri worked for the US Environmental Protection Agency office in Boston on an initiative to reduce children’s exposure to lead contaminated soil in Boston. Then, she started working for a consulting firm, Industrial Economics, focusing on environmental policy analysis. Finally, Terri joined the Northeast Waste Management Officials' Association (NEWMOA).

NEWMOA Career

Terri joined NEWMOA as a Program Manager and in that capacity directed a wide range of pollution prevention, toxics reduction, solid and hazardous waste, and other projects for the Association. Terri helped develop and found the Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange (P2Rx), a national network of regional P2 information centers. And she established and oversaw the Northeast Pollution Prevention and Sustainability Roundtable. 

Upon becoming NEWMOA's Deputy Director, Terri helped to start and direct NEWMOA’s mercury efforts, including the Interstate Mercury Education and Reduction Clearinghouse (IMERC). IMERC assists states with implementing their product stewardship laws for a wide range of products that contain mercury, including product notification, labeling, phase-out, sales bans, and end-of-life collection requirements by focusing on lamps, thermostats, switches and relays, measuring devices, batteries, and others. Terri managed a regional initiative to promote fluorescent lamp recycling and conducted research and outreach on battery recycling, paint waste reuse and recycling, pharmaceutical waste, plastics recycling, and other products. She also helped to start NEWMOA’s Interstate Chemicals Clearinghouse (IC2), which assists states and local governments with implementing state producer responsibility requirements for product ingredient disclosure, alternatives assessment, and other requirements.

Then Terri became NEWMOA's Executive Director being responsible to the NEWMOA Board of Directors for managing NEWMOA’s operations and programs, managing the NEWMOA staff, writing and overseeing countless grants and contracts, and implementing NEWMOA’s hazardous waste program activities, including training of inspectors and preparation of comments on proposed federal rules.

Ken Zarker

Beginnings

Kenneth (Ken) Zarker was always there whether to protect the environment or to enjoy it, but most of all, to share (these) with others. Ken graduated with a BS in Environmental Management from the University of Houston at Clear Lake City. After graduating he started as an intern with the Bureau of Solid Waste Management in Austin, TX. Then, upon the authorization of Texas for state implementation of the RCRA program, Ken was in charge of registering hazardous waste sites. Over the years both the government organization's name changed and so did Ken's responsibilities.

Pollution Prevention Career

At a time of the renewed popularity of Earth Day, Ken was put into a new Waste Minimization Unit. He said that this career change turned out to be the best thing that ever happened in terms of starting to think about more sustainability. In this unit, he started by working on a database of recyclers in Texas and establishing a materials exchange program. Just before the Texas Water Commission joined the Texas Air Control Board to create the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC), Ken helped to establish the Office of Pollution Prevention and Recycling and the CLEAN TEXAS 2000 program which had its members commit to reducing their Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) chemical releases and/or hazardous waste generation by 50%. In addition, Ken became responsible for managing the TRI program in Texas and implemented a state-required hazardous waste technical assistance program. In the next position he was in, Ken managed an agency initiative to integrate pollution prevention into air, water, and waste regulatory programs including permitting, enforcement, inspections, rules, and compliance assistance activities. Shortly thereafter, TNRCC turned into the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and Ken became responsible for managing a statewide small business and environmental assistance program including supporting pollution prevention and compliance assistance.

A few years later, Ken left Texas and became the Pollution Prevention and Regulatory Assistance Section Manager for the Washington State Department of Ecology. Not only was he responsible for managing the section, Ken also supported the implementation of the Washington Beyond Waste program, the Mercury Chemical Action Plan, state Sustainability Executive Orders, and a Local Source Control Partnership. In addition, Ken helped facilitate the development of the By-Product Synergy Northwest Initiative to promote solid waste and industrial materials reuse and recycling.

Ken was an NPPR member for about a decade before stepping up to become the Chair of the Board of Directors and immediately being so exceptionally helpful that he was given the first MVP2 P2 Volunteer of the Year award. Over the following years, Ken continued being Co-Chair of the NPPR Pollution Prevention Policy and Integration Committee, and later served once again as Chair and then Chair Emeritus on the Board of Directors.