Protecting Inspiration for Generations To Come
Featuring Ned Sullivan and Jon Bowermaster
Join award winning eco-leaders Ned Sullivan, president of Scenic Hudson, and filmmaker Jon Bowermaster as they share their stories and short films on the legacy of defending the beauty and health of the Hudson Valley, building on its legacy as the birthplace of America's modern environmental movement.
President of Scenic Hudson since 1999, Ned Sullivan has directed the organization through a period of dramatic growth in its regional impact. Today the organization is recognized as a regional and national leader in its field, recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal in 2007 and the Land Trust Alliance’s National Land Trust Excellence Award in 2011. Under his leadership, the organization has forged partnerships responsible for preserving thousands of acres of critical open space and farmland, and cleaning up contaminated waterfronts and transforming them into magnificent public parks. Scenic Hudson also played pivotal leadership and supporting roles in three of the region’s most extraordinary projects: Walkway Over The Hudson; creation of the world-class Dia:Beacon Museum; and “daylighting” the Saw Mill River in Yonkers. Reflecting Mr. Sullivan’s effectiveness in fostering green job-creation, in 2011 Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed him as the only environmental representative on his economic development council. Prior to joining Scenic Hudson, Mr. Sullivan served as Environmental Commissioner of Maine, where his hallmark was bringing together environmental and business leaders across party lines. Among his achievements, he guided into law landmark legislation ending the discharge of deadly dioxins from pulp and paper company facilities. He also conceived and implemented an international compact on mercury emissions; all New England states and Canada’s Eastern Provinces made binding commitments to slash these harmful emissions over a decade prior to federal action. As deputy commissioner of New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation from 1987 to 1995, Mr. Sullivan was charged with starting up the state’s $1-billion hazardous waste cleanup initiative, and oversaw air, water and waste management programs, as well as passage of federal and state Superfund laws. He also served on a Presidential task force that created an innovative federal-state loan program to finance billions of dollars in wastewater treatment infrastructure across the country, and implemented the program in New York State. Mr. Sullivan also spent time as a vice president and managing director at the Bank of Boston, where he assisted government and corporate clients in obtaining funding for major capital projects involving energy and environmental facilities and real estate. As financial advisor to Massachusetts’ secretary of environmental affairs, he helped develop legislation to finance the multibillion-dollar Boston Harbor cleanup. Mr. Sullivan earned a B.A. in political science, and a coordinate degree in environmental studies from Williams College, and master’s degrees from Yale University’s School of Management, and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. In recognition of his “dedication and willingness to build the necessary bridges, battle through the bureaucratic red tape and address financial and technical challenges,” Mr. Sullivan received the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Distinguished Service Award in 2012.
Writer, filmmaker and adventurer, Jon is a six-time grantee of the National Geographic Expeditions Council. One of the Society’s ‘Ocean Heroes,’ his first assignment for National Geographic Magazine was documenting a 3,741 mile crossing of Antarctica by dogsled.
Jon has written eleven books and produced/directed more than thirty documentary films. His feature documentaries include ‘Dear President Obama,’ ‘Antarctica, on the Edge,’ ‘After the Spill’ and ‘Ghost Fleet.’ (oceans8films.com)
His National Geographic-sponsored Oceans 8 project took him and his teams around the world by sea kayak over the course of ten years (1999-2008), bringing back stories from the Aleutian Islands to French Polynesia, Gabon to Tasmania, and more, reporting on how the planet’s one ocean and its various coastlines are faring in today’s busy world.
Jon lives in New York’s Hudson Valley. He is the President of the One Ocean Media Foundation and Chairman of the Advisory Board of Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation.
For the past several years, Jon and his One Ocean Media Foundation / Oceans 8 Films team have focused on a series of short films about the environmental risks to, and hopes for the Hudson River Valley, the birthplace of the American environmental movement. (hudsonriverstories.com)
Jon is a Visiting Lecturer at Bard College, in the Environment and Urban Studies Department; tune into his weekly radio show/podcast, ‘The Green Radio Hour with Jon Bowermaster, at radiokingston.org.