Deb Markowitz, visiting professor at the University of Vermont in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, has received a 2017 EPA New England Lifetime Achievement Award. The award honors the region’s most committed environmental leaders who have made lasting improvements to New England’s environment during their careers or lifetimes.

Markowitz, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources from 2011 until 2017, was one of seven 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award recipients invited to the EPA New England Environmental Merit Awards Ceremony in Boston in May.

“The Rubenstein School is very fortunate to have Deb Markowitz as part of our faculty,” said Dean Nancy Mathews. “Her significant contributions to environmental protection and leadership serve to make her a role model for students and faculty alike.”

“It is her unmatched ability to create wins for the environment in our special state,” wrote Sarah McKearnan, former ANR special assistant for climate policy, who nominated Markowitz for the award, “and her commitment to bringing Vermont’s environmental influence and good ideas, small as we may be, to national and international arenas where the challenges we face are grave and daunting, and where the opportunities to motivate transformative change are tremendous.”

McKearnan described pulling up to the airport parking booth with Deb Markowitz after returning to Vermont from the last meeting of President Obama’s Task Force of State, Local and Tribal Leaders on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, where Markowitz represented the State of Vermont.

“As she opens the window to offer her credit card, the attendant greets her with a deluge of warm appreciation for her service to Vermonters as our Secretary of Natural Resources. One can’t go anywhere in Vermont in Deb’s company without the same story replaying,” wrote McKearnan.

While leading the Agency of Natural Resources, Markowitz shaped Vermont’s environmental agenda, focusing on the challenges of climate change, forest health, and cleaning up Lake Champlain.

During her tenure, the agency secured new protections for Vermont’s lake shorelines, a new Lake Champlain plan for reducing phosphorus pollution, and new universal recycling requirements; increased attention to forest fragmentation; and created Vermont Parks Forever, a foundation to enhance and protect the state’s parks.

In the wake of Hurricane Irene, Markowitz worked to strengthen flood resilience planning in the state. She brought agency leaders together to address climate change impacts and both prepare for and work to mitigate climate change by reducing carbon emissions.

“Deb Markowitz is a proven leader with national stature on climate, energy, and resilience issues,” said Vicky Arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center. “Representing the small state of Vermont, she has left a large legacy. Her strategic vision and leadership in regional collaborations such as our Transportation and Climate Initiative have been essential to maintaining the momentum of regional, bipartisan efforts to reduce emissions and energy use from this important sector.”

Markowitz continues to educate constituents and policymakers through op-eds and speaking engagements and by convening dialogues that create pathways for policy change.

She speaks nationally and internationally on the importance of state action in the fight against climate change, having served on the board of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. She represented Vermont at the United Nations Summits on Climate Change in Paris and Morocco. 

“Deb Markowitz oversaw tremendous and positive transformations in Vermont’s work on climate change mitigation, clean water, and wild land conservation as Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources,” said Trey Martin, deputy secretary under Markowitz, then appointed to secretary of the Vermont Agency of Administration, “but perhaps her greatest gift was the culture of continuous process improvement that she instilled in her leadership team, managers, and agency personnel.”

“There is no more important work than protecting the people and the places we love,” said Markowitz, who was also elected Vermont’s Secretary of State six times serving 1999 to 2011. “I feel lucky to have gotten to work with the passionate and mission driven workforce at the Agency of Natural Resources.”

Markowitz is a graduate of the University of Vermont (1983) and earned her Juris Doctorate degree from the Georgetown University Law Center (1987). She clerked for Louis Peck of the Vermont Supreme Court, and she served as founding director of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns Municipal Law Center. Markowitz serves on the boards of advisors for the Georgetown Climate Center, Antioch’s Center for Climate Preparedness and Community Resilience, and the Rubenstein School, where she teaches on environmental policy and leadership.