Dear NESEA Friends,

After eight years with NESEA, Miriam Aylward will be leaving to pursue another professional opportunity. Her last day at NESEA will be July 1, 2022, although she will stay on in a consulting role through the end of the calendar year. This announcement is certainly bittersweet. The NESEA community is dear to Miriam’s heart, and it is hard to say goodbye and to end a partnership that has been so beneficial for our community.

At the same time, we are delighted to announce that the NESEA Board has voted to appoint Florence MacGregor as Interim Executive Director of NESEA.

Flo was hired as NESEA’s Program & Membership Coordinator in 2015, and has taken on additional responsibilities since then, having served most recently as Program Director. If you have attended a NESEA event in the last seven years, chances are that you have had the opportunity to meet Flo and appreciate her capacity for organization, strategic thinking, and commitment to NESEA’s mission and vision. Over the last four years, Flo has built a thriving Emerging Professionals program and has spearheaded NESEA’s diversity and inclusion initiatives. She has also been instrumental in helping the Board to build the stable, resilient organization that we have today. In her new role, she will continue to work with the Board, staff, and membership to fulfill NESEA’s mission, and to grow our impact.

For this interim period, the Board has assembled a Transition Task Force that will be responsible for guiding the organization through the transition and establishing a permanent leadership plan. The strength of NESEA’s interim leadership will allow the Task Force to think carefully about where NESEA heads next and how we can best meet the goals set forth by our new strategic plan. The Task Force will be seeking your input and would appreciate hearing your thoughts, as always.

We are confident that the organization is in excellent shape and in very capable hands with Flo as Interim Executive Director. We have a new strategic plan, which was developed with the input of hundreds of NESEA community members. We have excellent volunteer leadership in place for the BuildingEnergy NYC and Boston conferences, an open magazine RFP, and a growing list of companies that are in the process of joining our BuildingEnergy Bottom Lines program. We received our first grant in over a decade and are delighted to be partnering with other organizations and schools to develop programming for voc/tech students in the Boston area interested in the trades, among other new initiatives.

We would be happy to answer any questions you might have. Feel free to reach out to NESEA's Executive Committee at exec@nesea.org or Florence directly at fmacgregor@nesea.org.

Warm regards,
Rachel White, Board Chair