New EPA head Gina McCarthy proud of local roots

When Gina McCarthy took a job as her hometown health agent back in 1980, she never dreamed that she would one day be rubbing shoulders with national leaders or that she would eventually become one herself.

Gina McCarthy

She certainly didn’t envision a day that she would be standing alongside the president of the United States as he announced her appointment as the nation’s top environmental official.

Yet here it is nearly 35 years later, and McCarthy is now Administrator McCarthy, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the person hand-picked by President Obama to usher in his ambitious climate change agenda.

In the span of just ten short months, the Canton native has gone from political unknown to Washington power broker and a trusted member of Obama’s cabinet. She has also greatly enhanced her public profile, traveling the country and appearing on national news programs, including a recent visit to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Needless to say, McCarthy is a very busy woman these days, and yet she still somehow finds the time to make it back to the Boston area almost every weekend to be with her husband, Kenneth McCarey, and to visit with their three adult children: Daniel, Maggie, and Julie.

The administrator was also recently in town on Earth Day, April 22, as part of a five-city tour to promote the Obama Administration’s policies on climate change. Together with U.S. Energy Secretary and fellow Massachusetts native Ernest Moniz, McCarthy appeared on morning talk shows, met with local business leaders, attended an Earth Day event at the New England Aquarium, and threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Fenway Park — a dream come true for both lifelong Red Sox fans.

A few hours prior to game time, McCarthy caught up with the Citizen to discuss her time in Canton and how it paved the way for a long and rewarding career in public service that continues to this day.

Speaking via telephone from Boston, McCarthy noted that her roots in the town run deep. “My family moved there when I was young,” she recalled. “We lived on Meetinghouse Road (off Turnpike Street). I went to St. John’s School and later attended Fontbonne Academy.”

McCarthy went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in social anthropology from UMass Boston and a joint master’s degree in environmental health engineering and planning and policy from Tufts University, and in 1980, at the age of 26, she landed a job as the town of Canton’s first full-time health agent.

Alan Leary, who was on the Board of Health at the time and also part of the committee that hired her, said McCarthy was a perfect fit for the job.

“She was great,” Leary said after her nomination last March. “She was very bright, but she was also very down to earth and was a great problem solver. She more or less was on the cutting edge as far as this region goes.”

McCarthy is pictured at left at Fenway Park with Wally the Green Monster, National Grid MA President Marcy Reed, and U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. (EPA photo)

“I learned so much there,” McCarthy said of her four years with the Canton Health Department. “I worked on everything from septic system inspections to housing inspections to restaurant inspections and was really engaged in water quality issues.”

McCarthy also found herself at the center of a public health scare that gripped the community following the discovery of PCBs at Toka-Renbe Farm on Washington Street, and her leadership proved critical after a fire broke out in a barn on the property in 1982, resulting in an evacuation of the Ponkapoag neighborhood and touching off fears about increased cancer risks.

“There was so much activity in the town at the time, and that was one of the reasons why I became pretty active in working on these issues at the state level,” recalled McCarthy. “A lot of it was an outgrowth of the work that I had been doing in Canton.”

After taking some time off following the birth of her second child, McCarthy was contacted by the Stoughton Health Department to do some plan review and was subsequently hired to serve as that town’s first environmental officer. She went on to hold several key posts in Massachusetts government, beginning with her appointment to the Hazardous Waste Facility Site Safety Council in 1985 and culminating with her work under Governor Mitt Romney with the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs and the Office of Commonwealth Development.

Then, in 2004, while she was still living in Canton, McCarthy was appointed commissioner of the Connecticut DEP following a nationwide search.

“That was one of the first jobs I had applied for professionally since leaving [the Canton Health Department],” she said of the high-level post.

During her time in Hartford, McCarthy helped to modernize the state agency while implementing a regional cap-and-trade program designed to reduce greenhouse gases. She also increased visitation and funding at state parks and engaged young people through the No Child Left Inside initiative.

By 2009, her efforts had caught the attention of President Obama, who tabbed her to lead the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation — a position she held until her confirmation last July.

Now she is Obama’s “green quarterback,” overseeing the largest and arguably most powerful federal regulatory agency in the country — one that boasts a workforce of more than 15,000 full-time employees and an annual budget of nearly $8 billion.

Those who know McCarthy best are not surprised that she has made it this far.

“Gina is in that position because she is the very best person for that job,” said her sister and one of her closest confidants, Elaine McCarthy. “People do not always agree with her position, but she always has the wisdom and intelligence to listen to both sides of an argument.”

McCarthy enters the West Wing for a meeting with White House officials. (EPA photo)

Elaine, who chairs the social studies department at the Galvin Middle School, said it was not difficult to “reconcile the woman on television and in the news as [her] little sister,” in large part because “the woman she presents in public is the same woman she presents to her family.”

“Watching Gina’s nomination has renewed my faith in the American Dream,” she added. “Hard work, dedication, personal integrity, and commitment are still important values in this country.”

The administrator, meanwhile, is equally proud of her big sister, who followed in the footsteps of their father, a longtime Boston school teacher. “She has just a love for teaching and it’s pretty amazing what she has accomplished,” McCarthy said.

Reflecting on her own career path, McCarthy said it has been both rewarding and unexpected. And while she didn’t necessarily set out to become the next head of the EPA, she is both thrilled and honored to be serving the public in that role.

“It’s been a great adventure for me,” McCarthy said. “It’s really all been about working hard and being open to new challenges — and when opportunity knocks, you’ve got to open the door.”

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Posted by Jay Turner on May 8 2014. Filed under Features. Both comments and pings are currently closed.