“Foundations” is an occasional series of informal question-and-answer sessions with employees of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to let them explain their work. Rhea Suh is an Environment Program Officer who works with grantees on environmental issues from the farthest reaches of Alaska, through Western Canada, to the Mexican border. She received a B.A. from Columbia University in environmental sciences, an M.Ed. from Harvard University that focused on environmental education policy, and a Fulbright Scholarship. Before joining the Foundation, she spent four years as a senior legislative assistant to Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, working on energy and natural resource issues.
Why do we group together environmental issues in the West? It’s not something we do with other parts of the country.
As a matter of strategy, the Hewlett Foundation’s Environment Program focuses on issues, not geography. But, at the same time, the Foundation has a long history of funding environmental work in the West, and our board wanted to find smart ways to continue to do so. Fortunately, the West has issues that cut across the whole region, most of them pertaining to the use of public lands. Our goal is to preserve the region and see to it that it’s managed prudently...
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