COA Welcomes a New Staff Member!

"We are delighted to introduce Lindsay McNamara.  Lindsay is COA’s first Ocean Advocacy Fellow and we look forward to her bringing her skills, experience, and knowledge to help improve and protect the ocean.   She will be starting the first week of June, and in the meantime, we invited Lindsay to introduce herself to by writing a few blogs. Her first is below.  

Thanks for diving in, Lindsay, and welcome to the crew"

-Cindy Zipf, Executive Director

Hello everyone, my name is Lindsay McNamara and I am honored and excited to be the Ocean Advocacy Fellow for Clean Ocean Action.  I am eager to tackle ocean issues like strip-mining and offshore energy development, stormwater runoff and nonpoint source pollution, and coastal ecosystem health and clean beaches to provide the New York/New Jersey area with swimmable and fishable waters.

I will be graduating from the University of Delaware in May with a degree in Environmental Studies and a concentration in Environment, Society and Sustainability.  I am the former president of UD’s Registered Student Organization, Students for the Environment (S4E) and have served as the Undergraduate Representative on the UD Sustainability Task Force Executive Council.  I have interned with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Association for New Jersey Environmental Commissions, UD Center for Science, Ethics and Public Policy and the Delaware Environmental Institute. 

I enjoy reading, hiking, and writing.  Growing up in New Jersey, it didn’t quite feel like summertime until I was eating Kohr’s ice cream on Jenkinson’s Boardwalk in Point Pleasant Beach or riding a bike on the promenade in Cape May.  My family and I have gone down the shore every summer since I was born.  I have always been fascinated by the ocean and the marine life that inhabit it and I have spent a lot of time with my feet in the ocean in awe of its systems, trying unsuccessfully to grasp the power and enormity of it all.  I think that every child should get to experience the great moments of finding a conch shell fully intact, seeing a pod of dolphins swim across the current, and watching sandpipers scurry across the sand and I am thrilled to a member of a team that works to preserve those moments.

All of my life I have always been interested in the environment, biodiversity and ecology.  I have always understood that nature is connected and the system will react if one aspect is altered.  But I also always thought that the best way to get others to value nature the way that I do was simply to educate them and make them more aware.  Now I see that there are deep-rooted, systemic issues that perpetuate environmental, social and economic problems.  These problems must be fought with education and outreach, but also with advocacy to see true progress.  With this newfound realization, I believe in and embrace Clean Ocean Action’s mission and I am looking forward to beginning my career in environmental advocacy.