Oral History

From Melinda Moulton:

Before joining University College London, Robert was a professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University. In 2013 he was a professor at Portland State University in Oregon from 2010 to 2012. Costanza was the Gund Professor of Ecological Economics and Director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont. Prior to moving to Vermont in August 2002, Costanza was Director of the University of Maryland Institute for Ecological Economics, and a professor at University of Maryland's Center for Estuarine and Environmental Science, at Chesapeake Biological Lab on Solomons Island MD.

He is co-founder and past-president of the International Society for Ecological Economics and he was founding Chief Editor of the society's journal, Ecological Economics from its inception in 1989, until 2002. Costanza is the founding editor-in-chief of Solutions - a popular hybrid academic journal/magazine. He currently serves on the editorial board of eight other international academic journals and is past president of the International Society for Ecosystem Health. He is a senior fellow at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm, Sweden; Affiliate Fellow at the Gund Institute for Environment at the University of Vermont; and a co-chair of the Ecosystem Services Partnership.

From Gary De Carolis:

Five words that descript Peter: Adventurous, Affable, Political, Pain-in-the-Ass, and Family Oriented.

Peter Clavelle has more than 40 years of experience in local government and decentralization in both the U.S. and international arenas. As a former mayor and city manager, Peter brings direct, practical experience in managing local government affairs.  He served seven terms as Mayor of Burlington, Vermont - a city that is often held up as a national and international model for its work in the area of sustainable community development. During Mayor Clavelle’s tenure as the longest serving mayor in the City’s history, Burlington revitalized the downtown and the waterfront, and launched affordable housing initiatives. Prior to being elected Mayor, Peter was Burlington’s Community and Economic Development Director and served as the municipal manager in two Vermont communities. He has held leadership positions with the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Peter is a leading advocate for the sustainable communities’ movement and has spoken at numerous conferences and seminars. In the 1990’s, he lived and worked in Grenada and was a team member on a local government project in Gaza.

Upon leaving the Mayor’s office in 2006, Peter went on to join Tetra Tech ARD. For three-and-a-half years, he served as Manager of the firm’s Democracy and Governance Sector. From January 2012 through April 2016, he served as Chief of Party of the USAID Planning and Local Governance Project (PLGP) in Albania. Prior USAID assignments have included work on local governance projects in Macedonia, Jordan and Uganda. In 2010, Peter served as Acting Chief of Party leading the start- up of USAID’s Afghanistan’s Kabul City Initiative (KCI), a $120 million program to improve municipal services for the city of Kabul. He continues to consultant on a part-time basis as decentralization and local governance expert and resides in Burlington with his spouse, Betsy Ferries.

He holds a B.A. in Urban Studies and a Master of Public Administration (M.P.A.) degree from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University.

Neighborhood Media Interns meet in the studio to discuss school, relationships, and general life experiences.

Conversation with Stella Rose Johnson and Mark Johnson.