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Judy East

Judy East has been in her job as executive director of Washington County Council of Governments for eight years now, but she came to it by a circuitous route.

Born in Ottawa and raised in Toronto, she majored in biology, freshwater ecology and economics at the University of Toronto. East went West to do her graduate work in planning at the University of British Columbia, "not urban but regional resources - the rural type of planning issues."

Judy East.

She moved to East Hampton, Long Island, where previously she had been town planner for four years, to direct a Nature Conservancy land protection program for two years before going to Vermont to lead the land conservation program for a 15-town land trust for seven years. In 2000, she took a job at the Maine State Planning Office as staff to the Smart Growth Coordinating Committee.

Two years later she moved north to head up WCCOG. She lives in Calais now, where she and her husband own a farm, raising primarily plants for landscaping. "We're going more into vegetables now. We're building a retail barn."

Proud of the results of the recently-finished scenic inventory with SPO/MCP, she plans to present the results at a couple of land trust conferences.

"We have a great story to tell. These models that were created can be replicated."

WCCOG is finishing out several big contracts right now, said East, but even in these uncertain economic times, she expects the agency will stay busy.

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