erry Hearn of Los Trancos Woods will head the Peninsula's newest environmental organization, just formed by the merger of the Peninsula Conservation Center Foundation (PCCF) and Bay Area Action (BAA).
Boards of the two organizations voted last week to join forces so they can better address environmental issues on the Peninsula, in the South Bay and beyond.
"We were already working on many projects together, like San Francisquito Creek," said Mr. Hearn. "We thought we'd be more effective if we combined programs and used our resources in a more focused manner."
The two organizations are no strangers to each other. BAA was founded on Earth Day in 1990 as an offshoot of the older PCCF, which provided accounting and other support until BAA gained its own nonprofit status. They share some personnel and several projects, including Earth Day activities and restoration of San Francisquito Creek.
Founded in Menlo Park shortly after Earth Day in 1970, the PCCF operates the Peninsula Conservation Center, which has provided a home and resource center for the Peninsula's major conservation organizations for the last 30 years. Its building in south Palo Alto houses the offices of key groups, including the Sierra Club, Environmental Volunteers, the Committee for Green Foothills, Community Impact, and the Trail Center.
The new combined organization will be headquartered at 3921 East Bayshore Road in Palo Alto, where there is also a major conservation library. "It's a fabulous resource, and it's under-used," said David Smernoff of Los Trancos Woods, a BAA co-founder who runs the stewardship program for Palo Alto's Arastradero Preserve.
The first big challenge for the new organization will be to find a new name. Suggestions are invited.
As president of the newly merged BAA+PCCF, Mr. Hearn, who teaches at Peninsula School and serves on San Mateo County's Fish and Wildlife Committee, will have to do some major organizing to meld their programs. These include BAA's community gardens and its house in Mountain View where Laura Steck runs the Environmental Eating Action Team.
Day-to-day operations of the new organization will be managed by an executive team of three co-directors. They are: Mr. Smernoff; Peter Drekmeier, a co-founder and executive director of BAA and current director of the Stanford Open Space Alliance; and Holly Kaslewicz, former development director of the San Francisco Jazz Foundation and Interplast.
"Both our missions have focused on creating sustainable communities, and this will be the cornerstone of the new organization," Mr. Smernoff said. "We'll address issues such as green buildings, renewable energy, alternative transportation, and protection of local ecosystems."
