PRC deputy director’s passion and work ethic lead the nonprofit’s board to select her as its new leader

The Pennsylvania Resources Council board had a decision to make when its executive director told it he was leaving: conduct an external search or promote someone from within the nonprofit organization.

Board President Scott Dismukes likened the decision the executive committee made to a poker lay down hand: “When you have all the right cards at the right time, you win,” he said. The best and easy choice? Elevate Sarah Alessio Shea, the current deputy director, to lead the organization.  

She is working through December with Darren Spielman to transition into the role. The 20-year PRC staff member will oversee statewide public and private partnerships focused on education, material collection and recycling, watershed protection and litter prevention. She will supervise staff members based in PRC’s Allegheny County and Delaware County regional offices, according to a news release.

Since 1939 PRC has worked to protect Pennsylvania’s resources for future generations through environmental education, recycling and waste diversion programs, anti-litter campaigns and much more.

Dismukes said when the PRC board hired Spielman the search spanned nine to 12 months. “At my direction, the board executive committee decided we would not take that … that amount of time. With the uncertainty of government funding right now, we needed to designate strength and continuity,” he said.

A plus: Shea had served as interim executive director during the prior search. “Sarah had already run PRC,” he said. “That’s a large reason why it was easy. … Sarah has done everything. That made it the only rational choice.”

In the release, Dismukes said, “Sarah brings vision and enthusiasm to every project, and she brings out the best in the people around her. Given her many years of experience with PRC, we are confident that PRC will be well positioned under her guidance to thrive in the years to come.”

During her 20-year tenure, she has coordinated PRC’s Hard-to-Recycle and Household Chemical Collections, managing more than 70 events that have served 35,000-plus residents and diverted 3.4 million pounds of material from landfills, according to the release. She also led the development of PRC’s Act 101 White Paper, published in 2021, advancing statewide recycling policy.  

Since assuming the deputy director position in 2021, Shea has overseen PRC’s staff and programs, ensuring effective implementation of environmental initiatives. She has secured grant funding from government agencies and private foundations, “building lasting relationships that have strengthened PRC’s capacity and expanded programs in recycling, waste diversion and environmental education,” according to the release.  

She will supervise a staff of 16, the majority of whom are in the Pittsburgh office. Thankful for long-term staff at both offices, she said she looks forward to expanding partnerships in the eastern part of the state.

She joined PRC in 2005 after working as an Americorps volunteer and education coordinator. She had earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies and a secondary education certification in earth and space science from the University of Pittsburgh. During that year her group worked on lead abatement in Allegheny County, mixing in education for parents about lead paint and the dangers associated with water from lead pipes.

She started as an environmental program specialist, a position that included her dressing up in a Litterbug costume. “A rite of passage for PRC employees,” she recalled. [The costume] looked like a green bee.”

She served as education program coordinator from 2008-19, developing and coordinating PRC’s community stewardship programs and large recycling collection event.

For two years she served as collection manager, too. Dismukes, who has volunteered at the events that collect household chemicals, hard-to-recycle electronics and appliances in addition to tires and other items, said she made a difference in them.

“The change in the organization of those collection events than what I had experienced earlier unloading refrigerators out of the backs of pickup trucks,” he explained. [They were] so incredibly organized, everything lined out. I looked at Sarah and said, ‘What a change.’ ”

He also got to know her better through PRC’s Zero Waste events and partnerships with organizations across the county as part of that effort, too.

It’s rare for young professionals to remain with a company or organization for very long, and Shea said her longevity is a testament to PRC, its culture, the different opportunities it offered her, and the flexibility it offers to its employees, especially those with families. The 44-year-old and her husband, Aaron, have two daughters and live in Emsworth.

“You know, I love my work. I love the people I work with,” she said. “It’s like, what would I be looking for that I don’t already have?”

Dismukes said PRC developed a robust strategic plan with Spielman’s leadership. He believes Shea will be able to see it through.

“We’re blessed to not only have Sarah, but [also] we have so many staff members that are so personally committed to the mission,” the 19-year board member said. “And they are highly talented. They leave me in awe.”

Shea has served on boards and organizations associated with recycling efforts. That includes Professional Recyclers of Pennsylvania and the National Recycling Coalition, where she guides strategy and advocacy at state and national levels, according to the release. In southwestern Pennsylvania, she has been a part of the Clean Pittsburgh Commission, including serving as past treasurer and president, and she is a past board member of Communitopia, which focuses on climate change education.

She will spend more of her time in the eastern and central parts of the state in her new role, and connections made from those organizations will help. Some started under Spielman’s leadership, and the program director in the Delaware County office, Diana Andrejczak, has been part of PRC for 15 years.

She also knows of some community efforts regarding glass recycling in the east, including Bottle Underground in Philadelphia. It’s a bonus that CAP Glass, which PRC has worked extensively with its growing efforts this side of the state through its Mount Pleasant facility, has an Allentown location.

“So that seems logical. And that’s a huge population [out there] And there’s a lot of municipalities there where glass is not being recycled,” she said.

Her new position will involve more grant writing. It will be a challenge with so many more organizations seeking funding because of government grant cuts. PRC has actively sought foundation help, and it has been helped by individual donors whose contributions aid staff raises and project needs.

“I feel like blessed to be in a region here that has so many wonderful foundations that support environmental [causes],” she said.

PRC has been fortunate so far amid federal funding cuts, with a few National Fish and Wildlife grants earmarked for the eastern office that had been frozen now open, she said. An Environmental Protection Agency grant had been terminated, too, then restored.

What is worrisome is a pending EPA waste infrastructure grant that PRC and partner Allegheny County had applied for to build a Center for Hard to Recycle Materials or CHaRM facility. That would establish a permanent place to enable maximum recovery and proper waste diversion and recycling and provide residents with a convenient cost-effective location for materials not accepted in curbside recycling. It could serve 200 people a day within five years.

The $4.9 million requested would cover the property purchase and enable the infrastructure needed to build it. The announcement was to be made in July, Shea said, but that has been pushed to December.

Competition for such a grant was already competitive, she explained. But if it is awarded, “that would just be a game changer for us.”

With help from organizations like Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Agency, PRC and the county have or will explore sites for the facility on River Avenue in Troy Hill across from Washington’s Landing and another in McKees Rocks.

PRC will hold a community conversation on the project on Nov. 18 to include as many stakeholders in the discussion as possible.

The state budget impasse affects all nonprofits, but House Bill 620 that would increase the landfill tipping fee that funds recycling would also be huge benefit to PRC and other nonprofits and projects, she said. That bill has been tabled.

Pennsylvania can be a tough place to get environmental legislation passed, she said. PRC was founded as an advocacy organization, and she can see it getting more into it again under her leadership.

It all starts with education, she knows and acknowledges. PRC has focused on that, for example starting a new Eco Scouts program with Allegheny CleanWays this summer to reach more people and getting them as passionate about recycling as she and the PRC staff can be. It also involves finding out where and why illegal dumping exists, most often because there is no access to recycle them properly.

The effort can be difficult because waste isn’t often that exciting for people. But when they take part in PRC efforts, they visualize the results.

“I’ve seen the impact of the work that we do, and I think the work that PRC does in a lot of cases is a very tangible impact,” she said. “You can count the weight of food waste we’ve diverted and the number of TVs that are no longer in a landfill.”

When she thinks back to her Avonworth high school years, where she took every biology course possible, composting was not discussed. She learned about it and much more in college.

Environmental studies were new then, and she enjoyed the mix of hard science and policy classes. PRC has hired people coming from that program, and she called its growth and expansion impressive.

PRC doesn’t require its new hires to wear the Litterbug costume now. But her passion for her work goes back to her time “as that little bug,” even if people mistook her for a cricket. She recalled needing a handler when she wore it as the costume was bulky — and hot — and she worried about knocking over things, especially during a “Pittsburgh Today Live” appearance.

That experience was “super fun” for her. So has creating PRC special events like the Reuse Fests it offered with nonprofits including Construction Junction, Global Links, Brother’s Brother and Off the Floor.

“We held collections for folks to bring materials, specifically for them so then they could use whether it was for them to sell in stores, for their mission, or some of them gave their furniture to either folks in need or veterans,” she explained. “We did it for 10 years, and it went really well, and some of the feedback we got from some of our partners was just quite lovely.”

She said PRC is a unique place for its staff, and it can foster great ideas. During her years its work has expanded to Cambria, Butler and Beaver counties and beyond on the western side of the state.

Its communication efforts have grown with its website and including QR codes on flyers and more that lead to maps with centers to take glass and other recyclable items. A goal for next year is to work more on battery recycling, a need because of the fire danger they present. All this work is especially important for rural areas, and Shea said the effort has been made to make finding that information and recycling locations online easier for all residents.

One job she will have to do in the future is find a new deputy director.

“We’re looking at figuring out, and again, it might be probably some internal movement of staff,” she said, considering “what would be the best structure kind of moving forward.”