At the 2007 Annual Meeting in Sun Valley, Idaho, ECOS recognized Chris Jones, Lang Marsh, and Brent Bradford with Founders Awards for their contributions to the organization.
Chris Jones
Chris is the only ECOS member ever to serve more than one year as President, having assumed the duty when he was vice-president and then later elected to his own term. During his term as President, Chris emphasized continuity of membership involvement, as the greatest turnover in members in our association’s history was occurring. At the same time, he sought to increase our association’s impact with Congress, when he conducted our first briefing to Hill staff. Chris sought and obtained more contact with the White House via the Council on Environmental Quality as well. Prior to his service as an officer, Chris served on the Executive Committee from 1999-2001. Chris was the Director of the Ohio EPA from 1999-2004. Chris continues to attend ECOS meeting as an alumnus.
Lang Marsh
Between 1995 and 2000, Lang was Director of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Prior to his service to Oregon, he was commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. There he held a variety of positions with that agency beginning in 1973, including General Counsel and Executive Deputy Commissioner. For ECOS, Lang was the chair of both the Water Committee (96 and 97) and the Planning Committee (99 and 2000). In this latter capacity, Lang promoted children’s health issues onto ECOS’ agenda, and worked on reform of core measures reporting. He also served on the Executive Committee and continues to attend ECOS meetings as an alumnus.
Brent Bradford
Brent served as the UDEQ representative to ECOS from its creation in 1993 until he retired in 2003. As an ECOS leader, Brent worked tirelessly to advance the standing of states as partners and co-regulators with EPA. He was instrumental in drafting the May 17, 1995, ECOS-EPA Joint Commitment to Reform Oversight and Create a National Environmental Performance Partnership System, also known as the NEPPS Agreement. His vision and passion for the new system resulted in the Utah Department of Environmental Quality entering into the nation’s first ever Performance Partnership Grant (PPG) with EPA. Brent also helped draft the Core Performance Measures under NEPPS and advocated for joint strategic planning between states and EPA in what he termed the National Environmental Services Delivery System. Brent also vigorously pursued reporting burden reduction. This led him to initiate dialogue between states and EPA on respectful use of data which ultimately led to the creation of the ECOS-EPA Data Management Work Group, a group which produced the Vision and Operating Principles that are still in effect today. He served as the Region 8 representative to the ECOS Executive Committee and the Chair and Vice-Chair of the ECOS Planning Committee.
