Brigid Shea: Discover the Essential Work at Travis County

About our Speaker: 

Brigid Shea is former award-winning reporter at NPR stations who has proved her grit by fighting climate change in Texas since 1988. Along the way she helped save Austin’s iconic Barton Springs, organizing a massive city-wide ballot initiative which resulted in the historic SOS law to save Barton Springs. As a former Austin City Council member, she helped create the first wind project in Texas and championed consumer, electoral, and environmental reforms.

Since being elected to the Travis County Commissioners Court in 2014, her work to reverse climate change and better prepare residents for climate impacts has won 4 National Association of Counties (NACo) Achievement Awards; one for creating a neighborhood wildfire drill, the second for dramatically improving the reach of critical emergency warning systems, the third for significantly reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions through an ambitious remote work policy at the County, and the fourth for critical water conservation efforts through use of reclaimed treated wastewater for non-drinking purposes like air conditioning and plumbing in several County buildings.

Currently, Brigid serves as the US Board Chair of ICLEI, Local Governments for Sustainability; Vice Chair of NACo Environmental Energy Land Use Steering Committee; Vice Chair of NACo Resilient Counties Advisory Board; member of NACo Large Urban Counties Caucus; Executive Committee member of the Greater Austin-San Antonio Corridor Council, Compact Co-Chair for the Texas Electric Transportation Resources Alliance; member of FEMA’s Resilient Nation Partnership Network; and Board of Director for the Institute for Building Technology and Safety (IBTS).

She previously served on the national board of Clean Water Action, the State Board of Texas Campaign for the Environment, and is a former member of the Austin Chamber of Commerce Clean Energy Council. She has been an advisor to the LCRA, Seton Hospital, and the City of Austin.

She was selected for the 2019 Women in Government Leadership Program of Governing magazine. Her carbon-reduction work won the TCEQ Environmental Excellence award in 2010. She also received a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Texas Energy Summit.

Brigid is a native of North Dakota. She is married to John Umphress, a former Green Building specialist with Austin Energy and beekeeping entrepreneur, and together they have two sons.