Kathie Hoekstra is an attorney and the past chair of the City of Alexandria’s Environmental Policy Commission from 2020-24. City Council appoints all EPC members who are to advise them on matters concerning the environment. Under Kathie’s leadership, the EPC became much more active – moving from a social club – to actively advocating for very specific programs and projects to fight the climate crisis. These included: 1) creating a new Office of Climate Action, 2) reforming the City’s Green Building Policy to move to net zero energy, and 3) greatly expanding the City’s communications with residents and businesses to learn about how to save money and protect the planet for future generations. Each year as Chair, Kathie summarized a list of “legislative asks” for City Council prior to the GA session. During that process, she learned about VaLCV and its great leadership and team that does such amazing advocacy work. After leaving as chair, Kathie decided to create her own nonprofit this August – SustainALX – to continue her strong advocacy for fighting the climate crisis. Its goal is to fund incentive energy efficiency and education projects that the City lacks the direct legal authority to do.
Until her retirement in 2021, Kathie worked at the Federal Aviation Administration leading software design projects to improve safety for pilots in the cockpit focusing on human factors – the science of making it easy to do things right and difficult to do them wrong. Prior to the FAA, Kathie worked at the FDIC helping to resolve the savings and loan crisis. Following over 30 years of government service, Kathie retired and turned to her primary passion – the environment and the climate crisis.
Kathie studied ecology in college and has always been concerned about the environment – spending most summers hiking in the Cascades or Canadian Rockies since she was five. After college, she earned her JD from John Marshall Law School in Chicago and a Master Degree in Environmental Law (LLM) from George Washington University Law School. In 2017, Kathie attended VP Al Gore’s Climate Reality 3-day training to get the facts and be able to give presentations on the climate crisis. As a direct result, she installed solar panels on her home and now has electric bills of $7 per month under Virginia’s net metering program.