Strictly voluntary our lady in Marblehead.

• Author: Levin, Dan
• Position: Four for the Outdoors - Conservation Law Foundation of New England's volunteer Anita Poss - Brief Article

Anita Poss, who grew up in De troit and Chicago and moved to Marblehead more than 30 years ago, is CLF's Volunteer of the Year for 2000. The direction of her life almost decreed that kind of distinction: from the grime of Motor City and the big, defiant, windy one, to a small, clean Yankee town whose very soul is dismissive of motors, dependent on wind for its sails, and deeply concerned with its natural environment. Daily, from her bedroom window, Poss gazes purposefully at the 450- and 520-foottall smokestacks of PG&E's Salem power plant.

Anita Poss has volunteered at CLF for two years. She's been a CLF member for 15 years, energized, at first, by the omnipresence of PG&E's stacks and by Doug Foy's Joy Street speeches; more recently by her son James, 29, a 1996 graduate of Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment. A graduate of Suffolk Law School, she practiced law for 15 years, first in zoning and land use, later in estate planning, finally bringing her expertise to bear at CLF. For the last year and a half she's focused on our Energy Project.

Poss's husband, Dr. Robert Poss, is an orthopedic surgeon. They spend much of their leisure time aboard their 36-foot sloop Mistaya...