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Lisa Isaacs keeps the environment first
Mammoth Mountain Ski Area’s environmental programs director Lisa Isaacs, ’90 BA Journalism, ’95 MS Environmental Studies, grew up in the Santa Teresa Hills overlooking Almaden Valley. Her home was surrounded by acres of wild pasture lands, and the family always had “lots of creatures living with us,” Isaacs recalls. “Dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, rabbits, goats, sheep, horses, a really mean steer—and whatever wild creatures I could catch and try to tame.”
On weekends, Isaacs and her siblings often trooped off to hike in Uvas Canyon County Park, the expedition led by their mother, Helen Murray, ’65 Police Science, who set a brisk pace.
“My mother was relentless in her excitement to explore. Trailside flora and fauna … everything was interesting to Mom,” Isaacs remembers.
Marvin Murray, an electrical engineer, also contributed to his daughter’s developing appreciation of the natural world—particularly the scientific aspects.
“I can’t count how many weekends we spent with Dad visiting science-based facilities in the Bay Area or camping,” Isaacs says. “My parents both understood and respected the importance of the natural world, our place in it and the science behind it. They were great inspirations. I know I’m very privileged to say that.”
If she’d had a different set of parents, if she’d grown up in a different setting, Isaacs isn’t sure she’d feel quite as connected and committed to environmental issues as she does today.
“I’d been led to understand that all natural elements of life, including people, are part of a big tapestry, the health of which depends on the whole. If you damage or break interwoven fibers, you compromise the integrity or health of the whole.”
An early McDonald’s moment—indicator of things to come
One of Isaacs’s earliest memories is a trash memory. She was four years old. The housekeeper drove the kids to McDonald’s and on the way home nonchalantly pitched their meal leftovers out the window onto the roadside and into (what was then) a vineyard.
“I still remember my shock and astonishment,” Isaacs says. “It really threw me for a loop. I remember waiting for my mom to come home to tell her how upset I was.”
Since 1992, Isaacs has been a vegetarian—a choice largely prompted by her strong attachment to animals and their welfare. She readily accepts that “vegetarianism isn’t for everyone,” but jokes that her love of vegetables made her a good candidate from the get-go. “I was that kid in school that everyone else dumped their vegetables on at lunchtime,” she says.
Although Isaacs specifically refrains from “guilting” others into not eating meat, she does attempt to educate them on the impact of food choices.
“Raising plant crops require far fewer resources than raising meat. And,” she adds, “you can feed more people with plant crops. Many benefits can be gained by cutting back on meat consumption—philosophical, physiological and environmental.”
She has mostly furnished her house with yard sale finds—not only because reuse is an environmentally responsible approach to home decoration but because the search is so much fun. “Yard sales are like treasure hunts,” she says. “I love the challenge of finding beautiful used furnishings and pieces of art. You never know what unique treasure you’ll find, waiting to be recycled.”
As her comments and lifestyle make clear, Isaacs takes her environmental responsibilities very seriously.
Herself? Not so much.
“I’m an environmentalist who likes champagne but has a Two Buck Chuck budget,” she jokes. “This is not a profession you choose to make money, but it can be a very rich and rewarding life.”
The Xerox experience
After receiving her graduate degree, Isaacs took a job at Xerox as an environmental communications specialist in the company’s Environment, Health and Safety Division.
“One of my responsibilities was to chronicle environmental aspects of the company’s worldwide operations,” she explains. “Xerox really impressed me with its demonstrated history of visionary leadership in sustainable business operations. My initial supervisor, Abhay Bushan, was an inspirational genius.”
Although the Xerox experience was a happy one, when her “job went east,” Isaacs remained in the Bay Area. She took a position with Santa Clara County’s Department of Environmental Health and also served for a year on the board of Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, a watchdog organization that studies high-tech impacts on community, worker and environmental health.
“SVTC is an incredibly important group,” she says. “In its early years, Silicon Valley’s microchip industry was touted as ‘the clean industry.’ In large part due to SVTC, we now understand the huge dangers it presented, if left unchecked.”
Back to Mammoth
Isaacs first worked at Mammoth Mountain Ski Area in the early 1980s as a ski instructor. More than a decade later, she was contracted to produce feasibility reports for the development of an MMSA/Town of Mammoth Lakes recycling program. Impressed by her research and recommendations, Isaacs’s former employers offered her a year-round position to develop and oversee MMSA’s environmental programs.
Isaacs describes Mammoth Lakes as “a relatively isolated place…a small town, surrounded by wilderness and big sky, founded on mining and later populated by skiing enthusiasts from Los Angeles.” She acknowledges a “lack of awareness” regarding certain environmental impacts at the ski resort when she returned in the late 1990s, but nothing she defines as “intolerable abuse.”
With Isaacs back on board, environmental awareness is more than guaranteed. During her eight-year tenure, MMSA has scored numerous awards and honors for its progressive policies, including three grants from the California Department of Conservation, awards from the California Environmental Protection Agency, and awards from the National Ski Areas Association for waste reduction, energy conservation and excellence in environmental education.
Isaacs is particularly proud of the newly completed Top of the Sierra interpretive center, a community partnership project seven years in the making that involved the input of “participants who haven’t historically been part of ski area operations,” she says, including geologists, astronomers and Paiute tribal elders.
Still on the agenda
Isaacs’s plans for the next few years include the continued reduction of MMSA’s carbon footprint through increased use of alternative fuels, reliance on a locally-generated supply from renewable energy sources, and adherence to green building standards in both new construction and remodels.
“The whole ski industry is under pressure from an expanding population who understands and cherishes the natural environment and will protect it from continued development,” she says. Isaacs doesn’t dispute that environmental projects can be expensive to initiate. “But if the project is wise— such as energy efficiency upgrades and renewable systems—paybacks are quick. Many great environmental accomplishments have been realized, but many challenges remain and will continue appearing as we learn more and more about what’s around us, how it affects us, and how we affect it.”
—Kat Meads
This story originally appeared in the Winter 2007 edition of SJSU Washington Square magazine